KWA HERI TANZANIA, JAMBO KENYA

IN REHANA'S WORDS

Monday, 29 July

I didn’t give Arusha a chance; I retreated at the Masaai campsite on the outskirts of the CBD and licked my wounds for two days. Bill Clinton described Arusha as the Geneva of Africa. Don’t know what he inhaled when he said that. 
The little I saw seemed depressingly similar to other towns in Tanzania, except that the gravel roads the chickens were scratching in were a lot cleaner. I didn’t really see enough of the place to pass judgement and I haven’t a single photo to share.

Even if I had the strength, Jules and I were put off exploring by Mike and Carol’s tales of the city. They were subjected to racial abuse for spending money and at Indian-owned shop and a beggar ripped of their car’s side mirror.

Jules and I hung out at the camp’s restaurant, where the pool was free and so was the wifi – although intermittent at best. Pool is a great equaliser: even when there are language barriers, we all know the rules and get it on immediately. We generally play doubles and against each other. Soon as our partners realise we can actually play, we make friends. Problem is you only meet men at pool tables.

On Thursday we headed for the Ngorogoro crater. Because we couldn’t afford more than 24 hours in the conservation area, we camped at Doffa’s Safari Camp near the gate the night before. Driving to Mto Wa Mbu, the town closest to Ngorogoro, was hellish and interesting. The road was under construction at least a third of the way so we choked dust on rutted diversions while we drove deep into Maasai territory.

I saw my first Maasai male in Mbeya, a few hours after we crossed the border into Tanzania a month ago, swivelled to stare at the tall, skinny man draped in red checked cloth. They’ve been ubiquitous in every campsite, hired as askaris to protect us or being loverboys for mzungu women. They’ve been on every beach in Tanzania and at every market selling tourist souvenirs. 
We’ve played pool with a few, some surprisingly effeminate despite the knives and knopkieries sheathed on their leather belts. We’ve tried not to stare at the circles carved into their cheeks and the huge holes gouged into their earlobes.

All the way to Mto Wa Mbu I saw little boys in red cloth on the side of the highway, some as young as five or six with nothing but a stick to herd the thousands of shillings worth of family wealth while trucks and busses hurtled towards them. I wouldn’t trust many of the thirty year olds I know with my most treasured possessions, and I certainly wouldn’t want to give my grandson a stick and responsibility for fifty cows and bulls in a year or two.

In the village we saw women in traditional dress for the first time. Now I know why Maasai men are so attractive, they are born of drop-dead gorgeous women.  Equally stately, the women carry their heads high despite the masses of ornamentation draped on their heads, ears (shimmery silver earrings) and around their necks (lots of beaded necklaces and little purses).

Doffa campsite was typical. It had grass (a major plus), the toilet broke (although there was an eastern one available) and the showers could do with a few tiles (but the water was hot and plentiful). There were two mosques within earshot, but their hafeez had good voices and rhythm. When we left, one of the staffers who had done nothing for us stood at the side of the driveway with his hand outstretched.

Ngorogoro Crater was gobsmackingly gobsmacking. I can’t find words to do justice to it. You try, look at the photo and see what words work:

We stood on the lip of the crater, surrounded by wazungu from all over the world, every one of them with a camera, and stared out. I had expected it to be an exceptional landscape but when it is all that fills your eyes it’s quite dizzying. 
Of course you also stare at the two Asian women making a peace sign while one of them points a cellphone at their faces, and the sulky American teenager who doesn’t want to pose with his mother. There’s no escaping wazungu in the Ngorogoro Conservation area.

The place is overrun by safari vehicles driving wazungu from one park to another – Ngorogoro is linked to the Serengeti and the Maasai Mara – at high speeds on roads sappurated with gravel ruts.

The safari vehicles throw up huge clouds of dust as they roar towards and past you. By the time their cloud clears the herd of giraffe you stopped to admire have disappeared. I gloated a little when we came across one of them that had overtaken us at speed with a flat puncture. Won’t do that again, our car wouldn’t start next time I tried. Jules quickly diagnosed a battery terminal shaken loose, Mike was the mechanic and we were on our way a few minutes later.

There was wildebeest and flamingo down below in the crater (another $200 could get us a better view than our binoculars offered), and plenty of giraffe in the park. But the most ubiquitous animals were herds of cows, donkeys and goats being herded across the desolate landscape. I don’t believe I’ve seen herds of donkeys before. Definitely have never paid for that privilege before.

Each herd had the requisite small boy in cloth with stick. Some of them had white paint on their black faces and parked themselves on the side of the road. The wazungu, who sped past the animals, stopped to take photos with the boys. Wonder how much they paid for each pic? 
We also saw car-park quantities of safari vehicles outside the kraals in the reserve where wazungu paid extra for an authentic interaction with “the people who had roamed the ancient landscape for centuries” (said slowly in a Richard Attenborough voice).

Why drive at speed past landscape like this?

And this?

Simba campsite at Ngorogoro was my final straw. We paid $30 dollars each to camp on a sloped, cow-shit infested field. The toilets (the little I saw of it and according to Carol’s reports) were foul. There were about twelve toilets for a campsite that accommodated around 200 people. There was no hot water and it was freezing on the lip of the crater.

I took one look at some of the ablutions and lost it a little. Walked away shouting loudly, “One more day in Tanzania! One more day for fuck you mzungu! That’s what they say. Fuck you mzungu!”. For the first time on this trip, we took refuge in our cars until it was time to go to bed (around 7.30pm).

We were up at 5.30am, packed up our tents with frozen fingers and set off to the Oldupai Gorge, where Louis and Mary Leakey found the hominid fossils helps prove (Julia scoffs and says it suggests, maybe)  that humans originated in Africa.

It was worth getting up early. We stopped to look at the misty dawn in the crater and there was no one else around. We drove at our pace to the gorge and didn’t encounter another car. We had the viewpoint at the gorge to ourselves where we brewed coffee and had muesli with fresh fruit, yoghurt and honey.

After admiring the Leakey’s work at the museum and listening to a lecture on the site, we decided not to hike into the gorge. The place was filling up with wazungu, it was time to leave. 
We stopped for one last look at the crater, where clouds were dropping down the lip in a drapery that made Table Mountain’s tablecloth pale in comparison.

That’s it. We can leave Tanzania now. One last night at Doffa’s campsite and then it’s a hop to Arusha and a skip across the border. Mike suggested on our last night that the reason we feel so negative about Tanzania is that the travelling had been hard in the country. 
We've been in Tanzania for 40 days and the longest he and Carol had stayed anywhere was three nights. Jules and I were luckier, we put down anchors for four nights in Dar and four in Stone Town. Mike was right; we’d had too many consecutive days of tent up at sunset and down the next morning.

Unfortunately, there hadn’t been many places in Tanzania that made us want to linger longer. We’ve seen exceptional natural beauty but few of the places we stayed offered us sufficient wazungu amenities to make a long stay bearable. Those that did were far too expensive for our budgets. We’re exhausted and Tanzania’s tourist economy made us so.

FINAL THOUGHTS ON TANZANIA

1.     Their roads are foul and we visited at a time that they were trying to fix some. We had to drive along rutted diversions for hours alongside pothole-infested highways being repaired at snail’s pace. They’ve been fixing the highway between Dar es Salaam and Mtwara in the south for 50 years and they’re still not done.

2.     They are obsessed with speed bumps. Where the highways have been restored to pristine tarmac, there’s at least four high and wide speedbumps in every village lining it – and there’s a village every five kilometres in places. They put speed bumps on their diversions which are all rutted and corrugated and seldom allow for speeds of more than 40km an hour.

3.     Tanzanians work incredibly hard and for very little return. They’re stumped by a lack of technology and widespread shortages of electricity and water. The lack of basic technology like wheelbarrows makes many tasks incredibly physical. They all have cellphones though and, boy, do they talk!

I did see one wheelbarrow in 40 days in Tanzania

4.     The tourism economy caters largely for wealthy Germans and Americans and they come in droves, especially in July. There seems to be very few local tourists. We met far fewer foreign backpackers in Tanzania than in Mozambique and Malawi. Most of them were packed into trucks converted into overland vehicles. Poor sods, we evertook many of them on our long journeys to cover short distances.

5.     While I never once encountered a Tanzanian with an irrational hatred of foreigners akin to South African xenophobes, there is a wazungu economy. Produce sellers at the market hesitate when asked a price before naming one that makes their neighbours giggle. They don’t care that their neighbours’ currencies don’t fare well against the US dollar. Most of the places we’ve stayed and many where we’ve eaten have charged US dollars. At a restaurant in a lodge at Ngorogoro crater they tried to charge us $25 each for a cheese sandwich and a cup of coffee.

6.     Our communication with people was hampered by our limited Swahili and the poor English skills in Tanzania. One of the stand-out people we met was Sophia at Kikha Lodge in Tunduru. At that stage we had about 10 Swahili words and she had no English but we really digged each other.

7.     Their loud religious wailing – Muslim and Christian – would be prohibited in most countries on the grounds of public nuisance. It is unnerving to enter a shop with a huge photo of the Ayatollah Khomeini or see Muammar Gadaffi on the back of a taxi or truck.

8.     They’re equally insane about European soccer – mostly Man United – and the poorest children in the dustiest villages all sport club or Tanzanian soccer T-shirts. And every small settlement has a pool table.

9.     The only part of Tanzania I would visit again – I’m not sure it is part of Tanzania, I think their demand for independence should be granted – is Zanzibar. I could probably live there. The place works, for the locals and the tourists.

IN JULIA'S WORDS

DUSTED IN THE DECEASED

31 July

The air here even looks hot, shimmering as it is in the luminous lemoncheesecake grass.

The air here even sounds hot, shimmering as it is with the sounds of giant black beetles, the screams of objecting baboons, the declarations of 10 000 birds.

We’re taking our hot refuge under a lapa with a giant witch’s hat for a roof, here in the wilderness near to the town of Magadi. There is no hint here at all of the slightly icky type of town it is: all industrial with utilitarian blocks of flats for those who work at the serious soda-making factory, perched on the edge of the salt lake from which it gleans the chemicals it needs to make washing powder.

Soda ash factory on a gorgeous lake

Looking to make our way swiftly from said Magadi-town eyesore, we immediately found ourselves like flies entrapped in the web of inscrutable Maasai politics and agendas. A limping man flagged us down with his official invoice book, explaining that there were fees to be paid and guides to be procured so that we could go further than the town’s limits and enter the “community tourism” area. 

A young Masaai man – David – effectively hijacked us, taking us via the famous hot springs – 44 degrees just about scorching the feet, and FISH living in it – and took us to his family home in the exact midst of a gorgeous nowhere in the Rift Valley. 

Fishing in a hot spring

It was a moonscape of an environment, gorgeous and dry-tortured, and we parked on what we realised the next day (after hearing trucks and motorbikes roaring past at all hours) were tracks that were no less than the local highway.

A whole lot of this, and me!

With some fleecing and much to-ing and phro-ing, we eventually ditched David to look for one “Magadi Fly Camp” listed on Garmin (fondly known by us, with her authoritative and clear BBC voice, as Garmonia).
The drive deteriorated from sublime to excrutiating as we drove more by faith than Garmonia over salt pan, across powder-dust roads, up sheer rocky “roads” for about 6 hours – failing to find either of the two campsites listed on Garmin.

It became clear when we were flagged down again by a man in a shiny green tracksuit and another would-be scamster bedecked in Masai’s best waving their invoice books and incanting “community camp” that this was how mzungus are hijacked in these parts. We went with them to a godawful thorn infested non-camping site not near the river before we ditched them too. 

And, most, most gratefully, followed Carol’s suggestion and headed for some thatched roofs she’d spotted not far from the river. Thus our fate was kind enough to land us comfortably enough in the arms of a research centre with acacias to shelter us on its large stretch of dust and straw, complete with night fires and dry air sultry under glowering black clouds piling up towards the mountains that surround us.

Safe in the arms of acacia treses

We’ve long been ashudder at all the talk we’ve heard of Kenyan bandits – and yet twice now we’ve agreed to go off with total strangers, both times finding ourselves in places we didn’t particularly want to be and definitely didn’t agree to at our initial discussions.
Time to lose that gullible habit, me thinks. Only, there’s the slight sadness of losing the positive side of gullible – trusting, and expecting the best from people. Shame that.

Our trip has been mindblowing in our haring from coast to mountain to dry savannah. The contrasts abound – not only the landscapes, people, languages, but also going from soft hair and tanned supple skin on the coast to rednosed shivering to dustcrusty hair and scaly skin. 

And the contrasts in camping experience too. Putting up and taking down the rooftop tent is one good example. I am the designated monkey who climbs on the roof to wrestle with the tent cover, attend to the tent’s ladder, and heave the tent so it concertina’s up or out, depending if we’re setting up or heading off. 

At the coast, the debris and stof I’ve wiped on myself doing this particular task was the least offensive. Climbing on top in the cold and dark and wet, with naked feet and only one layer of clothing at Simba camp, Ngorongoro, was probably the hardest. 

But the dust is something too. I’ve had to set aside a designated outfit to be permanently filthy, and put it on when setting out our tent after our duststorm of a drive through these driest parts.  Given that dust and ashes are the stuff of life now dead, we’re fairly coated with the deceased.

Our spare tyre after three days in Magadi

IN REHANA'S WORDS

ODOMETER READING: 248 647 (We’ve driven 9 875km since April)

Monday, 29 July

Swahili crossed the border with us. We said kwa heri (goodbye) Tanzania and hello to Kenya which, so far, has been kind to us. A border official told us we no longer required visas (ours had expired since we got them in Pretoria) .

Tizi’s Guesthouse in Namanga was comfortable and affordable. We struck up conversation with Theresa, who worked there, and the first Kenyan I connected with was a political refugee. I hadn’t expected that.

Theresa was from Nakuru and her family’s home had been burned down in the 2007 post-election violence. She had come to Namanga after friends in a refugee camp suggested they could find work there. Her family was still in Nakuru and have not received any compensation or form of justice.
She shrugged and pointed out that people voted again this year for the crop of politicians responsible for the violence. She had no sympathy for herself, or others.

On Monday morning we set off for Lake Magadi. I was hoping for a place to settle for a few days, where we could catch up with ourselves and do some much-needed life admin. During my research for this trip I had read a blog by South African travellers who raved about the beauty of the soda-ash lake and its community of pink flamingos.
The drive there was a potholed extravaganza made worse by a convoy of army trucks steered by learner drivers. But it seemed worthwhile when the lake first shimmered pinkly into view. As we crossed the causeway into Magadi – a factory town owned by Tata Chemicals and dominated by its huge soda-ash facility – we made out individual flamingos head down in the shallow water. We also saw a good few dead birds in the water, quite unsettling. The security guard at the boom gate into the town said they were electrocuted on the power lines.

The pink in the water is a flock of flamingoes. Sorry we can't provide an aerial view

Our Garmins struggled to point the way to the nearest campsite. A man dressed in red checked cloth flagged us down. He had tried to stop us earlier while we drove in small circles, but we ignored him. This time we stopped, and he offered to show us to a community campsite. He got into Mike’s car and we drove to a gate where there was a proper sign, with a menu of prices for picnics and camping – higher prices for wazungu than what the locals paid, but reasonable.

We paid at the gate and let David, our Maasai guide, show us the way to the camp. The drive across the low-season roads crisscrossing the lake was exhilarating. There were pools of pink water crusted with salt and patches of black and white where the water had receded. Best of all were the flamingos, iridescent in the distance. We saw wildebeest at the water’s edge. We had also seen a herd of zebra on the drive to Magadi.

We stopped at a hot spring bubbling out of the lake – the water was 44 degrees Celsius and unbearable after a few minutes. The air temperature was 35 degrees. In the middle of this nowhere was a Landrover and three Maasai women selling the same beaded ornaments we had seen everywhere in Tanzania.

Carol bought jewellery; Jules took our first photos of Maasai people and had to pay for the privilege. The Landrover had brought Nairobi university students – one of them was a geneticist studying the fish that lived in that hot water for her Phd.

Our first Maasai photo

David said it was time to go to the campsite. We expected to camp somewhere near the lake’s incredible beauty, he took us to a watering hole used by his community for their herds of goat and cattle. The landscape surrounding us was Africa-stark – a few acacia and other thorny trees in brown dust with a mountain in the background. It was too late to leave and, as David explained, this was the Magadi Community Eco-tourism Project promised at the gate – we would camp with his family.

He introduced us to his brother and nephew who were herding his flock of 400 goats (he also has cattle) and many of his neighbours came to introduce themselves – the word had spread and people turned up to check our receipt for payment. It was getting dark, there was nothing we could do except set up camp in the dust and the dung.

Jules made a magnificent filling of spinach, brinjal and ricotta for Mike’s pancakes and we settled down for an evening of Maasai fellowship. This involved David being visited by friends all evening. Most of them roared up on motorbikes with blaring music systems attached to their handlebars. David had a transistor radio that played bad, scratchy reggae all night. The night was the darkest I’ve ever slept in. When I opened my eyes in the tent I had to check with my fingertips that they were really open. I could see nothing.

Turned out the teeny track in the gravel between our tents was a major highway. Motorbikes roared passed our tent through the night and the traffic was heavy from dawn – it was market day at nearby Lake Natron where Maasai from Tanzania and Kenya met and traded with each other.

The next morning I explained to David that we wanted to go to a wazungu campsite, preferably Magadi Fly Camp that was flagged on our Garmins. We wanted to be at the lake and we wanted wazungu facilities like toilets and showers. He said sure, he would take us there.

He took us to meet his mother at his family’s kraal. It was ringed with thorn bushes and has another circle of thorns inside, for the goats. Two small children screamed in terror as we entered and two women gave us sulky grimaces. David’s mother, Mrs Maria, was all smiles. She took us into her house, a stick and wattle dwelling with a cow dung roof not high enough for even Jules to stand upright – Mike had to bend to the waist. We sat on the bed, made of sticks, rope and covered with a hard hide. My eyes burned in the smoke coming off the fire in the middle of the hut. Mrs Maria gave us sweet tea with real cow’s milk in enamel cups. Must be years since tea was foisted on me but I finished every drop.

Their home had very little. The bed was the only furniture and there was a shelf from which David’s mother took the enamel cups and the thermos of ready-made tea. It also held a few enamel bowls, but that was it. I wondered what she would have made of our home if I had the ability to teleport her there to return her hospitality.

David and his mother outside their home

After we bought David’s mother's beads, he took us back the hot spring, where there was nothing but a leaning lapa to protect us from the elements, which including a huge hyena Jules and I spotted loping through the landscape on the way there. We also saw gorgeous giraffe (darker than ours) and more wildebeest.

We thanked David for his time, foolishly paid him for a day’s camping at Fly Camp, and set off on our own. Our Garmins had picked up a track in the bundus. We drove four hours and travelled less than 100km. It was mostly tracks in soft sand, our tyres threw up clouds of dust three-stories high in places. But there was some raggedy rocks that required 4x4. Mike whipped out his super-strong towrope and pulled out a truck that had sunk into the black gunk of the lake, in two ticks.

Garmin kept taking us to the bottom of a stony hill where there was nothing but goat tracks. We walked up the track but I already knew; if there was a campsite nearby serviced by staff, there would be at least a motorbike track in the soil.

I envied the Maasai women and young boys who had come to a watering hole at the bottom of the hill to collect water in buckets and water their goats. They were all covered in dust – as we were – but they knew where they were coming from and exactly where they were going. All I felt was lost and completely out of place.

We gave up and headed away from the lake to the next camp Garmin suggested,  20km away. When we neared it we were flagged by two men who tried to sell us their community’s version of eco-tourism – a thorny sloping patch under a tree near the wide, muddy river.

We spotted a lapa on the opposite bank, thanked the men for their time and ditched them, and headed for what looked like a campsite. Turned out it was the Lale’enok (brown river in Maasai) Resource Centre, and the project manager Joel said we were very welcome to stay.

We set up camp under a patch of acacia trees, nervously eyed the troop of baboons watching us, but Joel said they would leave us alone, they were not habituated to humans. We went down to the river and soaked our hot feet in the dark brown water, cooling down our over-heated bodies and minds.

The campsite had ample water, toilets and showers. Our laundry bag was overflowing; I soaked clothing within minutes of parking the car. The hot, dry air ripped out the water from the washing minutes after it went on the line. Our dishcloths folded like cardboard when I put them away.

We collected piles of wood and made a braai and veggie potjie. Our huge campfire after supper (we sat some distance away, it was hot) made a small ring of light in the dense darkness.

Joel came to visit and was fascinating. He had stood for political office in 2007 and narrowly lost to the corrupt incumbent who he said bought votes. Disillusioned with politics, he came back home and was employed by the resource centre, which has programmes from lion tracking to agribusiness.

I had the best shower of my life last night. I was the dirtiest I have been since the days when my mother sent me into the yard to play and I made mud cakes. The water stored in black plastic tanks was still warm at 9pm, and gushing fulsomely.  

It is impossible to keep your feet clean. With every step the dust rises up to your shins like a pair of grey socks. Our sheet is cream, I have to Wetwipe my feet most nights before I go to sleep. When we camp in dung or mud we have to leave our shoes outside our tent and hope that the hyenas don’t make off with them.

I am so glad I am here. I am so glad I met David (despite him ripping us off for a night’s camping) and Joel and his colleague Albert. I wish them all the luck, especially with their eco-toursim projects. Magadi Lake and the Maasai conservancies and villages surrounding them are worth a visit. This was the first time we heard lions roaring in the darkness near our campsite. We all deluded ourselves into believing it was baboons barking, till Joel came all excited the next morning to tell us we’d been ringed by lions. He knows, many of them are tagged and monitored.

He offered a trip later that afternoon to see the lions. But Jules and I had had enough of dust and thorns. We left for Nairobi, only 60km away.

Soda ash in the heat

IN JULIA'S WORDS

BOURGEOIS BITCHES TAKE A BREAK

7 August

This is the anniversary of the infamous bombing of the US embassy in Nairobi, back in 1998. The security measures around malls and other such places are a reminder of this and other terrorism more recent, and it does remind me so of Joburg in the ‘80s: uniformed security checking car boots, being frisked when entering the building. Besides that familiar feeling of nausea at the presence of the armed – note how such personnel (not quite people) NEVER have a sense of humour – it does make me feel slightly ashamedly safe.

You know some words just go together: like "starving" and "artist", "wanker" and banker", "patient" and "gardener"? Well, so does "weary" with "traveller".
When we first arrived here, I was weary indeed. Much of my weariness, I think, is also due to having crap sinus (cities DO this to me), and also having missioned to conquer a significant pile of admin over the last week. 

Tomorrow we’re on our way to Ethiopia via the crappiest roads, probably in the known roaded universe, PLUS there be bandits. 

The car's service took two days (we've clocked up 10 000kms) which entailed us sitting waitfully in a cold, cosyless space throughout; then getting the visa for Ethiopia took two days (with a woman with a bad case of Big Bureaucrat our main obstruction); then there was the downtown mission of getting our passports stamped out of Kenya here in Nairobi because there's no border post where we're crossing into Ethiopia (was far better than our Home Affairs though); and then getting our car's passport, the Carnet, also stamped.

But done it all is. Besides two nights camping, Rehana and I cunningly hid from the cold and mizzle of winter Nairobi in a low key guesthouse called Angaza, where we lay stubbornly upon the bed as much as possible, watching CRICKET on our very own TV, and using Wifi till we could Wifi no more.

Now refreshed, I’m about to repack the car with our mega shopping from one of several of our mall visits (strange – is it? – how I’ve come to value malls), and then AM READY for the Great Adventure which lies just ahead.

Or am I?

The only photo we took in Nairobi before a man came to warn us to put our camera away

IN REHANA'S WORDS

Wednesday, 7 August

Nairobi has given us an excellent six-day break from our trials and tribulations. We finally found a place to stay, and took a much-needed break from our journey. We had a little holiday, and it’s girded my loins and given me the strength to face the road ahead.

We've been living large, we found our bourgeois mojo minutes after we arrived, covered in dust. We stopped at the first mall we passed and had a huge meal (I had lamb chops for the first time since I don't know when - for once it wasn't goat dressed up). A host showed us to our table, the waiters wore bowties and aprons, we had cloth napkins, there was free wifi and they took Visa.
We stayed at the Mediterraneo Restuarant for four and a half hours and left with the waiter's cellphone number. Everywhere we go people give us their business cards and tell us to call if we need anything. The waiter at Curry in Hurry also gave us his card, and offered to cook for us.

We went back twice to the Mediterraneo Restaurant, it's in the particularly nice Junction Mall which has a Levis shop, Nakumatt supermarket with everything, two bakeries, a chemist, a coffee shop and a greengrocer with rocket, dhania, parsley, blueberries, cranberries, strawberries, green chillies, fennel, peaches, organic double cream. All these shops take Visa! It also has cinemas and we badly wanted to go, but only American violent crap was showing.

It’s been a huge burden on this trip, not having access to ATMs or places that take Visa. In Tanzania we spent most of our time in rural areas. We stopped at every ATM we spotted, and most rejected all our cards. When we found one that worked, we drew on all our cards. Barclays was always the most generous, Standard Bank had branches everywhere.

We haven't seen blue sky once since we arrived in Nairobi. After two nights camping in the cold and rain at Jungle Junction, we debunked to Angaza guesthouse where we have a huge, firm bed, an ensuite bathroom, a TV with satellite (we've been watching SA play Sri Lanka, they finally played well and won the T20series) and best of all, we have unlimited, free wifi.

Our wonderful hostess Ruth and two other guests

We’ve been emailing like mad when we’re not smsing. My father’s been the number one correspondent, writing beautiful emails in the early hours of the morning. He’s bucked up my spirits and gotten me going again.  There’s nothing nicer than opening your inbox and there’s messages waiting to be read.

There was also a buck up email from my aunt Nazeema, and the best email ever from Zarina – a long, detailed account of a day in Ruhi Khan’s life. She wrote down everything he said while he looked at the photos on our blog from Zanzibar. Next time we have working wifi I’m going to demand skype time with Ruhi.

My Arusha gloom had people worried. Nazeema said I should consider taking a flight home to see my family and then start afresh. When I spoke to my father today we both realised that even if I had wanted to fly home for Eid lunch on Friday I couldn’t – a massive fire has crippled the Jomo Kenyatta Airport.

I’m back in the saddle and heading north. Nairobi has been just what I needed and I can’t wait to come back.
With Egypt a no-no and Sudan still bristling, we’re making a U-turn in Ethiopia and driving back home. So we’ll probably be back in Nairobi in about six to eight weeks. Then it’s Rwanda, Uganda, Tanzania (on the west which we haven’t yet seen), Zambia, Botswana and home.

Big Red Car had a service, which took two whole days. Samuel, the mechanic at Jungle Junction, was fantastic. He pored over every inch of the car, discovering that the brake drums needed skimming and an exhaust bracket had been jolted loose. The engine’s been cleaned, but that won’t last long.

Big red getting some TLC

We’ve explored Nairobi’s upmarket suburb Karen on foot – that’s where Big Red Car had her service. Cabinet ministers, MPs and businessmen who get government tenders live in Karen. Their houses are monstrosities, many of them breezeblock double-storeys with White House pillars. But there are goats tethered to their hedges and cocks crowing throughout the neighbourhood.
We’ve driven past the Kibera slum several times but we haven’t gone in. We don’t do slum tours and the mounds of plastic burning at its edges don't look very welcoming.

Jules and I have visited several Nairobi malls and skip out carrying brown bags with string handles. Yaya mall down the road is just like Cavendish Square and it has Julia yearning for cousin Najma. Our favourite is Nakumatt Junction, where the Meditarraneo Restaurant is.

We're not in our rooftop tent so we had transport. Nairobi's traffic is a nightmare. They're in the middle of a middle-class boom and the road department hasn't cottoned on yet. It takes ages to get everywhere, an hour and 15 minutes to travel 10km. Our guesthouse is on the cusp of the CBD, surrounded by fancy private hospitals (and funeral parlours and the state mortuary). We haven’t had to travel more than 10km to get anywhere.

There are very few robots and where they exist drivers ignore them. There’s lots of traffic cops trying to unclog the mess, but Nairobi’s the only place I’ve seen cops ignoring the traffic while they speak on their cellphones. At huge junctions and the hundreds of traffic circles you have to let six or eight cars pass before you start pushing your nose in to give yourself and five drivers a turn to move.
A bullbar’s a good thing to have in Nairobi. Most of the drivers are courteous, but the taxi drivers mount the pavement and create four lanes where there should be two. There’s very little roadrage and we haven’t seen one accident yet, inshallah.

Nairobi is so familiar, it's just like Joburg with its noisy hadedas, car and house alarms, electric fences, security guards and malls, malls, malls with excellent restaurants. And the Porsche Cayenne drivers who lunch with cloth napkins. A Julius Malema lookalike posed for his two girlfriends next to the pool at the Intercontinental Hotel – where we had lunch with cloth napkins.

There’s no tent to put up. No gas tank to unlock and take down from the roof. No mattresses to be blown up inside the tent. No bedding to be organised. No water to be fetched from a tap that could be up to 800m away, or needs to be hauled up from a well, or poured out of a tank.

No washing dishes in the darkness with lukewarm water, that has to be fetched and warmed on the gas stove if your pots are greasy (they always are). We've handed in our washing at the guesthouse, no going to fetch water at the tap.

We're living the high life and it’s just what we need. We didn't take photos in Nairobi, sorry. But you probably saw the airport in flames on TV. We slept through all of that.

Tomorrow morning we’re heading north, to Lake Turkana. Doubt there’ll be wifi up there.