Up Sh!t Creek Without a Paddle!

Its incredible the inverse ratio between roads and the places one reaches. I suppose its why it makes these places so amazing to visit, and Jinja is just that place. The journey was long, dusty and tiresome, but we had finally reached the source of the Nile, and what a fantastic place it turned out to be.

We checked into Adrift backpackers where we were met by Gavin and Nat, who's hospitality was out of this world. We spent the first couple of days relaxing (mainly at the bar) which felt extremely well deserved after a hectic journey to our northern most destination. Then it was time to psych ourselves up for the most insane stretch of water we would ever float down on. What would make our Nile experience even more extreme is that we decided to do the first half of six grade five rapids on nothing more than flimsy bodyboards - stupidity or bravery, I'm still trying to decide! I speak for everyone when I say I've never experience rough water like that before, and probably never will. The second half of our river trip we cleverly hopped onto the rafts, but seemed to have even less coordination - I'm pretty sure we didn't make it through a single rapid the right way up!

After our annihilation of the Nile, we tried our luck with a bit of bungee rope, which most of us found enjoyable - Darren was eventually thrown off the edge where some of his best high pitched Afrikaans language came screaming out. Just as in so many places we've visited, Jinja had this hold on us where we could just not leave. Much thanks must go to both Gavin and Nat who made us feel so at home, and much more were keen to show us a good time! Our last night in the pub capped the week spent there! Jinja - boom boom!!

6.5 weeks, 10 000kms, and infinite amounts of petrol later

From Arusha, we headed up to Nairobi (where we indulged at the local Spur:), and then onward to Lake Naivasha. Although the lake looked like another place where we could spend a few days(/weeks/who knows) we had to make time, and so we pushed on. And on route, and much by surprise, something great happened - we crossed into the Northern Hemisphere!!!

Being such a milestone, we did the right and only thing to do and stopped and had a beer (a Tusker in fact) ON the equator. And yes mom - even the driver. sorry.

Although we intended on reaching the Kenya-Uganda border, we again realised that we were running out of time, and made the quick decision to visit the local rain Forest - the Kakamega Forrest. At the gate to the Forest we met a local guide, Patrick, who we quickly made friends with. After explaining to him that we were not rich Mazungus (whites) and could not afford to camp inside the park, he took us to his own camp only one kilometer away. Patrick turned out to be even more of a legend, when he offered to take us on a private walk through one of the nearby forest regions that didn't belong to the Kenyan Wildlife Service. And so the next morning we packed up camp and set off early into the forest. Being a real tropical rain forest, it was a fantastic walk and we saw everything from monster 25m trees to tropical hornbills and colobus monkeys.

Natron Explosion

After a failed attempt to cross from the Serengeti into the Masai Mara, due to the dis functional border crossing, we found ourselves just outside the park on the Eastern border (Kliens Gate). On roads that due not exist on the map, and towns with no names, we found ourselves in a fairly bad situation. Luckily however, we bumped into a tour guide who convinced us to follow him through the maze of dirt roads to a nearby lake, called Lake Natron.

Although few people actually visit the lake, it turned out to be quite an amazing place, and i think we all agreed - like no other we had ever seen. At the foot of 'Ol Dyongo Lengai', a massive active volcano and the Masai "Holly Mountain", this was no normal lake. We first drove down an impressively steep yellow-sand mountain pass to find a basin that changed with every passing kilometer. One moment the ground would be desert, holding no life, and then along a clear line it would change to lush green swamp-land, and then to massive black volcanic rock.

We only spent one night camping next to this bizarre lake, before making a massive, and accidental, detour back to Arusha. Oh well, all is well that ends well! Another great place that we would otherwise have missed all together...

Okay, so those Imax people were telling the truth after all

From Ngorogoro we made our way through to the SERENGETI. For the first few hours, we drove through the 'Serengeti Plains', which no explanation or photograph could ever do justice; it is just something you have to see. One is simply lost in the expanse. What makes it all even more impressive is that the entire plain is filled with game - herds and herds of zebra, giraffe, gazelle, gazelle, gazelle, wildebeest, buffalo, elephant - everything...

As we headed further north (towards Seronera camp) the vegetation began to change, and soon we found ourselves in what looked like the lion king. In the last hour before we arrived at the camp we spotted cheetah, lions, hyena, buffalo, and hippo.

The next morning we headed off the catch the migration at Meru (an area within the park). We expected to see an implausibility of wildebeest (apparently the collective noun for wildebeest, and one i'm sure was invented in the Serengeti), however we were met by an implausibility of Zebra (and no shortage of wildebeest to be fair).

The photograph doesn't in any way do it justice - there were just hundreds of thousands of them - like the photo, but in every direction and for about 10 kms... Things got even more exciting when we came across a pride of lions; one of which decided to try and grab some breakfast... but alas - gave up only a meter or so away from a wildebeest.

We then headed to the North of the park and tried to cross the border into the Kenyan 'Masai Mara'. However when we arrived we were told that the border had been closed for about 10 years (thanks MapStudio!). All was not lost though, as we had a fantastic drive through a really remote area of the park, and were allowed to camp wild just outside the park (outside Kliens Gate) .

The NGOROGORO CRATER

Another few hours of driving, US$360, and a hefty mountain pass later, we found ourselves at the rim of the Ngorogoro Crater. Only 20kms wide one can see across it, and well, its just amazing. From the top, it is like staring down into the Garden of Eden, and one can see herds and herds of Buffalo, zebra, wildebeest, elephants and gazelle.

Contrary to our initial ignorant thoughts, the crater has nothing to do with meteors or asteroids. Rather is is a volcanic land form, and apparently, or word on the street is that it was a massive volcanic mountain about the same size as Kilimanjaro. Its base was however full of volcanic vents and eventually the mountain collapsed in on itself creating a massive basin. It truly is one of the most amazing places i have ever been to, and i think we all agree, that it is somewhere we will all visit again some day!

We also spent a night camping inside the reserve - on the crater's rim. Initially we thought that most of the game was inside the crater, but we took a small night drive on which we saw lion twice, hyenas, elephants, Buffalo, and a massive herd of spring hares (kept us guessing for quite a while). And since the Tanzanians are about as keen on game fences as the Kenyans, we had a fairly entertaining night of camping. First a Buffalo interrupted washing dishes, then bush-pigs attacked our food crate, and later hyenas bit holes into our beers :)

Ghost in the Darkness

After arriving back on the mainland, and finding quite a bit of relief in finding our car in exactly the condition we left it, it was time to move on... We decided to head off to Amboselli National Park right in the South on Kenya. However, with too much distance to cover in just one day, we planned to stop off in Voi, a small town near Tsavo and entirely surrounded by Tsavo National Park. Since we were camping, and Tsavo is the place where all the people we're devoured by man-eating lions while building the railway track between Mombasa and Nairobi, and there are absolutely no game fences in Kenya, well it was quite a daunting thing! Luckily, or unluckily i suppose (depending on your point of view), we saw no wildlife whatsoever, and Voi in fact happened to be a fairly large town.

The following day we made our way to Amboselli where our hopes and dreams were again shattered by the Kenyan Wildlife disService, who wanted $85ea for us to enter the park. With few options, we decided to head for the Tanzanian border and to 'camp wild' just outside the park. This later proved to be a fantastic decision and we found a completely untouched piece of reserve just outside the park. With no fences, we found giraffe and later hyenas within 20 meters of the tent. It was great being completely out in the wild, and things got even better the next morning, when the clouds lifted and we had our breakfast and coffee with a, well, okayish sort of view of Kilimanjaro.

After breakfast we packed up the tent and made our way to the nearest border - Oloitokitok. We spent the night in Arusha (Masai Camp), where we had a few drinks and played pool with a group of Australian guys on a similar sort of trip...

Lost in Time

From Watamu (Malindi) we pushed on further up the coast to our last salt-water destination - Lamu Island. We arrived at the mainland port to be swarmed by at least a thousand tour guides, car guards and boatmen. After fending them off we finally, and hesitantly, agreed to leave the car with the most official looking of the crowd, and caught the cheapest local ferry to the island.

Arriving on the island was somewhat of a time-warp, and best described by Tim as, "Just like Zanzibar, only 300 years ago". The entire island was donkey powered, with the exception of the minister of finances vehicle (the only one on the island) - TIA! Being so close to the Somalian border the island is also entirely muslim, and looks like something out of Aladin. With Narrow streets separating the old buildings, hand-crafted woode doors, open drainage canals, and more donkeys than people, it really is quite a special place (and well worth the visit).

We spent our first night in Lamu Town itself, and then moved to 'Shella' on the other side of the island. There we rented a loft apartment type of guest house with an amazing view of the beach. Finally we took two full days off and spent some time relaxing, collecting our thoughts, and even sailing around the bay.

OCEAN!!

From Zanzibar we went back to Dar es Salaam for a night, before heading further up the coast. Our first stop was in Twiga (Northern Tanzania) at a place called Peponi. Owned by an old English expat, it was one of the nicest places we’ve visited and we spent two days hanging out with other overlanders, swimming, snorkeling and relaxing.

We then made our way across the border to Tiwi and later Malindi in Southern Kenya. Malindi (Watamu) is a massive marine reserve, and with the local park rangers on strike we took the opportunity to do some free snorkelling. It was quite an amazing experience with thousands of extremely colourfull (and even more iniquisitive little fish), coral reefs, sting-rays, and well - pretty much everything else you would see in a nature documentary...

I'm not going to cook it, but i'll order it from ZANZIBAR!

On the morning of our Zanzibar excursion, we found ourselves in luxury at Maureen's place, a random expat who took us in for the night.  We met another expat, Sarah, for coffee and she properly organised us to get across to the island.  We got onto our speed machine ferry, the Ms Sephide Express, and were assured to be on Zanzibar in an hour, but to true african form, we rolled into the harbour only on one engine an amazing 8 hours later!

We were met at the harbour by our local connection, Selle, with four 250cc motorbikes.  There were some initial nervous moments, and a couple of hospital scares, but we managed to survive two days without killing ourselves on the island!  The bikes were great tho.  Our first night we spent at Luis' place (Darren's girlfriend's sister's friend from London from Zanzibar who she met once in a bar in a far far away land somewhere), needless to say it was random.  We biked up the following morning and headed to the northern most tip of the island, Nungwi, and bargained and wheeled  our way into a shifty local place. New years now loomed, and it was an extremely strange one at that, involving fire jumping through tyres, local shabeens, chips mayen, and bewilded foreign mazungus.  New years was announced by a confused local..."in 55...1,2,3,4,5,6 happy new years!!!!"

New Year's day we biked our way back to Stonetown, stopping at a couple of great beaches along the way.  We hopped onto our ferry, which now had two engines running, and made our way back to Dar.  A fantastic New Years, Kenya to come still!

Dar Es Salaam

After the delay at the border, we had to make time in order to meet up with Darren in Dar es Salaam. We spent a night in Mtwara, and another in Kilwa Masonga. The drive up through Southern Tanzania was truly amazing. The scenery is unreal, with green grass plains but dense vegetation and baobabs all at the same time. The bush also continues right up until the coast, and in places there were quite literally baobabs on the beach. It really looks like something from the Lion King, and one expects to see herds of zebras, giraffe and elephants around every corner. 

It was a pity to have to rush through it all so fast, and hopefully we will get the chance to go back there some day. Kilwa also looked incredible, but one got the feeling the one would need to spend about a week there to appreciate it for what it is. 

We finally reached Dar Es Salaam after negotiating some of the worst roads yet - rough, muddy, and water-logged! But we arrived only a day late to find a somewhat relieved Darren. Dar es Salaam was quite great, and much like South Africa - we even had lunch at the local Spur! Was nice to finally endulged in a little civilization.