Detour to Ethopia

Our flight, which was supposed to leave a 1:30, was delayed by several hours and then diverted through Zanzibar (go figure). We missed our connecting flight to J’Burg and were forced to spend an entire day in Ethiopia. This ended up being an unexpectedly pleasant detour. Addis A’baba, the capital, looked much more like the preconceived notion I had had of Africa before I arrived than the other countries we visited. There were shanty towns everywhere, even near the city center and animals roamed freely, even near the main highway. The feel of such a place, however, was not at all as I expected.

Everyone was so friendly and helpful. We were not harassed at all. We spent most of our day wandering around this incredible, never-ending market (the largest in Africa). There were several different sections of the market: clothing, spices,
incense, cheese, butter, cooking oil, baskets, saddles, pottery, and, my personal favorite, the recycle market where old metal is recycled into new goods.

After the market, Kaitlin and I decided to check out X, an inexpensive spa. Those of you who have been reading my blog for awhile know that I have had my share of strange massages in other counties. I feel, now, that it is a necessary cultural experience. This was my strangest massage to date. You start be getting unclothed and stepping into a huge blue tub as it is being filled with hot water. At this point, I was thinking, “Okay, they want us to take a bath before the massage.” But then the masseuse comes into the room and grabs a power hose. They use the high pressure hose to massage you while you are still in the tub. It goes quite deep and feels surprisingly good except in places where you have excess body fat. After getting your front side, you roll over to get your back side. But, because the tub is huge and full of water, the masseuse has to push you to the bottom of the tub before massaging you with the power hose. It feels a bit like they are trying to drown you.

After the tub, you get on a massage table. Although they start by covering you with a towel, it quickly becomes apparent that the towel is just for show. Instead of massaging your top half and then bottom half, while always keeping your butt covered, they fold the towel in half, doing your left side and then your right side. You know when you are done on each side because you get smacked on the ass. After doing each side, the towel is removed altogether and you get one more rubdown before repeating the same process on the other side. They also use a menthal massage oil on you so you have an icy hot tingling. All this for the bargain price of $8.

Back at Hotel Riviera, where Ethopian Airlines was putting us up, we had dinner and went off to our separate rooms to watch as much tv as possible before the 5 am departure to J’Burg.

Rwanda

When we finally left Kisoro a few days later, we were sad to leave a place that we had felt so comfortable in. Rather than backtrack through Kampala and Kenya to get to Tanzania, we decided to take the short taxi/bus ride to Kigali, Rwanda’s capital and catch a plane from there to J’Burg. We decided to skip Tanzania altogether because we had already seen loads of animals similar to the Serengti, were not climbing Kili, and had heard that the beaches in Mozambique were prettier and more pristine than the ones in Zanzibar. Also, the three day bus ride to get to Zanzibar and a similar one to get to Mozambique sounded miserable.

The border crossing from Uganda to Rwanda was fantastic. Probably the easiest border crossing I’ve ever had. From there, we caught a few chapas (small buses) into Kigali. Almost immediately after crossing the border we noticed a huge difference. In Rwanda, most of the younger kids looked mesmerized by us. They would stare or run to get their friends and point. It seemed as if they had never seen a white person before. The older people, however, were completely indifferent. They did not even stop to call us Mzungos. Although I’m just speculating, I suspect that since the genocide, which happened within the last 14 years, Rwanda’s formerly-healthy tourism market has plummeted.

Once in Kigali, we headed straight to the genocide museum. It was terrifying. The speed and intensity of the genocide’s onset were unbelievable. I had little knowledge about Belgium’s role in creating the class divisions between the Tutsi and Seti. It made me sick to hear the stories of religious-leaders, family members, and friends betraying each other. The worst were the stories about the families that were forced to watch, and sometimes even participate in, the slaughter of their own family before they themselves were killed. There were many instances where I could not control my tears, but the last room was too much. I was sobbing uncontrollably. It is filled with blown up pictures of young children. Under each picture, is a list of the child’s name, age, favorite activity, etc., and how they died. Looking at those sweet, innocent little eyes and then reading that they had been killed by being smashed against a wall or were macheted while in their mother’s arms. There is a special place in hell for someone who could commit such acts against a baby.

After the museum, we lost any desire to see anything else in Rwanda. We decided to spend the 10 hours before our flight in the airport. Luckily for us, they had a good café with internet and gelato. We were all in need of comfort.

Uganda: Where everybody knows your name

After arriving back in Nairobi, we ran some errands . . . had our groceries stolen . . . and hopped on a night bus to Kampala. The border crossing was standard. We arrived late at night. Because there were no toilets, we all ended up peeing on the side of the road.

In Kampala, we stayed at Backpackers. It was a cool hostel, but almost no one was there. The first day we just tried to get our bearings, track down a gorilla permit, and enjoy the food which was a vast improvement over Kenya. Kampala wasn’t a very interesting city. The pollution was so thick you could see it. The city is supposed to be pretty safe—the most dangerous thing we did was take motor-taxis. Those things are crazy. We did find a decent book store and a mall with a theater. We watched Inception, but it was not as good as I had hoped after hearing all the reviews.

Our adventure in Uganda really started when we made our way to Kisoro. We struck out on quick permits from the Kampala office, but thanks to a tip in our book, we thought to call the Uganda Wildlife Association in Kisoro. It is a bit further away, but we were told it was the prettiest part of Uganda and that permits were much easier to obtain there. We lucked out to get a permit for the day after we arrived.

Kisoro was a great place to spend a few days in. The town itself is very small. There is really only one main road that is just a few blocks long. That road is filled with women walking with bundles of bananas, baskets, sticks, and many other heavy items on their heads. There are also bicycles weighed down with bananas or bamboo.

We quickly became regulars at Coffee Masters, which has the best yogurt I’ve ever tasted and a black tea that closely resembles chai tea, and the Golden Monkey, which has Mexican food among other tasty fare and an ankle-biting puppy. It also brought us food in a mostly timely manner, which is uncommon here. One night (at another hostel), we waited two hours for a veggie burger.

Throughout Africa, white people are referred to as Mzungos. In Uganda more than in any of the other countries we visited, everywhere we went we heard “Hello Mzungo,” “How are you Mzungo?”, “Where are you going Mzungo?”. Even after someone asked us our names, they continued to refer to us a Mzungo.

The day after arriving in Kisoro, we headed to the Bwindi National Park, which is aptly known as the Impenetrable Forest. The drive there was breathtaking. We drove over a mountain descending into a misty valley and lake. The hills were all divided up into green squares by the farmers. The hike in the forest was also pretty breathtaking, but for an entirely different reason. At first we were just hiking along a pretty gradual trail through the rainforest. Then our guide got a call from the gorilla tracker telling him where the gorillas were that day. Next thing I know, we are walking over the side of the mountain, bushwhacking our way straight down into the valley, trying not to impale yourself on your walking stick, which you have planted into the ground to prevent you from falling all the way down the mountain.

(Photo by Regina)
But, at the end of it, we were literally within feet of nine gorillas, the Mayashi family. It was unbelievable to be so close to them. I was surprised by how uninterested in us they seemed to be. The groups have been habituated enough that they are used to seeing humans as non-threatening. They just went about doing their thing until one of the rangers stepped too close. Then the silverback male would charge at the ranger to show its dominance, the ranger crouched down and looked at the ground to show his submission, and the gorillas just kept doing their thing. They would move a couple hundred feet and we would follow them. They were truly beautiful creatures. It is really sad to know that their extinction is imminent. Their habitat, which exists only in Uganda, Rwanda, and DRC is disappearing rapidly.

After an hour, we had to leave. I thought that there must be a more sensible route to get back to the top of the valley. I was wrong. We went straight back up the mountain the way we had climbed down. There were places where real climbing was necessary and places where I had rangers both pushing and pulling me up steeply graded mountainside. I didn’t know whether I was happier to see the gorillas or the top of that trail. 

We stuck around the next day for Regina to do a hike, but there was an insane lightening tour that prevented her from going. Instead, we did a shorter hike to an overlook of the town. There are several mud houses on the mountain overlooking the village. It was neat to walk among them. It was also a better vantage point for the huge volcanoes that surround Kisoro.

(Photo by Regina)

Loita Hills

We had a free day in Nairobi to attend to basic needs (laundry, showering, sleeping) before heading off to another five-day hike through Loita Hills, a region of Kenya populated by native Masai. The hike itself was fascinating, although our tour guide, Patrick, was a strange and unpredictable character. The first day was supposed to be a drive from Nairobi to Magimoto (literally "water hot", a hot springs) followed by a couple hours of hiking before setting up camp. But because of "Akhuna Magi" ("no water"), we ended up hiking after dark and for several hours. Only with the assistance of motorbikes from one of the modern Masai towns were we able to get to a campsite with water. This was supposed to be the campsite for our second night.

On the first day, the landscape was very sparse. There was only very short patches of dry shrubs and the occasional spiky, thorned tree. We were surprised to see Zebra in this barren environment. It was quite exciting, though, to be hiking next to them with no car between us. The guide mentioned that although there were not lions in this part of Kenya, they occasionally saw leopards. The prospect of seeing a leopard during the daylight was exciting, but as it grew dark, less so. Perhaps it was because I had just finished a chapter in a book I was reading about the lost boys of Sudan in which some of the boys were picked off by lions during the nighttime, when the big cats usually hunt, but I was not thrilled about hiking in the dark. This feeling grew after we walked through a stand of trees and I heard a rustling in the branches followed by a whooshing past my head. It was probably only a bird, but I still screamed and ran.

We thought we were seeing things when, in the middle of nowhere, we saw a big blinking tower and were passed by several motorbikes. We were grateful, though, to reach the "modern Masai village" and to get a ride to our campsite. We slept well.

The next day was a much more interesting hike. We passed through more Masai towns, piquing the interest of nearly everyone we passed. Many did double takes at the three white girls hiking through their villages. "Supa", the Masai word for hello was often exchanged. We were able to visit a school while we were there. In addition to the 48 composition books and pencils we had purchased for the children, Savanni's bookstore in Nairobi donated pencil sharpeners and colored pencils for us to take to the children. The school's administration was quite happy with the donation and invited us to sit in on one of their classes, the 8th grade. It was a very strange exchange. Although there were very sophisticated words on the chalkboard such as biodiesel and solar power, the only words the students spoke to us were to tell us their names. They sang us a song. We tried to teach them a song. And we left.

Samwell, our Masai guide, explained to us that there were only three girls in the classroom because many of the girls had already been circumcised and sent off to be married. We ended up camping near to the school and, as a result, had children visiting us for most of the night. Like our previous exchanges, at first they were shy, keeping their distance, but eventually they ventured closer and before we knew it they were touching our skin, our ears, our hair, and our polished toenails or examining our watches and bracelets. Most of these exchanges were friendly and somewhat humorous, at one point Regina had pulled out her camera and the kids had run screaming. Samwell explained that they thought the camera would steal their soul. But older groups of kids welcomed the camera and, in fact, were quite delighted to see the photo of themselves appear at the back of the camera. Like the children we had met earlier, all of the kids (and most of the adults) had shaved heads. It was more difficult to tell the boys from the girls here, though, because the traditional Masai dress for met is a blanket draped around him as a dress or skirt. Also, adults greet children by putting their hand on the child's head.








The third day was very similar to the second day. We hiked through more villages. The one difference that really stuck out, though, was that there were several young girls wearing a crown of sorts and a royal-colored blanket. Samwell explained that this meant they were circumcised (a barbaric operation that is apparently still practiced) and available for marriage. It seemed impossible that these young, blushing girls who giggled, but refused to have their picture taken would soon be married and having babies. We also noticed that although many of the older Masai men and women had stretched ear lobes with beaded coverings that very few of the younger Masai, including Samwell, had such ornamentation. Samwell explained that many of the civilized Masai no longer observe this practice because it is very painful.





That night we had a beautiful campsite next to the river. It had been very hot, and we were excited to sit down by the river and write. I chose a big rock in the middle of the river to write postcards to my family and friends. Not 20 yards upstream from me was a woman washing her laundry by beating it on a rock. She was doing this while holding a very young infant. While watching her, two young Masaai boys herded their cows across the river. The cows and the boys seemed equally surprised by our presence and both stopped in the middle of the river to examine us. One cow came up behind me and brushed me with his nose. It startled me because I had never seen a cow willingly approach a human unless it was holding hay.


Before dinner it started raining very hard. We had to set up a tarp over our tent, which did not have a rain fly, while it was pouring and immediately afterwards it stopped raining. We tried to dry ourselves next to the bonfire (they had built giant fires every night of our trek to scare away wildlife) until dinner was served. Then we quickly changed into dry clothes and headed to the tent before it started raining again. We had only been in the tent for about 20 minutes when we heard this crazy noise that sounded like a donkey hee haw followed by a horse whinny and sigh. THis kept happening over and over again and eventually we opened our tent flaps to see Samwell hopping around the fire, teaching his Masaai song to our excellent cooks and porters, Joseph, Desmond, and Jasmine. By this time Patrick had transformed into Tito, and he was (trying at least) to pull off the full Masaai look. I wish I had grabbed my video camera because the scene was indescribable and I will never in my life be able to re-create that sound.

The next day was a beautiful, but incredibly steep hike down to the Masaii town of Gurimon. My knees ached. There were seven river crossings, one of which resulted in me sitting in the middle of the river trying (successfully) to save my camera while Samwell ran after my runaway chaco. Gurimon was also very modern by Masaai standards. There were some cars and trucks and electricity. We were excited to sleep in beds again and to Shower! Samwell invited us to see his home and meet his wife, Esther, and their two children. The house was a very modest brick hut, but Samwell insisted on carrying out padded chairs for us to sit on. It was a bit awkward trying to communicate, but an enjoyable experience.

The next morning, we loaded a local bus very early in the morning. It was packed full of people and produce. All luggage was stored on top of the bus along with many passengers. The other passengers crammed into the seats and aisles for the four-hour ride to the first drop off point. Some of the people standing in the aisles would lean over the back of seats, trying to sleep. The bus was so loaded down and the road so rough that at hills those who were physically capable had to exit the bus, walk over the hill, and meet the bus on the other side. At one point a very young woman entered the bus holding a very tiny infant. It was hidden in her sling, but when I noticed it was a baby, I made room on my lap and asked if she would like to sit down. She misunderstood me and handed me the baby. While the baby slept, it was so tiny and peaceful, but as soon as she opened her eyes and saw me she did not know what to think. She started wailing and my efforts at consoling her were unsuccessful. It was funny, though, by taking the baby for that short time, I broke through some kind of barrier. Before that, we were just being stared at, sometimes warily, by the Masaai surrounding us. After I took the baby, people started smiling at me and the woman sitting behind me even started stroking my hair, examining its length and color.


After handing the baby back to her mom, the mom started breastfeeding while standing in the aisle. I quickly offered her my seat. As I stood next to her in the aisle, the woman behind me tried to subtly touch my arm to examine my freckles. When she noticed me watching her, she smiled and put her black arm next to mine and pointed at them. It was a brief moment, but it reminded me why I love to travel. I love having my mind opened and opening the minds of others.

Mt. Kenya

Only a day after finishing our safari, we headed out on a mountaineering trip to Mt. Kenya. Although we had not done much planning before our trip, the one decision we had spent a considerable amount of time considering was Mt. Kenya vs. Mt. Kilimanjaro. One the one hand, Kili is the tallest mountain in Africa and one of the "seven peaks." On the other hand, it is much more expensive and supposedly littered with hundreds of tourists and the trash they left behind. In the end, we unanamously came to the conclusion that Mt. Kenya was the way to go, each of us for different reasons. Regina was excited about the challenge, apparently Mt. Kenya is much more technically difficult than Kili. Kaitlan was sold on the fact that Mt. Kenya was significantly cheaper and she had no interest in "bagging" one of the seven peaks. What got me was the scenery. We googled photos from both climbs and the photos from Mt. Kenya were so much prettier than the photos of views from Kili.

The first day was a relatively easy hike, but the drive to the park entrance was more problematic. The recent rain had caused the roads leading into the park to be several feet of mud. We were stuck for almost an hour. This ended up resulting in my favorite experience during the hike. While we sat on the side of the road, the three of us were surrounded by the young children that lived in the area. At first they kept their distance, just examining us from a few feet away. Some asked how we were--"How are you?" was uttered to us in English by nearly everyone we passed during our stay in Kenya. Others were bold and asked for sweets. Kaitlan shared her unsweetened peanut butter, which they weren't very thrilled about.

All of the boys and girls had very short hair. In most cases, you could only tell the difference because the girls wore skirts and dresses. Many of them were barefoot and the clothing looked like it had been worn for a long time. After a while, when we got bored of answering to "How are you?" and asking their names, we decided to play games with them. We taught them the hand clapping games that we had learned in grade school and "Down by the Banks". We performed some dances for them like the "sprinkler", "running man," "roger rabbit", etc. They expressed their joy/excitement by screaming/laughing in a very high-pitched manner.

They also performed the cutest rendition of the ABCs we had ever seen. [Video to be added later]


When we finally started hiking, it had started raining again. The path was not too steep or difficult, but the water was running down the mountain on both sides of us. The terrain changed quickly. One minute we were in the dense, rain forest, an hour later we were walking through sparsely vegetated mountainside. The plants were really incredible, though. Like nothing I have ever seen.



We saw no one during our hike to the first shelter on the Sirimon Route, Old Moses, which was named after the first man to summit Mt. Kenya. Unbelieveably, we were able to meet Old Moses, a white man who is now relatively old, on our last day of the hike. He was preparing to climb Mt. Kenya again with his friends.
In the shelter, there were 20 or so other hikers. The shelter were very basic, really only a drafty building with a room for eating and a few rooms for sleeping. There was nothing to heat the shelter, and it was quite cold. After dinner, we convinced our guide, another Jon, to teach us some dances to warm us up. He taught us a funny dance/stretch to a very fun song, "Jambo, Jambo Kenya . . . ." We taught him the hokie pokey. We filled our water bottles with boiling water and tried to stay warm in our poorly constructed, rented sleeping bags. It was a long and restless night.

The next day, it was not raining, but it was still very wet. That may have been because we were basically hiking up a stream bed. At first we tried very hard to keep our shoes dry, but at some point we just gave up and settled on mostly dry. This day was much steeper, and I started to have altitude sickness issues. To be honest, I'm not sure whether the tingling in my hands, feet, and face were a result of the altitude or the medicine that I had taken to prevent altitude sickness, but at one point I was basically staggering up the mountain like a drunk because my feet were not responding to me and my head felt really fuzzy. As beautiful as the landscape was, I'm not sure I really understand the draw of mountaineering, especially in high altitudes. It seems that either the altitude or the medicine to prevent altitude sickness cause you to be miserable and unable to enjoy your hike. And because the medicine also causes extreme sun sensitivity--something my white skin already has--you either hope for a rainy day which is cold and miserable or a sunny day that will fry your skin.

It was so cold at the next shelter, Stilton I think, that we wrapped up in our sleeping bags before dinner and went to bed (with a hot water bottle) as soon as it was over. It was a short night, with some people getting up to summit as early as 12:30 a.m. That morning was miserably cold. Even though the sunrise was beautiful, we were still in the shadow of the mountain and freezing in the snow every step of the way. I was so winded and sick from the altitude, but every time I stopped moving, I immediately started to freeze. I had to rely on the kindness of our porter, Libre, to help push/pull me to the top of the porter's route. What had been a shallow, flowing stream the day before was now a thin layer of icicles that broke in jagged edges as we tromped down the hill. This day, down the Chogoria Route, was supposed to be the prettiest day of the hike. Unfortunately, the weather did not cooperate and most of the views we saw were as outlines through dense fog and rain.







In the afternoon, it cleared up a bit, and we were all happy to make it to the last campsite, Bandas. We stayed in a tent, which was much warmer than any of the other shelters, but still too cold to get a good night's sleep.

The next morning, we started the long, muddy road to the park's gate. We were met halfway by a jeep, which proved to be a very scary/exciting ride. I think some of the rides at Universal Studios must have been modeled after this road.