Adventures in Africa

On July 6^th, 1998, Tali and I arrive to the last continent we have never visited together - Africa. I'm eager to have the first impression of the continent - or in other words, to use the toilets, but fail - it's locked.

Outside are waiting for us the "Indian-like" Rolls-Roys black taxis. Nobody is going to fool us here, as we are well prepared with up-to-date information we got in Israel from recent travelers to Africa. After a small bargaining we're heading to Mama Roches - the Israeli point in Nairobi. On the way we are impressed by what we can see of the vegetation (it's 4 O'clock in the morning now!). It resembles a bit travelling in the Arava valley in Israel. 15 minutes drive and we are at the iron gates of Mama Roches. In our guidebook it's written: "Mama Roches is a legend amongst travelers". The mama is a ~70 years old white lady who has a modest house on a ~1,000 square meters grounds. She has a hut consisting of 4 rooms with about 6 beds in each. The rooms and its iron beds look like taken from the IDF (Israeli Defense Force), including the mess. On the grounds several tents are pitched, and although there are remains of last night dinner (spaghetti with tomato sauce is spread all around - yak!), there is no sign of somebody awaken here. We are not surprised - it's only 5a.m. now... We choose a bed and go to sleep. Tomorrow we have a busy day...

Our plans for the following days are such:

1. First we want to go out of Nairobi as soon as possible. We heard too many bad stories about this town. Apparently it's the most dangerous town in east Africa, and certainly NOT a good place to start a visit in Africa.
2. We want to go to Lake Naivasha, a nice and peaceful rural area, several hours drive from Nairobi. There are several interesting things to do there including bicycle riding along the lake shore, visiting Hells Gate National Park, one of the 2 safaris in Kenya which you can visit by foot and of course, laying around in a lazy mood.
3. After resting a bit we would like to climb some of east Africa's highest volcanoes: Mt. Elgon 4,321m' (Uganda), Mt. Kenya 5,199m' (guess where...), Mt Meru 4,565m' (Tanzania) and Ol Doinyo Lengai 2,878m' - The mountain of the Masai gods (Tanzania).

This plan, including game drives in some of the safaris, should take us around 11/2 months. As we are here for 3 months, we have 11/2 more months without a plan what to do. It's the first time we are doing such a vague planning, and we like it. It's more adventurous...

It's 7a.m. sharp, and loud Israeli music awakes us up. These young guys, until not long ago soldiers in the IDF, are apparently preparing themselves for a kind of a roll call... unwillingly we wake up, and get the hottest news about Africa from them. In order to arrive to Naivasha we need to take a matatu (a Swahili word which means a van which serves as a mini bus) to the terminal and there change for a matatu to Naivasha. The terminal is a dangerous place where we have to be very careful. With the first matatu (the one to the terminal) everything goes smoothly: we put our rucksacks in the baggage compartment and go on board. In the second matatu there isn't any place in the baggage compartment, so we pay for 3 seats: Tali, the baggage, and me. We sit in comfort in our row and wait for the matatu to full up. I write "our row" since there are 3 sits in a row and we occupy them all. The matatu starts to be full, and the driver asks us not to occupy the entire row. We say that we paid for all the sits in the row and he says that we paid only for 3 sits. Is there any difference between our versions? Well, yes there is. We discover that in a 3 sits row there is a place for 4-5 persons, and that the driver's version is the correct one... And like this, in a van where there are 5 rows of 3 sits each, us, the 25 passengers (excluding the driver and the money collector!), leave for Naivasha.

The clever reader may object that even if 5 persons sit in every row, there is a place for only 23 passengers, one driver and one money collector. Well, you're partly right: the first row is only partly occupied. The driver and only 3 passenger sit there...

Now you should be even more perplexed: we are left with 4 rows and 23 persons. Yes, it's correct: 5 passengers sit in each of the remaining 4 rows, and the last 2 passengers and the money collector should stand in the van or hang out from the windows...

Needless to say that on the way a policeman stops us to collect a bribe from the driver. It's a system from which everybody enjoys - the policeman obviously, and the driver too, since he pays the policeman much less than the fare he got from the extra 10 passengers...