Africa Part 8 of 10

After lunch, a few of our team walked back down to the Curios to do some more bartering. Some of us stayed back to get our suitcases ready, because the plan was this:

We would pack a small bag with just the things we needed for the Mara. The rest of our stuff would be packed in our other suitcases and would be taken directly to Nairobi, and someone was coming to pick them up at 1pm. We would then meet up with those suitcases on Thursday, and have time to rearrange them before heading to the airport and out of the country.

Well, plans changed a bit, and we found out we no longer needed to have them ready by 1pm. So a couple of us decided to take bota botas down to meet the others at the Curios shops.

I've mentioned these a few times; I guess I should expand on them a bit. So here is a little background on the Bota Bota, mainly because I only know a little. But don't worry; what I lack in actual knowledge, I will not hesitate to make up. A bota bota (remember, pronounced like boata boata) is a bike with a cushion on the rack over the back wheel, thus creating a "back seat" if you will. For 20 shillings (about a quarter) you can have these guys give you a ride across town. Now in the interest of comfort, they do have little footrests near the back wheel axle and sort of a mini handle bar under the drivers' seat for stability. We saw these things weaving in and out of traffic, sometimes into traffic and we actually saw one under traffic.

I saw a lot of passenger-less Bota Botas, but also saw a lot of people using this mode of transportation. A lot of ladies in dresses would ride sidesaddle and not even hang on or have their feet on the footrest. I saw a few bota botas carrying a couple of people, a lady and a small child. Some of the bikes were more set up for cargo. They would strap stuff on the rack and deliver it elsewhere. Some of the items included cases of coke; an old bench seat out of a van, there was even a pig strapped to one. He was squealing so he might have been

the one that went "weee weee weee all the way home", but I'm betting he was the little piggy that "went to market".

We now return you to your regularly scheduled sarcastic account: As you may recall, we were about to ride bota botas. We went out to the street and flagged down a couple bota-botas and off we went. My guy spoke some English so we were talking:

ME: So do you do this all day long?
BB: Yeah.
ME: Have you ever been hit by a car?
BB: Yeah.
ME: What!? Can I drive?
BB: (laughing) Yeah. (But he kept going)
ME: No really, if you pull over, I'll pedal and you ride.
BB: OK.

So he pulls over and stops, as does the other bike. I had a bit of a rough start, I'm sure it was just because he was flailing around back there. But, for whatever reason I started wobbling and ended up in the weeds beside the road, then was able to get back onto the road way. I had that old African classic running through my head..."Rock the Bota, don't rock the bota baby. Rock the bota, don't tip the bota over." Luckily no cars were around because I weaved around on the street a little before I was able to gain complete control. This bike is set up a bit different than I am used to.

1) The handlebars and seat are set up so that you ride totally upright.

2) The seats are kind of interesting, it wasn't that uncomfortable, but was sort of scary looking. It was like a strip of leather (or vinyl) stretched over some metal rods and the front had this wire-coil-thing that was kinda like a small saddle horn.

3) These bikes were all just one speed, which made it harder to get started. And

4) There was a Kenyan guy on the back laughing hysterically.

Well, just when you thought we, being white, couldn't stand out any more than we had been all week, there we were, two white guys driving a couple of Kenyans on bota-botas. Everyone was staring, laughing, pointing. Well we made it up the slight incline and to the top of the last hill. Here we had a couple of blocks down the hill ending at a stop sign and a crossroad. Directly in front of us, across from the stop sign, were the curios shops. I reached for the hand brakes, which are just a couple of bent metal rods that pull some old pieces of tire out against the rim. They didn't work quite as I expected them to. So there I was, speeding down this hill, heading straight for cross traffic and the shops, squeezing frantically on the brakes. I yelled out "OK, dude, your turn to drive", but there was no time for an in-flight switch.

There was not a lot of vehicle traffic, so my concern turned from being a hood ornament on a Peugeot, to ramming through one of these curios shops. I quickly did a survey and some minor calculations to figure out which one looked like it had the cheapest and less breakable stuff, in case they employ that silly little "you break it, you buy it" mentality. On the left, were a lot of soapstone carvings, which could be bad. On the right, a bunch of wooden carvings. The right side, other than the tusks and horns, looked to be the best bet. Before I got close enough to take aim at going between the two, the brakes started to take effect and we began slowing down. Hakuna Matata, I pulled in and dismounted amongst the stares. No broken bones, no broken curios.

The next day, we were up early and headed to the Mara. We had two vans; someone had the bright idea of having a girl van and a guy van. It didn't really matter to me, as long as we didn't have a chicken rolling around on the floor (by the way, we left the chicken for the KBC pastor). Once we got out of town, we passed a lot of cornfields. With the Kenyan climate, they can grow corn year-round.

Eventually, the cornfields subsided and we started to see tea fields. We had climbed a lot in altitude and everything was very green and lush. Tea bushes are just a couple feet tall, so we could see them across the rolling hills. We also saw a bunch of people picking the leaves. Apparently, they go along and just pick the top few leaves, and then they go back through about a week later doing the same thing.
It's like a vicious cycle.

The roads were not well kept. There were potholes and it just wasn't very smooth. We got a flat tire and consequently pulled over. I whipped out my AAA card to see if I had coverage here just south of Mudsuck, Kenya. Nope. The spare was underneath all of our luggage. So out came the bags, off came the tire and on went the spare. I was a bit nervous after inspecting the spare that was just put on. It was in very bad shape. I'm talking; no tread. This tire should have been retired long ago and by now it should have been showing up on the bota bota break systems.

The bags were reloaded and we continued on with our new racing slick. After 3 or 4 hours (I didn't wear my watch all week, so I wasn't really sure how long anything took), we headed off the paved road and onto a private dirt/gravel road to the Lodge. We continued on for another hour, passing little huts and people along the way. They all stopped and waved.

When we got to the resort entrance, I couldn't help but notice the large electric fence around the perimeter. It was a bit eerie and I quickly found myself looking toward the dashboard to see if there were ripples in the water cup. We were dropped off at the lodge, and as we walked in, they gave us warm moist hand towels to freshen up with. That was especially nice after traveling as long as we did on sub par roads.


The accommodations were nice. They were permanent tents, with cement floors and a bathroom with running water (although we still couldn't drink it). The "bathroom" was separated with a zippered partition across the tent. We were instructed to zip our tent down all the way every time we left, to keep the monkeys out. All the tents sat high

above the meandering river and it didn't take long for us to see some hippos hanging around.

After lunch we had our first safari ride. It was just awesome, very exciting. We saw ostrich, gazelles and warthogs. We saw many zebras just standing around eating. We saw a lot of wildebeest. They have to be the ugliest animal ever created. They look like a mix between a half dozen animals along with some facial features from John Kerry. They are one of the few animals that look better after a couple days as road kill then they ever did alive. We saw a couple pretty young wildebeest. I am here to tell you, those were the nastiest babies I have ever seen. Next to these guys, the warthog seemed warm and cuddly. I wondered why so many of them walked single file, but now I think it was because the best view of a wildebeest is from behind.

Then the sighting of the day was a female lion with some cubs. She didn't really do much, but was fascinating to watch. The lions blended into the surroundings very well. While she was standing there breathing, you could see how big her teeth were. After watching her for a while, we went back inside the resort compound.

After a shower, dinner and devotions, everyone headed to bed. Well, my normal pre-bed routine was to download pictures to the laptop, recharge all batteries, and write in my journal. The tent was kind of small so I crawled into bed to do the afore mentioned routine. Whoa! Was I surprised, as I put my feet under the covers, they ran into something very warm. I thought maybe someone left the zipper up and a monkey got in. Something has been sleeping in my bed, and it's still there! Anyway, as it turned out, the staff had come by to turn down the beds and they had put a hot water bottle in each bed. After learning it wasn't a bald monkey, I realized just how nice it was. The weather was much cooler at night there than it had been in Kisumu, and now we were in a tent, so the heat from the water bottle was great. But unfortunately, I didn't sleep to well. I was cold and the hippos were making strange noises all night.

The next day was a full day safari drive, so we got up early and loaded into the vans. The vans both had the hard tops popped up, so we could stand and have great views of the savannah and animals. I stood all day long. The roads and/or fields we crossed were anything but smooth. So, although standing provided the best experience, it also came with its share of bumps and bruises. The rough ride also made taking pictures and video worthless until we came to a complete stop. Some animals wouldn't stick around much, but most just went about their business and were still there when we would move on. The scenery was incredible, the openness, the flat top trees, which were few and far between. And the animals, we saw so many:

Elephants - We saw plenty of these at different times. There were some very young ones also. They were magnificent to watch.


Giraffe - Now these are interesting creatures. They sort of glided across the fields. They stand for most of their life, because, with those little wimpy legs and a large, seemingly awkward body, it's hard for them to get back on their feet once they are down. On the upside, they can neck all night long.

Ostrich - We didn.t see too many of these, but they looked like they could run very fast.

Zebra - Thousands of these, they were all over. I don't know how they kept so clean, the stripes were very defined. These are also fascinating, I'm not really sure why.

Wildebeest - Tens of thousands of these homely creatures.

Hartebeest - Yeah, go look them up.

Topi - You may need to look these up also, I liked their color and they had a real shiny sheen.

Hyena - These just looked mean and mischievous, not really tough to anybody but themselves, but they just looked like trouble. They were kind of like the teens of the savannah.

Crocodiles - We saw many different sized crocs, from about 3 feet long to maybe 8 or 9 feet. They just didn't seem real friendly.

Monkeys - The monkeys weren't as big as other animals and were a little harder to spot. I saw one sitting atop an acacia tree out on safari. We saw a few others, including one that walked by outside the window as we were eating breakfast.

Hippos - Most of them were in the water, but I did see a couple walking around. They don't seem to be real active, just bobbing around in the brown river. They do wiggle their ears, just like those on the 'Jungle Cruise' in Disneyland; I told you those were real!

Gazelles - There were a couple varieties, the most abundant one was the Thompson Gazelle. They liked to hang around with the zebras. They were cute little animals that didn't seem to be able to stop their tails from wagging. They wagged very rapidly. It was like somebody wound them up too tight.

Impala - The animal, not the Chevy.

African Buffalo - Very tough looking. They would just stand and stare you down. They have a very wide, solid head and horns. If they got mad, they could turn our van into a minivan without too much effort.


Lion - Male and Female. This was awesome to see, the male was so regal, even though he was just slackin' in the shade.

Mongoose - Weasley little guy.

Dik-Dik - Speaking of little guys, this is the smallest antelope in Africa and I would imagine, the World. They were very little and kind of cute. The ones we saw were either 1) Female or 2) Girly Men. They reminded me of Rudolf's girl friend, Clairise.

Cheetah - She was watching some cubs nad she looked very fast and built for speed.

We also saw a variety of birds, big, small, pretty, and ugly. There was one group of birds that had big fleshy type bag thingys hanging down from their necks. These were big birds and the "flabby thing" was probably 6 - 8 inches down. It just swayed and bounced as they hopped around.