VILLAGE AND CHIMPS

WEATHER: Muggy and warm 27C

HIGHTLIGHT OF THE DAY:  Seeing the Chimps and visiting a local school

BUMMER OF THE DAY: I now have an after cough from my cold

BUYS OF THE DAY: My 2AUD bracelet from a singing group of children that performed for us

WORD OF THE DAY: Outrageous banter

ANIMALS SEEN TODAY: Chickens, dogs, a cat, thousands of butterflies, dung beetles, African ants and CHIMPS

CAMP SITE RANKING:  Same camp as last night – no change to rating

It was so good to not have to pack up our tent this morning.  Breakfast was at 7am, so a leisurely wake up and the 1^st group left for the chimps at 7.30am.  We got an hour before the truck came back for us to take us to the village walk, so I washed some smalls and got onto writing yesterday’s blog.  As my laptop was nearly dead, I was attempting to charge and use my Playbook at the same time, and the keyboard was doing funky things while it was charging, but unplug it and it works fine, so I typed up half the day and then it was time to hit the road.  I did bring my laptop with me, in the hope when the bus was running it may get some extra juice in it, so I could get my blog writing completed.

We drove for about 10 minutes to the start point of the village walk, where we said good-bye to Jools and got a local guide called Bernard.  No he wasn’t a Bernie for short, which would have been super cool.  The ‘village’ wasn’t a main street kind of village; it was spread over farmland, plantations and housing.  We started our walk what looked like the ‘shop’ section of the village.  Lots of males, leaning on motorbikes as we walked past.  One of the shops that stood out the most was what looked like the ‘butcher’.  He had small hut, where he had a table on the outside that had pretty much a cow, all chopped up and ready for sale.  Literally all chopped up.  The head was there, the tail was hanging off the table, the stomach lining was hanging like a wall painting against the hut and next to the head was a cow pat, I shit you not, a cow pat!!!  Surely you can get them for free somewhere?

Our first stop was at the local school.  Today is Wednesday, so school was in.  Bernard was a pupil at the school once, so he knew some of the teachers still.  We were introduced to the vice principle of the school and the head mistress and got a walk through the ‘office’.  They certainly were organized and had all the classes up on the wall, how many boys and girls per class, total attendance etc….. The classes don’t work on age; they work on you attending school for 7 years, so you could have a 5 year old and a ten year old in the same class.  The attendance for the 5-7^th years are lower, as most of the girls will leave school and get married, so from 1^st year of 135 people to 7^th year 15 people.  Big difference.  There are 365 students at the school and they have 9 teachers – imagine that – classes of 60!!!!  Our kids back home are learning to slip, slop, slap.  These kids are learning about HIV and Aids and not to accept ‘free gifts’ eg: sex, not to have sex at school, to look after the environment ……….  It really is a different part of the world here.  We were lucky enough to get invited into a class room that had 58 students in the room the size of a standard living room.  We got a beautiful welcome with 58 voices welcoming us to their class.  There was no power in the room and the kids were all standing 5 deep from the front desks.  They then performed about 5 songs, a poem and a small skit for us and I tell you the singing was giving me goose bumps.  They are learning English, so all the songs were sung in English and they are about important things that they are learning at school.  HIV / Aids, looking after each other and learning to say sorry and they all make mistakes.  It truly was a moving experience and I was lucky enough to get some of the songs videoed – so it will be great to look over that again and I will definitely be posting them to Facebook to share them all.  It was brilliant.

So leaving the school and all the happy smiling faces we then walked for about 15 minutes to the village healer.  This is like the medicine man.  He looks after all ailments and cures everything with local herbs, trees and plants.  We were invited into his hut and we sat on mats on the floor and he sat in front of all his medicines and then explained them all to us.  The medicines themselves were something.  He had animal skulls, concoctions in bottles, tree leaves and sticks and berries and all sorts of other things.  He didn’t speak English, but Bernard translated it all for us and he walked us through his medicines and where they all came from. He had the raw product and then showed us what the by product was.  The main thing that concerned me, was since I have this stupid cough now, he had a remedy for this, and I know this sounds mean, but I was really hoping he wouldn’t offer me anything, because it all looked a little manky in the bottles.  Maybe it might have worked, but maybe it may have given me an upset stomach as well.  But he didn’t offer me any medicine, but he did ask if I was married to which I said no, to which he replied I should be at my age, to which I replied I was, but I’m not now, to which his reply was a hand in marriage – to him!!!  I believe that makes my second proposal in 5 days in Africa.  Maybe I am going to really like Africa – I could be the WO-MAN!!!!

Our last stop was another 15 minute walk through the plantations on the locals mud track to an old woman’s hut.  We were invited in and she told us a story on the traditions of how the marriages used to work in the older years.  It basically was all arranged, marriages by the parents, and sometimes the couple would not even meet until the wedding.  They would then register their names for the marriage and then the new wife has to live with her aunt and uncle for 7 days to learn how to cook, clean and run the household.  After this period, the wife is then carried to her husband’s home and on the wedding night he assumes his wife is a virgin.  If she is not a virgin, the wedding is off and she needs to name the man who she had slept with, and then the village hunt this man down and then ties the shunned woman and the man together and are left to die.  Harsh tradition.  It doesn’t work like this now, it has all changed, but her marriage was arranged (she was 65) but her children we all married without any interference from her in their partner selection.

So from here we made our way back to our drop point for our drive back to camp.  The walk all up took nearly 3 hours and I am so glad that I did it.  It was worth the 30,000 shillings (15 USD) and I would have paid that just to visit the school.  That is something that will stay as a highlight of my trip so far.  It was uplifting.

After lunch and about an hour free time, we were driven at 1.15pm to Kibale National Park which was about a 15 minute drive.  We were all kitted out in long pants, thick socks, pulled up and our pants tucked in (nice look) and a long sleeve shirt.  The pant bottoms were tucked to try and stop the safari ants (fire ant equivalent) and also to keep leeches out as well.  We got a welcome spiel to the park and the dos and don’ts of the etiquette of chimp viewing.  They were:  Chimps can catch your diseases; you must not enter the park if you are sick (I was on the wave length I was no longer contagious).  Don’t leave litter in the forest. If you need to urinate or defecate you need to step off the path and dig at least a 130cm hole along with the toilet paper.  Keep as quite as possible in the forest, you will see more.  Keep at least 8m from the chimps at all times.  Don’t mimic the chimp’s vocalizations as you don’t know what you might be saying.  Don’t eat near the chimps.  Don’t chase the chimps (yeah right). Do not use flash photography.  Okay so they seem like a pretty stock standard set of rules.  Let the chimp hunt begin. 

Uganda has 10 national parks and they are broken into 2 categories, rainforest and savannah.  The chimps live in a rainforest in Kabale National Park.  The area became a national park in 1991 and the chimps have been a major tourist attraction to the area.  Our guides name was Gerard and he has played and hunted in the forest since he was a small boy and became a park ranger in 1991 when it opened.  He said you could drop him anywhere in the rainforest at night and he would be able to find his way out.  He was really cool.  They do have a sign saying that since they are wild animals there may be a chance you may not see the chimps, but it is a strike rate of 90% so there is a pretty good chance all the same.  The morning group saw chimps, so he said that raises the chances to 99%, even better.  The down side to the morning group, as it was a little wet, they didn’t come down from the trees too much, so with it being a bit drier, we hope to get a little closer.

So we headed in and within 5 minutes we saw a red-tailed colobus, he was a fair way up in the trees, but it was out first sighting all the same.  We started on a track that took us over some boardwalks and deeper into the rainforest before we saw and heard our first chimps.  There are about 120 in the one family we were looking for and we found about 3 of them perched high in the tree tops.  There were about 5 groups of people all walking around the forest floor trying to get some good pictures, but they were just too far away.  All the guides for each group had walkie talkies and were keeping the other groups up to date on sightings.  There were times we got off the beaten track (literally) and we were going overland through the shrubs and the plants to get to where we needed to be.  We finally hit the jackpot with 3 male chimps that were quite active and in a reasonably good distance for the camera to reach and I got some flipping good photos.  The other monkey Efuzi, was the last one we got to watch for about 20 minutes as he ate a late lunch and we got within 6m of this guy and also got some great snaps of him.  So we had a successful day of chimp hunting and after it was all done and back to headquarters we were in there for around 2 hours.  I think the main highlight was getting to listen to them, it was a bit surreal, as they do sounds like the monkey noises you hear in toys or on TV, but to hear them so loud in the forest was pretty amazing. 

  

The truck wasn’t back for us yet, so we decided to start walking back to the camp site.  On the way out of the gates we got a group photo at the entrance and I got my second Bernstar jump of Africa with the sign.  I have to get back on to that as I had slacked off in Portugal and London. Tut tut tut.  We had walked about 25 minutes when the truck came hurtling down the dusty road, so half of us got a lift back and the hero’s walked the remaining 20 minutes back to camp.

With a quick shower, I sat down to get some blog writing done for an hour before we got a visit from a local dance troop of children that came to dance and sing for us.  The dance company had only recently formed in March this year, so they are still trying to raise money for costumes etc., but they were pretty good.  The ages ranged from I’d say 5-16 years of age and they did a really good job.  Some of the songs we had heard at the school that day, but their singing just puts a smile on my dial, and when they see you smiling they just smile back.  It is a win win.  The children are either orphans after losing their parent to HIV or from broken or abusive homes, so it great that they can also be doing something positive for themselves as well.  After the performance, they had bought local items for sale and pretty much everyone bought something from them which also helps with the funds and there was also a little basket for tips, which again we all put money into.  It was a great way to finish the day. 

Dinner was a local fare tonight of matoke, chiapatee, lamb curry, ugali and jackfruit for desert and we had to eat it as the locals do with no knife and forks, all with our hands.  It was a bit of a mission, but we got it all done and it was quite delicious.  I wasn’t a fan of the ugaki ( a white ricey, starchy thing) But at least I tried it.

So it was nice to finally do something a little different and not have sat on a bus all day.  It was great to get out and about, including not having to pack the tents up this morning as well.  Our nightly meeting went through what we were doing tomorrow.  We are heading for Queen Elizabeth National Park but isn’t as far to travel as the last 2 days of driving, which will be nice change.  We were given the heads up that there has known to be hippos that travel the 1km from the lake to be found in our camp site and there has also been a popular hangout for snakes, as they like to curl up under you tent where your body warmth is!  GREAT.  To stop them trying to wriggle in your tent we were also advised to have the zips at the top of the tents and not at the bottom – ah hah, they are cunning animals.  The other advice still sticks from Lake Nakuru and if you exit your tent at night to shine your torch to see if any pairs of eyes are staring back.  Well Afke and I are pretty good and once we are zipped up in the tent for the night, we don’t move till morning!  But thanks Jools for the heads up with hippos and snakes!

THE WHEELS ON THE TRUCK

WEATHER: Hot and 27C

HIGHTLIGHT OF THE DAY:  Skittle game on the truck

BUMMER OF THE DAY: Sitting on the truck for 9 hours

BUYS OF THE DAY: It has to be the Fanta I bought – it’s the only thing I bought all day

WORD OF THE DAY: Karibu – you’re welcome!

ANIMALS SEEN TODAY: Grasshoppers, monkeys, butterflies, goats and dogs

CAMP SITE RANKING:  Flushing toilets, warm water and a BAR = 4 STAR out of 5

We got to have a sleep in this morning till 6am, who in the ‘normal’ world would think that was a sleep in?  We didn’t leave camp till 8am and drove to a local shopping center where Jools had to get our chimp permits for tomorrow.  So we had some time to go to the supermarket and stock up.  I only needed batteries for my head lamp and a bottle of water.  Some people got onto the internet, others did some currency exchanges and others just sat and had a decent coffee at one of the shops.

Back on the road at 9.30am.  We had another long day on the truck today.  We need to cover another 350km, which in turns means another 8-9 hours of travelling.  I wonder if there are driving regulations in regards to the amount of hours that Chris drives each day.  He really clocks up some hours and beside lunch and a few toilet stops we could drive for up to 3 hours without a stop.  If you were in Europe, you can only drive a certain amount of hours a day; they need a certain amount of stops for a certain amount of time blah blah blah.  It is done for our safety but I wonder if he gets tired.  He is separated in the cab section of the truck, so he can’t really hear or know what is happening in the back either, so we can’t even talk to him to keep him company. 

So we had to think of a few ways to keep us entertained and we did a few things to keep us busy.  One was we hosted a Skittle-off.  I am not sure how it came about as I had my earphones in, but basically two people played off against each other, by closing their eyes and trying to guess the flavor of the skittle that was put into their mouth.  It was quite funny and some of the play offs went for 5-6 skittles till a winner emerged.  The colour that eluded most people was the damn yellow one and I have to say the 2 champions that emerged was Paps and Lill, and if I was to pick an eventual winner it would be Lil as she didn’t hesitate when she got hers in her mouth where Paps, being the show man that he is, would take about 20 minutes to guess his colour.  The second game that kept us occupied was the game of Memory on my Playbook.  It comes with a timer, so it was a race against the clock to see who could complete the game the fastest, and it was also handy as it had a leader board, so we could see exactly where everyone finished on the board.  The champ so far is Sean, who got a time of 31 seconds followed closely by JO who got a time of 34 seconds.  I was also lucky I had my notebook, so I was able to bang out yesterday’s blog, but it took me forever with things happening on the truck, I ran my battery down to 20% thinking I wouldn’t have a problem charging it tonight.  But this was to prove a little difficult in hindsight.  We also learned Hakuna Matata from the Lion King which comes from a traditional African song, in Swahili.  It was pretty cool to hear the whole bus singing.

The roads in Uganda seemed better till around 10.30am when we hit some really rough roads that were like a theme park ride.  It makes it hard for me to try and type on my laptop and we really get rocked around, but I guess that adds to the fun of the journey.  Seriously some of these roads are in serious need of some upgrades.  Poor Chris, it makes it hard for him, as he is constantly changing gears and braking, it certainly isn’t an easy drive for him.

We arrived into camp at 5.30pm and I’ll walk you through the daily routine once we arrive into camp.  Once we park, we all grab our tents, we keep the same ones throughout the whole trip, and I guess this stops people from whinging when they get a dodgy tent that hasn’t been folded properly, like ours the other day.  So it takes us about 10 minutes to set up the tent, maybe not even that and then we head back to the truck to get out the mattresses.  This is where it starts to get a bit manic, as the lockers are near the 2 rear doors, so when people are trying to get their stuff out of the lockers, the doors are blocked, so people have to shuffle in and around and it is like a big jigsaw puzzle of just side stepping people getting to lockers, our seats and mattresses.  But we are all quite considerate of each other, so it works; it is just a little chaotic.  At this point the people who are cooks have to get to the kitchen to help Liz, the truck people have to sweep and mop and the rest of us get to chill till dinner which is normally around 7pm.  That is pretty much the same process each day. 

Luckily to date there has been no problems charging any of my gadgets.  Having power outlet in the truck helps, and all the camps have had some form of access to power.  From a reception desk, a bar or last night was an extension cord onto the truck.  But the last 2 days my notebook has been overloading the trucks power box so I can’t rely on this form of charging anymore.  So once the tent was up and all of the above done, I went on the hunt for some power points.  The camp site is connected to a large house, which has the showers and toilets and a large open plan living area with couches, chairs and tables.  We actually get to eat at a normal table tonight which will make a nice change.  So I found some points and I have a double adapter, so I had my IPod in one and the notebook in the other and plugged her in.  The IPod showed it was charging but not my computer. Hmmmmmm, so I tried 8 other outlets with the same problem.  So I went to the truck and tried it in the power outlet there and it worked, so it must have something to do with the voltage maybe?  WE can’t charge anything while the bus is parked as it will drain the power and the bus won’t start the next day.  So I am on the bare minimal for blog writing which is driving me nuts, but I figured I can always use my Playbook.    I hope there isn’t anything wrong with my notebook.

So we are now currently at 1265m, so I am thinking tonight should be a comfortable sleep.  The freezer night was 2165m, last night was a warm night at 1060m, so being at 1200m it is somewhere in the middle so I am hoping the weather will be more pleasant tonight.

Not much happened after dinner.  I was in for a few beers with Emma and Paps, but I just hit a wall, Struggle Street reared its head and I was tucked up in bed by 9pm!!!  We are off to see the chimps tomorrow, so back into some more animals tomorrow which will be great.  We have had to split into 2 groups tomorrow, a morning departure and an afternoon departure.  Nobody was keen on the afternoon, so I put my hand up for that and with a bit of back and forward we filled the afternoon spot for a 2pm departure.  We were aiming for a sleep in, but Jools suggested a village walk in the morning, so that killed that idea, but I think it will be good, as I may actually be able to finally take some photos.

Good night and chimp you tomorrow J

WELCOME TO UGANDA

WEATHER: Bloody freezing in the morning 9C to a tops of 27C and beautiful

HIGHTLIGHT OF THE DAY: Beating Lisa at our lollipop sucking competition

BUMMER OF THE DAY: Not really beating Lisa at the lollipop sucking competition – I cheated

BUYS OF THE DAY: A roll of toilet paper for .25c

WORD OF THE DAY: Mumbo – hello

ANIMALS SEEN TODAY: Travel day – so no animals today

CAMP SITE RANKING:  Flushing toilets, hot water and a BAR = 4 STAR out of 5

SOME-ONE TURN THE FREEZER OFF……..

OMG how flipping cold was it this morning.  I know we are high at 2165m and it is the altitude, but F#@K I woke up during the middle of the night and put on another shirt over my pj’s, put on my jumper backwards so my hood was at the front, so I could pull it up over my face, add my towel on to that and then I moved my sleeping bag around so the hood of that also covered my face, and then, and only then did I feel warm enough to try and get some sleep.  My feet weren’t cold for some reason, but I managed to cocoon myself enough to get some warmth. It was C-c-c-c-cold……

So a 5.30am wake-up call, this safari camping gig is a tough love first thing in the morning with all these early starts, but today is a MASSIVE travel day.  We have 350km to travel.  This may not sound much, but based on the conditions of the roads and traffic, it is expected to take 8-9 hours - yes to travel 350km.  Every time Jools updates us of how long we have till the next stop or how far left to go it is always given to us in kilometers, it is never in time, as the roads are that unreliable.  20km till our next stop, 120km till lunch etc.  We also have a border crossing today as we say good-bye to Kenya and hello to Uganda.  Jools rekons it can take from 1-4 hours to cross depending on who is working, whether they like us, how much they check the truck etc……

It is the second day of tents, and this morning we have to take it down in the dark, as we are leaving at 7am, so everything on the truck by 6.30am for breakfast.  This tent fitting in the bag thing is driving Afke and I nuts on day 2.  There is just no way that tent will fit back in its bag, we re-rolled the bloody thing twice and we just couldn’t get it to work, so we left it as it was, which looked like a car accident, everything poking out, we couldn’t even pretend to close it up, it was a disaster.  We were one of the first to put our tent in the truck, so we just hoped that no-one would notice this tent bag, now twice the size of everyone else’s conspicuously in the tent hold.  There is definitely room to improve on our tent packing skills.  Afke and I have decided that tomorrow is the day we will get this bloody nemesis into its home.  Maybe after 60 days I may just master it – maybe.

On the road again, and as predicted the roads are shocking.  Not just bad – SHOCKING. No wonder it takes so long, at one point we passed some road works and to be honest I don’t know why they bothered, but I guess you have to start somewhere.  I’m having problems with my ears, I keep having to try and pop them, I guess that is to do with my cold and also the altitude as well?  I am sounding worse, it’s all in the nose, but I’m feeling okay, so I just need to get rid of the symptoms.  I am taking my cold and flu, ate a whole orange, drinking vitamin C and Louise gave me a vitamin horse pill so hopefully I have taken enough to get me in the clear.  People are jokingly keeping away, but I can see fear in their eyes that they don’t want any of my germs the closer we get to the gorillas.  I throw a fake sneeze in just to rile them up! Ha ha.

Well we could tell when we were getting close to the boarder as there is a massive queue of trucks.  I am talking like 30km long.  These trucks can wait from 3-7 days in this queue just to get into Uganda.  Uganda is a land locked country, so all its imports are bought in by road.  There are 2 other crossings in Kenya and one from Tanzania, but this boarder is by far the busiest and the longest.  By rights, we really should be joining this queue, but then that would be an Intrepid tour in itself.  Itinerary would read day 1-7 border crossing before continuing on with the trip.  Yeah not good for Intrepid and probably not a big selling point for clients either I would imagine.  So we did what everybody hates people doing and we jumped the line.  To facilitate this we had to drive for 30km on the wrong side of the road, so you can imagine, there were times we had to squeeze past oncoming trucks with the stationary one (who had possibly been sitting there for days) and as we are also in a truck, we could see straight into their cabs and felt a little guilty as we pulled away, continuing with our queue jumping.  It was a sight to see the endless line of trucks.  What a way to make a living.  But as the saying goes there is always a silver lining (not for the truck drivers) but there are people selling commodities to all the truckers, so they get to make a living off this endless queue.  A smart business opportunity.

We got to the boarder at 11am, and we all had to get off the truck and get our passports stamped that we were leaving Kenya and then back on the truck, crossing no man’s land to get us to the Uganda boarder control.  Here we all off loaded again and had to supply finger prints of both hands and pay our 50USD.  I have to say the crumby stamp they gave us for 50USD was a little disappointing.  In total the whole process only took a 1.2hours and then we were on our way again in UGANDA.  Afke and I just looked at each other and said, man we are in Uganda!!!!! Pinch time.  Sometimes we just need to sit back and take in where we are and what a great opportunity we are getting to experience.  No matter how or why people got here, we are all travelling for basically the same reasons.

The immediate thing I notice is that the roads are better in Uganda, which is a little surprising as the country is known for its corruption; you’d think they wouldn’t care so much about the road infrastructure.  We stopped about 20 minutes over the boarder for our roadside lunch.  It is pretty cool we can pull over anywhere and within 40 minutes there are seats out and food prepped and on the table. Another 40 minutes later and we are washed, packed and back on the road again.  This is safari people. 

So drive driving driving again.  We got to glimpse Lake Victoria, which is the second largest fresh water lake in the world after Lake Baikal, which I would like to point out I walked on frozen nearly 4 months ago.  Man that seems like a million years ago.  I am really going to have to make some time when I get home to go back through my blog and pictures to just pinch myself and remind myself what has been done.  That is probably one of the few ‘downsides’ of doing so much.  Normally after a holiday when you get home you have a chance to soak up the ‘after holiday’ experience, share it with your friends and start planning the next adventure.  I am currently moving from one awesome trip to the next, except for the contact I have with my new friends, it is go go go onto the next trip.  I know, I know – I can hear you all say ‘poor Bernie’ whatever………

Lake Victoria is the source of The Nile, which flows through 9 countries.  And to be a smarty they are

Uganda, Sudan, Ethiopia, Egypt, Burundi……..  It is the longest river in the world.  Not many people know but the Nile has 2 tributaries called the White Nile (Lake Victoria in Uganda) and the Blue Nile (which starts at Lake Tanna in Ethiopia) and both these rivers meet in Khartoum in Sudan where they then flow to Egypt and then out into the Mediterranean Sea.  I wonder if I will see the Blue Nile when I am in Ethiopia.

So another 4 hours got us to our campsite for the night just outside of Kampala.  We did have a little hiccup where a police officer was involved.  In Chris’ defense he had to get a run up to pass a van and 2 long haul trucks, but as we pulled back into our lane, there was a police officer there waiting for us.  So we got pulled over, Chris had to get out and show his papers and then Jools got in on the act and told the officer we had a sick tourist on board and we were speeding to get to the hospital to get Chris out of the fine and to not have to palm over some ‘money’.  We didn’t think he was speeding for the record. 

The camp is busy and there is another Intrepid truck with 18x15 year olds on a school trip.  Needless to say Jools is happy that he has our group and not a truck load of teenagers!  There is a high five for this camp with flushing toilets, hot showers, an intermediate Wi-Fi and a bar.  I wonder if we are getting spoilt before we hit the rest of Africa – who cares lets live with the now with showers and toilets!

We went and had a beer before dinner at the bar and we now have to wrap our heads around a new currency.  We are now using the Ugandan schilling and the rate is approximately 1USD equals 2400 of the local currency!  Holy Moly – how good are you at your 24 times tables.  A beer was 2600, as we had just crossed over; we had no local currency, so they would accept our USD instead.  I am sure that is better for them anyway as I am sure the rate they use for us is lower than what they would get, so they make some more money off the sale and the exchange.  Oh well – we are thirsty so it is worth it.

Dinner was a fare of vegetable soup for dinner and pasta with meat sauce, veggies and cabbage.  Team A’s duties tonight is scrubbing – yes I was a scrubber for the day legitimately, and as the dish washers go first, Lisa and I thought we would have enough time to duck to the showers and get back in time to do our chores without anyone noticing that we were gone.  Well I probably shouldn’t have washed my hair and I may have had a better chance to have gotten back on time, but when I saw 2 people flapping pots I knew we were in for a bit of trouble.  Needless to say when we showed out faces we got quite a ribbing from the team as well as some hanger on-ers.  So we have now been given the task of pot scrubbing on our own when the rotation comes back to us again.  Fair enough, but in our defence we really weren’t gone that long, I didn’t think.  Sean has been more than happy to rub in my lack of duties, as I have been joshing around with him that he always turns up after the work is done (possibly a little unfair) but it is good to be able to have some fun at some-one else’s expense!  Needless to say you have to be able to take what you give out, so I just take it all on the chin and tough it out.

Time to utilize the bar.  It has a pretty good atmosphere and they had music playing and we could just reach the Wi-Fi  from where we were sitting outside.  I love this part of the trip, where we all just sit and chat for hours.  I have some more places to now add onto my travels, with Em and Justin in London, so it will be good to be able to see some friendly faces when I am back there in October.  5 beers later (that’s 3L) it was time to hit the hay – midnight isn’t too bad a knock considering how early we were up this morning.

I am not sure what is up, but I took 1 photo today!  ONE, UNA, UN, A HAN.  It was a drive day and we have been told to always ask if we are taking photos of people, but as we are driving through villages and towns I haven’t bought out the camera as Jools said African people aren’t too keen on getting their pictures taken and there have been instances where the bus has been vandalized because of this, so the camera doesn’t see much air time when we are travelling.  But for those of you who know I am a photoholic, this would have to be a first EVER, one photo in one whole day.  That is just about UNBELIEVABLE.

So I have 5 days till the gorilla’s and I have to say I am feeling and sounding 100% better, so I think the likelihood that I will wave goodbye to the gorilla trekkers without me is going to be minimal.

ANIMALS ARE PLENTIFUL

WEATHER: Cool in the morning 19C – beautiful day 25C

HIGHTLIGHT OF THE DAY: Sharpening up my bargaining prowess  

BUMMER OF THE DAY: I think I may be getting the sniffles

BUYS OF THE DAY: My African hand-made bracelets at 1AUD

WORD OF THE DAY: Twende – lets go

ANIMALS SEEN TODAY: Zebra, flamingo’s, pelicans, buffalo, white rhino, black rhino, water bucks, lions, Rothschild giraffes, impala’s, colobus monkeys, baboons, ostriches, eland

CAMP SITE RANKING:  Flushing toilets (with paper), hot water, pool and BAR = 6 STAR out of 5

Ding ding ding ding – that’s the sound of my alarm going off at 5.30am.  It is still dark outside and we had to have all our gear packed up from the tent and in the truck by 6am, which was when breakfast was served for a departure at 6.30am for a game drive.  The tents could stay up, as they needed to dry off before we packed them back into their bags before heading out of camp.  How was my night’s sleep I hear you ask?  It was on and off.  I was warm enough, but I think it is going to take some time to get used to my blow up pillow, and I was just a little restless.  But I think it is just getting used to my new environment and I know it won’t be an issue as the nights go on.  I was surprised how easy it was to get my sleeping bag back in its bag and also my travel pillow, how often does that usually happen?  So the tent had to go into lockdown, with the windows zipped, the front door zipped and the main cover, as the baboons are known to get into the tents and cause some destruction – the cheeky buggers.

So back in the truck and on the road.  We went to the other side of the park this morning on the hunt for leopards, cheetahs, giraffes and lions.  So the morning started with sightings of buffalo, zebras and some rhino – big deal, we saw them yesterday, we want some new animals.  It is only day 2 and we are saying that already?  I think we were being a little cheeky, but we had such a great afternoon yesterday.  So you can imagine our excitement when we came across a pride of lions!  There were 5 females and they were in a playful mood and we were lucky we were the first vehicle to arrive.  We got about 20 minutes to watch these amazing animals playing with each other, and it was great to be in a massive truck so when all the other vans came, they didn’t obstruct our view as we towered over them.  It is great to be able to do an afternoon and morning safari as there are different animals doing different things.  We saw a dazzle (the collective ) of zebras, and there would have to have been over 30 of them all walking single file heading to the dam for a drink and there were a lot of herds of buffalo together also walking to a destination unknown.  The leopards and cheetahs are quite hard to see at the best of times, but we never gave up on the hope one would be hanging from a tree.  Giraffes were also on our list and we were lucky to come across a tower (the collective) of giraffes.  Considering how tall they are, they look quite graceful when they walk.  They didn’t seem to be put out by us being there and were walking right up to the road we were on and crossed in front of us.  It was like watching something surreal, a giraffe for goodness sakes, and right in front of us!!!  Just to add to that buzz they just aren’t ordinary giraffe’s they are an endangered species that can only be found in this park and the giraffe center in Nairobi.  Why are they so different?  They have different coloured spots and are high fashioned animals because they have white stockings on their legs.  Amazing creatures.

Further on we drive, seeing colobus monkeys (long haired fellas), more zebra’s, herds of buffalo’s and the find of the day, after the lions and giraffes of course, was the very rare black rhino!  What a day we have had, he was about 300m away in the distance, but we were able to get some good photos of this guy, and he had about 10 birds just sitting around on his back, so it made a great photo opportunity!  What a find!  Our last animal we saw was a couple of wart hogs that were playing with each other and then back to camp at 10am.  So we got a good 3.5 hours in the reserve – and it was well worth the early start.

As we had started early we had an early lunch, with Liss getting together some pasta and veggie sauce, a crepe, a sausage and fruit salad which we had around 10.30am.  The monkeys were back in force and cheeky as ever.  They try and get into the truck to get to the food, and as it would happen, I had a packet of biscuits in my seat pocket and a cheeky devil got into the truck and stole the whole packet!  He got busted on the top of the BBQ area and he dropped the packet and ran!  There goes my schnacks for the next leg of the journey!  There is a park ranger that was hanging around the camp trying to keep the monkeys at bay as we ate our lunch.  He must be fit, as he just kept running around the whole camp site with rocks in his hands, throwing then when required to keep them at bay!  So while that was getting prepared we pulled done our tents.  We were shown the ‘correct way’ to fold the tent up so that it would fit back into its bag.  Yeah well, when does a tent ever fit back into its bag?  We re-rolled ours twice and it just squeezed back in its bag, we nearly had to sit on the bag to get the Velcro done up, it wasn’t the best job. But it was done up.  Funny how no-one else had the same problem as us?! 

So back on the road just after 11am with a stop in Nakuru township for an hour.  This gave people time to apply for their Rwanda visa’s at the internet café, banks etc.  Afke and I made a trip to the post office and got some stamps for our postcards and I also got my Kenyan stamp in my Globetrotters book with no hassles, she was really nice the lady at the post office.  I have to say I find the Kenyan people very friendly and generally always have a smile on their dial.  As we walked back to the bus you have the peddlers selling their wares, just like any other country.  They were selling handmade pictures the size of a coaster and friendship bands.  The pictures were actually quite cool, so I bought 3 for 3AUD (can’t go wrong right) and I made a friend with a seller called Moses.  Now this was a salesman through and through.  He would give any car salesman a run for their money any day!  It didn’t help that I love to bargain and then the games began.  Haggle, haggle, haggle as I only wanted one, I bargained hard for it, and when I paid I had to get change from him, which he in turn upgraded me to 2 for an additional 1AUD.  Sale done and dusted.  We are now ‘friends’ and his name was Moses.  So I then tried to drum up some sales from the rest of the truck for him, and before I knew it I fell into bargaining with him again and no-one wanted any, so a deal is a deal so I had to pay and I got 3 for 2AUD.  Once a seller agrees to your sale price you HAVE to buy.  He was actually a really good sport and in the end he asked for my email address as he had some sons at home, with a lift of an eyebrow and a wink.  Thank-god I thought it was for him, that makes me feel so much better, he’s trying to drum up a wife for his sons!!.  He was cool and hopefully we parted both happy with our transactions.  I also purchased a Kenyan Sim card for my travels for the next few weeks.  The main thing I get when I get the countries sim card is it is cheaper for me to send messages at 10c inside Kenya and Uganda and 30c to send them home to Australia. Besides the fact that I lost my Australian sim card somewhere in Morocco may also have something to do with it and I cannot charge my UK sim when I am in Africa.  But it is worth all the hassle to be able to stay in touch with my best friend and god-daughters. 

Back on the road now to our final destination of Eldoret, due to its altitude is well known for where the Kenyan runners come to train.  We passed over the equator and a sign stating this and I was sleeping.  When I woke 20 minutes after we had past it, I asked Julius (now Jools) why we didn’t stop and he said we pass over the equator 7 times on this trip so there will be plenty of time to stop and get a photo.  Okay, that’s good enough for me.  The drive is slow and tedious at times, as some of the roads are in really poor condition.  Mainly potholes bigger than a wading pool and the tar of the road has shifted and it literally looked like waves we were driving over.  You can imagine the rolling we were doing in the back of the truck.  They also seem to love their speed bumps and some block of bumps are located every 50m and there maybe 10 of these to pass over.  So if you’re in a hurry, you ain't going anywhere fast in Kenya.  We get a lot of stares as we pass through villages, I guess we aren’t that conspicuous sitting in a massive truck with 22 white faces watching the scenery pass by.  They all seem quite friendly and we get a lot of waves from the children as we drive pass.  I love waving so I am happy to give a big cheerio wave back.  Their faces just light up when they get a response.  I am a waver.  I also got a chance to charge my camera battery and my laptop with the onboard power sockets they have on the truck, so I feel very happy that I won’t be running out of battery juice anytime soon.  They are universal sockets, so I could plug in my Aussie plugs with no adapters which is pretty cool.

So 5 hours later we arrived into Eldoret which is 2165m above sea level, so you can imagine the temperature here was a lot cooler.  Lucky I kept some cold weather stuff and didn’t leave it all in London.   After we picked our patch, up go the tents, and a then we got a chance to have a look around the camp site.  This place is amazing and if we are to give it a ranking out of 5 it is a 6.  It had hot showers (for most), flushing toilets (WITH paper), an amazing pool that was as cold as the arctic, a bar and a gift shop!  AND Bill Gates had stayed at this very place in 2009!  I would like to point out that there was an option to upgrade to a bungalow at this place, but as it was only day 2, firstly I can’t say I have given camping the full chance it deserved yet and it was only day 2, how sad and soft would that look and at this point.  I felt I didn’t need to get out of the tent – just yet.

I am also feeling a sore throat and a runny nose coming on.  Afke and I thought it might have been from all the dust of the game drives yesterday, but to tell it straight I have a lot of flem floating around.  Generally this wouldn’t be a problem, but with the gorilla’s coming up in 7 days, if you cough, sniff or sneeze you will not be permitted to do the trek as they try and limit disease that could be transmitted to the gorilla families, which is fair enough.  So I need to nip this in the bud and fast.  I asked my personal pharmacist on his diagnosis (Sean) and as I already had symptoms it was time to hit the cold and flu tablets.  I have been drinking vitamin C, in my water, powder that I bought from home, so fingers crossed I get this early. Blasted cold - of all times to get one.

As soon as the sun went down it turned a tad cold, but we had vegetable soup for dinner as a starter and then beef stew with rice and veggies.  I loaded my plate with veggies, as this was also part of Sean’s recommendation for my cold.  After washing and flapping dry the dishes we headed inside to the bar and a drink to unwind and to help with sleep.  The bar was AWESOME.  It was like stepping into a HUGE African tent, with a log fire burning, comfy couches, African wood sculptures and the roof covered entirely in mats shaped like a tent roof, what an amazing place.  We got a beer for 150SCH, which is like 1.50AUD for 500ml!  Prices are just so cheap here.  I wonder how much the beers cost in the supermarket if that is what they are in a licensed bar.  I left the guys playing pool and was tucked into bed at 9.45pm.  It sounds early, but when you’re up at 5.30am and have the same start again in the morning, this little puppy needs to get some shut eye.

Man it is still a little hard to comprehend – I AM IN KENYA!   

LET THE 60 DAYS OF CAMPING BEGIN

WEATHER: Gorgeous and 23C

HIGHTLIGHT OF THE DAY: Visiting an orphanage in Gilgil

BUMMER OF THE DAY: Not being able to take one of the children home with us

BUYS OF THE DAY: Does my bottle of water count – only thing I have bought all day

WORD OF THE DAY: Sava sava – its okay

ANIMALS SEEN TODAY: Zebra, flamingo’s, pelicans, buffalo, white rhino, jackals and water bucks

Up, breakfasted and to the truck at 7.20am.  The truck is massive and looks super cool.  The seats are about 2m off the ground and we need 6 steps to get into the cab.  Once inside I have to say the seats are a business class version of the Contiki buses I have travelled on.  My knees don’t come anywhere near the seat in front, and there is a massive pocket to be able to store all you things for the day’s drive.  When you think about it, this is going to be our home for the next 60 days, so it is good there is a bit of room to move around.  I think our truck my change after this section of the trip, but I am assuming that they would all be pretty similar.  The seats are covered in canvas, and there are large drop windows to get air into the truck, it’s a little dusty but we are after all in Africa.  We all have a locker at the back of the truck, where we put our backpacks (yes the large ones) and we take them on and off as we please.  Being the first day, and not knowing how big the locker was going to be, my bag didn’t fit first time round, so I had to take out something and then we were able to jam it in, good luck trying to get the bugger back out this afternoon, but I will worry about that later.  This will not be happening every day, as I’m going to get 3 days’ worth of stuff out and anything else I need,  and then that sucker can stay in the locker till needed, so I don’t have to get to it daily.  Once it was in, there was plenty of room for a few loose bags to fit in, so this is what I will do when we get to camp tonight, re-sort my bag and then I’ll be good to go for the next few days.

On the road for the first 1.5 hours and watching the scenery slide by, there are a lot of donkeys used for transport in the villages.  They certainly look healthy and well looked after which is always nice to see.  We got to stop at a vantage point to look at the Rift Valley, which Kenya is quite well known for.  The Rift Valley runs from Lebanon to Mozambique and is 6656km long.  Now that’s what I call a large valley!!!  The view was pretty amazing and my photos don’t do it any justice at all.  There we a lot of local stores here trying to sell their wares, but they don’t seem too pushy once you say no, which is nice. 

Our next stop before heading to camp was at an orphanage in Gilgil.  Kariandusi school community project was started with the aim of helping rural schools and also the educational opportunities for disadvantaged rural children.  We visited one in Gilgil and the children were so sweet.  We were shown into the school room and were told about the project, and the children are encouraged to come in and interact with us while the talk is on.  So I made 2 new friends called Norman and Gideon.  They were both 7 and they just wanted to have their pictures taken so they could see themselves, try on my sunglasses and play with my watch.  Unfortunately we weren’t allowed to give them anything, as this encourages begging, but we could give anything we wanted to the school mistress and then she would distribute on our behalf.  Unfortunately I had left all my stickers I had bought for exactly this purpose was in that damn backpack that was wedged in my locker. Good-one Boofhead.  I did give the boys a pen and my notebook and they drew me some pictures and my sunnies looked hilarious on them, but they were also just happy to sit and hold your hand as well.  After the talk, the kids got to take us around their orphanage and they showed me where they slept and the baby’s room and then we went outside to play for around 40 minutes.  Everyone had their own ‘child’ that had befriended them and it was great to see their smiling faces in play.  As all good things come to an end it was time for us to say good-bye.  I wrote 2 little notes for Norman and Gideon and said thanks for letting me play with them today and I am happy I have 2 new Kenyan friends.  They seemed to love the little notes and were showing the other children as we left.  What a great experience and money can be donated to the orphanage via the Intrepid website.

We then drove for another 2 hours that got us to our campsite for the night Lake Nakuru.  We pulled up under a beautiful canopy of trees and this is where I guess the fun begins.  We were warned as we pulled into site that the monkeys are quite bad here, so close the bus windows and just always watch your stuff outside.  Well there were like 50 of them in the camp site and they all looked very cheeky!!!! 

We all got a tent between the 2 of us and given a demonstration on how to put it up.  It only took us less than 10 minutes to get the whole thing up and bolted, so not too bad for a first attempt, even if we did have Julius helping us!    The tent would have to be 2.5mx2.5m and we have also been supplied with a mattress that seems thick enough to have a comfortable sleep on.  I will let you know about that tomorrow!  So time to rip out the new sleeping bag, the new pillow, which is now inflated and my sleep sheet that I have been carrying the last 2 for the last 3 months, and to think I was going to post my pillow home from Morocco 3 weeks ago.  Thanks Susan for making me keep it.  So while all that was happening lunch was getting prepared by group B, so when that was ready we had a great spread of sandwich fillers on fresh bread with a banana and orange cordial.  It was a great lunch and it hit the spot.  One of the gals had a banana stolen right out of her hand from a monkey that snuck up behind her the cheeky devil!

So we got some free time till 3pm when we all loaded back onto the truck for a safari of Lake Nakuru National Park.  The roads are quite dusty, but our first stop was on the lake itself where there were literally thousands of Flamingos and Pelicans on the edge of the water.  No exaggeration at all, I’m talking thousands.  We were going to get out at one point but saw buffalo in the water as well so deemed the area not too safe, so we drove a little further up the lake and got out of the truck to get a little closer to the birds and get some photos.  At first smell it smelt like the beach, but as we moved further along it smelt like crap, as you would expect with a million birds I suppose.  It’s hard to explain but there were groups of birds flying together and landing in the water, it looked so awesome as they were only centimeters above the water and they looked so graceful. It really was pretty magic to see.

Back into the truck and out to find some more animals.  We were lucky to see white rhino, water bucks, impala, Thompson gazelle, zebra, baboons, and wart hogs    

So for the first day of tour, and our first safari drive, I have to say we were quite lucky and it was a very productive afternoon.  We were out in the park for about 3 hours and it went so quick when you are trying to spot animals.  I have been carrying a pair of binoculars for the last 3 months as well and I left them back in the bloody tent, oh well I will have to remember to pull them out for tomorrow; lucky Afke shared hers with me!!  I have changed the battery in my big camera already, so I hope that I get enough juice out of my second battery to last me.  If not, I have my small camera to use with a backup battery for that, so hopefully that will get me through till I get to a power point in the next day or so.

Back to camp and a chance to get some last things done before the sun went down.  Dinner was getting prepared as we arrived and it smelt delicious.  I used this time to get my big backpack out of its’ home and have it divided up for the next few days, which in turn also helped getting it back into the locker as it wasn’t as big.  Woo Hoo!!!!!  The monkeys are now gone, as they are nocturnal, so we won’t see them again till the morning – the cheeky buggers!

With the sun gone, the head lamps have come out.  I felt like a goose when I bought it at Anaconda all those months ago and when I showed Shelly and the girls they couldn’t stop laughing – but it was probably the best thing I have bought for this trip.  My little torch that I paid nearly $40 for has also come in handy and it also converts to a little lantern, so this is probably the second best item. 

Before dinner you have to do the 3 wash cycle.  You use soap and wash your hands in the first bowl, the second bowl has Dettol and water and the last bowl is the rinse bowl.  Then you are now allowed to have food.  Dinner was a 2 course affair with a vegetable soup for starters and chicken and vegetables for main.  What Liss does with the food with the limited facilities she has is amazing.  We have been broken into 4 groups to help with the chores, and my group is group A and we had the washing up tonight.  This means we pretty much had to wash everyone bowls, plates and cutlery.  This is also a 3 wash cycle, with the washing liquid in the first bowl, the Dettol and water in the second and the plain water bowl for the third to wash all the suds off.  Then to dry everything, we don’t use tea towels as this is not so hygienic and to get them washed on the trip would be a pain, so in comes the Flapping System.  Basically you have something in each hand and you ‘flap’ till the items are dry.  It looks hilarious and we did the same system on my Scandi trip a few years ago.  Everyone helps out, as the pots, pans and chopping boards etc…… also have to be washed and dried this way.  We call it the flap zone; steer clear of the flap zone……

So once all the duties were finished, we sat around the camp fire on our camp chairs, had a quick meeting on what tomorrow entailed, a few stories and then we were all in bed by 9.30pm!  We were warned that animals have been to known to come into the camp, so we were advised to get your toilet calls done before going to bed, as it can be dangerous to go to the toilet at night, and if you need to go, you need to go with your tent buddy, and shine your torch around the camp ground before setting out to see if you can see any eyes reflect before leaving the safety of the tent.  9.30pm sounds crazy, but we have an early start tomorrow with an alarm for 5.30am, breakfast at 6am and then another game drive at 6.30am…..  Yes this is why we are in bed early. 

MEETING MY NEW FAMILY INTREPID STYLE

WEATHER: Beautiful and 24C

HIGHTLIGHT OF THE DAY: Meeting my new family

BUMMER OF THE DAY: Can’t think of anything today

BUYS OF THE DAY: A Kivi Club sandwich at the hotel for 4.50AUD

Well as I thought, I didn’t make breakfast.  After thinking about it I had been on the go for just under 24 hours.  4 hours prior to my flight from London, a four hour flight from London to Cairo, a 5 hour layover in Cairo, a 4.5 hour flight from Cairo to Nairobi, also taking into account the 50 minutes we sat on the plane and the 1.5 hours to get bags, visa and to the transfer in Nairobi.  No wonder why I am stuffed. 

I had set my alarm for 9.30am (only getting 3.5 hours sleep) but I just couldn’t open my eyes, so I turned off my alarm and went back to sleep.  The phone rang at 10.30am telling my new roomie was on her way up, as there is only one key, to make sure I let her in.  Well here I introduce my new roomie Afte (pronounced Arfte) and she is from Holland.  Afte has been here a week and just finished climbing Mt Kenya yesterday!  Awesome effort.  Anyway she is super nice and I think we are going to get along great.

I slept till around 3pm and decided I should get something to eat.  So I showered and changed and ate lunch downstairs, which had an outside section amongst leafy tress and green shrubs, under an umbrella.  It was just awesome to have some time out and the temperature was perfect.  Afte joined me for a drink after loading some pictures on FB and we just chilled there till our meeting we had at 6pm. 

There are 3 tours leaving tomorrow, so we were checking everyone out, wondering if they were going to be on out trip or not. So there was a mass congregation of people at 6pm all trying to work out where they had to be for their respective pre-tour meeting.  We have 22 in our group and we all look pretty much the same age except for 3 who would be classified senior travellers.  There are a handful of people who have just finished the 40 day Cape Town to Nairobi (which is the one I am doing but in reverse) and now doing the 16 Gorillas and Chimps.  Julius is our guide for the next 15 days and so far he seems okay.  He ran through a few of the main points for our trip, which included the impact of plastic bags and bottles on the trip.  Intrepid supply us with a canvas bag to use for shopping and stuff so we don’t have to use plastic bags and apparently Rwanda are quite anal about the plastics and their environment, and they have been known to check the trucks as we cross the border and making Intrepid get rid of plastic bags and bottles before they are allowed to enter.  There are a few animal rules we need to learn about, but Julius will expand on them as we go, the facilities at some of the camps are basic but we should know this already from the trip notes and we also had to pay out local payment of 1220USD.  The kitty money only went up 2 days ago, as all the National Park fees have increased from the 1^st July by 60USD in total, so some people didn’t know about it and man there was uproar.  I felt sorry for Julius as he was only the messenger and to top it all off, they are quite strict that you cannot use USD notes that are dated before 2003.  If they are before this date no bank in Kenya will take these notes.  Tough country, picky on what notes they take – I wonder why that is?  Needless to say, people had notes prior to this, so there was some more uproar about this as well.  Poor Julius.  We will also see the camp roster tomorrow, as we are expected to help with cooking, washing, setting up and shopping.

Well the meeting only took an hour, so the group that had finished today had their farewell dinner to get to (7 of them in total) and there were 12 of us that caught taxi’s to a restaurant called Casablanca’s for an Italian meal for dinner.  It was a beautiful restaurant and my penne carbonara was only $8 for, easily, a 4 star restaurant.  I have a feeling that Africa may give Morocco a run for its money in the price of things.  So it was great to get to know the group a bit more, and I have a great vibe from the guys tonight.  So far there are 3 of us doing the whole 60 days.  Sean, Lisa and myself.  James is going through to Victoria Falls, which is 40 days, and there are 2 girls that are doing the 30 days to Tanzania.  So it looks like the tour is made into 4 different sections, so we will get a turnover of 4 different groups as such.  It is also good to know there are also other ‘non campers’ so it will be an interesting experience for everyone.

So my new family looks pretty cool and I am really excited to start this portion of my trip.  We head out tomorrow at 7.20am, via a local school and to our final destination, Lake Nakuru.  With my first night in a tent, with my new sleeping bag, with my blow up pillow I have carried for the last 3 months, in the wild, with drop toilets and a new roomy.  Sounds interesting………   I am sure I will have some stories to tell, just from tomorrow night’s camp set up, and it sounds like we will have internet access every 3-4 days, so it may not be as primitive as we think. 

Tomorrow we head into the wilds of Africa.

WAKA WAKA ITS TIME FOR AFRICA

WEATHER: In transit all day

HIGHTLIGHT OF THE DAY: My bag getting through check-in at 18.3kg - OMG

BUMMER OF THE DAY: Mt Flatulence

BUYS OF THE DAY: Not much bought today except food

WORD OF THE DAY: Are we there yet…..

When i booked my return transfer and told them i was leaving at 10.05am, you can imagine my surprise when the guy said your pickup time will be between 5.45-6.15am.  But when i thought about it, i have always told clients to be at Heathrow 3 hours prior, so accounting for additional pickups and traffic/ driving time it really doesn't seem that absurd. At any rate it is always better to be early than have the stress of rushing and getting hot and bothered.

Having the extra time also helps for should anything unforeseen happen.  Take for example me this morning.  I am flying Egypt air - London, Cairo, to Nairobi.  I even checked this morning on my way out the door on the internet, Egypt Air departs from terminal 3. So my transfer drops me out the front, I wheel in my little trolley to the departures board to check which counter I need to head to and there is no Egypt Air flight on the board and no flights to Cairo, as I thought maybe it is a code share and they aren’t showing the MS ( Egypt air code) flight.  But it there were no flights to Cairo that was worrying me, and all the flights were listed till 12.30pm. Hmmmm okay, well I know it isn't a schedule change, as Chris is all over those and emails me as they come through and I am quite anal in making sure I update my itinerary, so there could only be one other reason and that it was i was at the wrong terminal AGAIN.  The good thing with London is everything is so well signed and posted, you would really have to be dill to not work your way around, out, or find a help desk of some sort anywhere you go.  In this instance the information counter was just to my left and I got a really helpful guy that said you are right it is a code share with British midlands and they depart from Terminal 1. Well of course they do.  I'm a travel agent and I have these issues, can you imagine how normal people cope with all the terminals.  The one thing I don't have is a printed itinerary from the reservation system which gives you the vital information on terminals, flight times and meals.  I always make sure clients have a copy of this purely for that information alone and I didn't print one for myself.  What a goose.  The good ending to this story is that terminal 3 and 1 are connected by an underground walkway, so I literally just had to catch the lift down, follow the signs and I was at terminal 1 within 10 minutes.  Problem averted and lucky I had the extra time.

Well the extra time also kicked in when I found British Midlands check-in.  The queue was, I would say 50 deep already at 7am.  But it is a bag drop queue for all their international destinations, so not only people on my flight.  There were people in the queue stressing that their flight was due to leave in an hour, people trying to push in etc... I even had to tell one lady where the queue started as she tried to muscle her way in front, as if it wasn't half obvious, as it had now grown to like 100 people.  No matter what language you speak, a queue is a queue and that in itself is one of those international signs that are not lost in translation.  Hit the back of the queue lady!!!!  It took me 40 minutes to get to the check-in counters and I am happy to report my bag only weighed 18.5kg!!!!!!  My bag has not been this light ever!  And that includes the sleeping bag that I was also able to fit into my backpack as well. SWEET...  So I am probably not too far off the mark that I have left 8kg at the hotel.  Yay me- I think i have come a long way with my packing and luggage since I left home on the 29th March- yes sir-ee.  I tried to snag a window seat on the flight to Cairo when I self-checked in, but they were already gone, but I got a window from Cairo to Nairobi.  When I was dropping my bag, I rechecked with the res agent and she said she see’s the same seat map I  do, but let me recheck and what do you know she miraculously found me window, thanks check-in chick, you've made my flight!!!!  I am transiting via Cairo, and apparently I will need to see my bag there, pass through customs and then pop it onto a conveyor belt to send it on its way to Nairobi.  It is the same system as when you first enter in to LA on your way to interior USA.  At least it is tagged all the way and I have my boarding pass all the way, so I’m fine with that system.

So for the first time ever, when I bought my Playbook, I got a tax back receipt, which entitles you to get 20% back off purchase over a certain amount.  As my Playbook was a substantial purchase I was entitled to get 99GBP back on the scheme.  Better than a poke in the eye and it makes my Playbook look that little bit cheaper.  Well after looking at the receipt, there was a 30GBP fee to come off, well I guess everyone wants a piece of the pie, 69GBP is still worth the procedure.  So you must have checked in before you can go to the tax office and you must also have the goods on you to show the customs guys.  So I went to the office on the check-in side before I passed security and he said he could do the little one, which was the 10 SD cards i had purchased, but I had to do the Playbook through the other tax office airside due to the refund amount once I had cleared security.  So security wasn't too bad here at terminal 3 and everyone seemed to know the procedure and we pretty much had no dumb arses in front of us.  So through to duty free and I go in search of the other tax office which I walked past twice before finding the corridor I had to go down.  They certainly don't make it easy for you, so I’m waiting in line behind an Asian man that wanted to claim the tax back on his accommodation, which if I heard correctly it has to be for business and you can, but not for personal travel.  That’s good to know, but the funny thing is, it was the same guy that served me check-in side and is now serving me airside, hello again, I’m back as directed and he stamped both my receipts and then I had to proceed to the Travelex counter down the other end of the duty free hall, where I could now collect my cash.  What a process, but at this point still worth the fluffing around.  So I waited my turn in the VAT line.  The guy in front of me had purchased something from Harrods that was 11,400GBP, firstly holy schmokes and secondly he got 1,400GBP back, totally worth it for him!!!! Well by the time Travelex also take their fee (of course) i was left with a balance of 56GBP.  Still nothing to sneeze at, but if you don’t spend over 500GBP on the scheme, by the time everyone’s cut of fees comes out I really don't think it would be worth the hassle, but that’s just my personal opinion.

I then had to do spot of duty free shopping.  Nothing to exciting unfortunately but as I had purchased a UK appliance, I now needed an adapter to convert my UK plug to South Africa.  I had been looking all over London all week for the UK to SA plug and no-one stocked it all.  Even the world wide adapters didn't have an African conversion on them.  The airport was my last resort otherwise once my Playbook went flat that would be it for 3 months!!!!!!!  It was the only one I needed to get as the place where I had bought my Playbook were nice enough to give me the Europe and USA plugs for free. Thanks Carphone Warehouse.  I found the plug no worries, though of course it comes in a two pack when I only needed one, but beggars can’t be chooses, but while I was looking I saw this worldwide adapter that converts appliances both ways all in one contraption a quarter of the size of what I am currently carrying.  So basically I can have an Australian gadget and plug it into a USA socket and then the next day I could have my UK gadget and plug it into a European socket. They all interchange on springs.  What a great idea, so I’m going to make sure it works and then post my old as the hills adapters back home.  Where ever I can save space I’m in.....  So that was my only duty free shopping experience I have done all trip, not terribly exciting but i guess it still counts.  Now could all this have been done if I hadn't got to the airport 3 hours before, I can tell you it would have been a rush if possible at all.  So I had time to grab something to eat for breakfast which I did nearer the gate, as there were no people at these eateries which meant no queue which meant no madness.  This is how to travel. 

We left 40 minutes late, apparently they were short staff on the ground, so they were still loading the plane with freight as we waited.  The captain made out it was still our bags coming, but I could see out the window and it was definitely barrels of freight.  From experience they can make up more than an hour in the air, and I have over 4 hours layover in Cairo, no need to panic.

The British Midland plane is an Airbus A321 with a configuration of 3x3.  The aircraft looks new and has in seat TV and quite a large business class section.  I do have to mention, I think this is my 15 flight and I am embarrassed to say I had to ask for an extension seat belt, oh my goodness total embarrassment.  I took comfort that the hostee was walking around with a bunch of extension belts over his shoulder, so I think in my defense that they just are smaller seatbelts and nothing to do with my size.  Maybe the plane was built for skinny people by skinny people. SURPRISE we're not all Elle McPherson.  My whole row has one, so at least it just wasn’t me!!  When we had just taken off they were making the general announcements telling you where the toilets were and you’re not allowed to congregate around the toilets etc.. They also included that there was complimentary drinks for the whole flight.  First time I have heard this announced over the PA system, I think as we are flying to a Muslim country, with 70% of the aircraft Muslim passengers, they probably think the bar is pretty safe!!

The gentleman I am sitting next to is a little robust and he seems to have a little bit of a flatulence problem aka farts, and I am telling you they are killers.  He could kill a small village with them they are that lethal, and just to really test us in this row, we got omelet, sausage and BAKED BEANS for breakfast..........ahhhhhhhhhhhhh - maybe I should use my oxygen mask if it continues or gets worse ha ha ha.... I crack myself up.  It could be a long 4.5 hour flight.

Well I’m using my Playbook on the plane at the moment and I think the purpose I bought it for is going to work out just fine.  I will just need to keep an eye on the battery life, but this is going to save me time in the evenings as my plan will be to type over lunches, bus rides etc.  There is a lot of driving time on the first 16 days of the trip, some days are up to 8-9 hours and it will be much easier than booting up my notebook.  I am a smart cookie and still telling myself that I needed this purchase. I re-read my trip notes yesterday to make sure I have everything and there were only two things missing.  One is my vaccination booklet from the travel doctor.  I turned all my stuff inside out yesterday and I have a feeling it may have been posted home from Morocco.  So I have emailed Dr. Deb to see if they can email me a copy of my yellow fever certificate, as I am pretty sure I need to have proof that I have had the injection. I wasn't sure if they would give that information via email, but they have replied and asked for some more info to identify myself, so hopefully when I land in Nairobi I will have it sitting on my email.  What a goose, I had it and didn't need it for 3 months, now when I need it and I’ve sent it home.  Boofhead.

So after 4 hours, Mt Flatulence seemed to have controlled his cheeks.  Maybe the baked beans counter acted somewhere in there, but either way I am not going to argue.  We arrived into Cairo at 4.30pm, and the signs for customs and transit passengers pointed the same way, so I followed it all the way to the customs hall and then there was a sign that said transit passengers branching off to the left.  So I thought it strange, if I did have to see my bag and pass through customs, why would they have a transit sign?  There was a transfer desk that was manned, so I thought I would double check with them before I went through.  Well she looked at me like a crazy lady.  I showed her my boarding pass that had the baggage tag, which I could see was tagged all the way through to Nairobi and she asked who told me this incorrect information, and I said the BMI check-in lady.  So lucky I checked, which was good I didn’t have to tackle the customs queue, I got security stamped on my boarding pass and my bag scanned and I was back up in the departures area with 4 hours to kill.  I ended up finding BK in the eatery and they had free Wi-Fi, so I made myself comfortable and I sat there for the 3.5 hours, till I had to make my way to my gate.  Cairo airport is surprisingly good, it seems like it may have had a makeover the last couple of years, as there are plenty of food outlets and heaps of duty free shops as well.  It could have been a lot worse that is for sure.

Well you can’t take the security measures away from the Cairo Airport.  We had our bags scanned and passport and boarding passes checked to get into the lounge, when we were called to board they checked us again with passports and boarding passes to get onto the walkway to the plane and then at the door of the plane they checked our passports and boarding passes again AND then as we got on the plane the Hostees checked our boarding pass.  Talk about a security check.  I have to say it looks like Africans might board planes like the Americans.  It was a shambles, with people having bags that were too big to fit in the overheads or because people had large bags all the room was taken.  It took some minutes but everyone finally got accommodated.  There was a Jamboree of Italian scouts (mixed gender) and I sat next to one of them and next to her was a German guy who didn’t stop talking to the scout all flight.  I wanted to shoot him – he was talking crap and was quite rude to the Hostees.  Egypt Air had a dated plane, it was in good condition, but there were the drop TV’s, the seats a little snug, but not too much to make it super uncomfortable and I am happy to report the seatbelts were big enough.  In the safety message they still mentioned Walkman’s as portable devices and flashed up pictures of PDA’s that looked like they were 10 years old.  Let’s hope the plane is more up to date than their TV presentation.

So after a delayed departure of 50 minutes, waiting on the plane for transferring luggage again, we left at 10.30pm for Nairobi for the 4.5 hour flight duration.  We arrived into Nairobi at 4.05am and this airport is what you expect an African airport to look like.  I am happy to report that this will be the last airport I see till the 17^th September and I can’t say I am too disappointed about that.  Just going to be covering a lot of mileage on the road now between now and then.

You can get a Kenyan visa on arrival for 50USD.  Due to the time, there was just out flight, so I high tailed it and filled in my visa application form before the hordes of passengers arrived.  He kept calling me Ruth, and he has scrawled Ruth on the visa sticker, but unless you know what it actually says it looks pretty un-readable – either way, there was no worries getting this visa. 

The bags too FOREVER coming off the plane, and I was starting to worry that maybe I did have to see my bag in Cairo, but after about 50 minutes, my backpack was in sight.  Phew.  My 18.3kg backpack at that.  I still can’t believe the weight of that bag, it makes me wonder if I left too much behind or forgotten something?  Oh well I guess we will soon find out!  My transfer was there patiently waiting for me, and the drive to the hotel only took around 15 minutes.  It hard to tell what a place looks like in the dark, just a lot of shadows and lights.  I haven’t really seen much of the hotel either.  I checked in, purchased some internet and was showered and in bed by 5.45am.  I’ll get some sleep and then see how I feel when I wake up.  Breakfast finishes at 10am, so I will see if I can make that, but I have a feeling that I won’t.

Welcome to Africa!