Cape 2 Cairo 2 Cape Blog

Marlene and I would like to apologize in the delay in the upload of the posts for the last five days. Due to circumstances beyond our control, we were unable to connect to the Internet or access our laptops. Please note, for future reference, that we may not be able to post the blogs everyday and therefore it does not necessarily mean that the group or any of its partakers are in danger or have been hurt. We thank you for your patience and hope you enjoy the blogs that will be shortly posted for Days 7 up until Day 12. Cheerio

But so the adventure will continue and tomorrow will be yet another beginning for a new group on the down trip. There will be a blog, there will be more photos, only just not from me. I unfortunately will be heading back to South Africa and then back home on the 10th. It’s been a wonderful trip, one which I think everybody should one day be a part of. Jessica and Marlene will be taking the reins from here, two very interesting individuals who will give a womans perspective on the trip. I know when I get home that for once I will be on the otherside of the table, doing the following just as they had. I’ll be living and connecting to the stories that they’re sharing because for the first time in my life I can say “that I’ve traveled across the continent of Africa” and it’s something that has been important to me for as long as I can remember. Keep collecting firewood, and keep stepping outside of ones comfort zone, its how you learn and its how you ultimately live.

We woke up to the roar of the truck backing up towards us with its giant hook ready to latch on. As soon as you think you’re in the clear it seems like something else happens to make life just a little more complicated than usual. On the assumption that we were just going to latch on and go, we were rudely awoken to reality when the guys started removing the entire front section of the vehicle in order to wrap a chain around the front axle. 2 hours later we were on the move but the day proved to be a long one, especially since Doc had diarrhea (or Jippo guts as he calls it) with no toilet in sight. The threat of malaria was a present too with a headache he’d had for the past two days and a stiff body as tell tale signs of the disease. The day was to be a long and monotonous especially at 30 -40 kmph when we were actually moving.  The slow drive did however make for some really good photos of the beautifully painted houses and the kids playing around them. The photos once again describe a long day better than I could on my own.

 Throughout the day the two drivers probably stopped more than a dozen times for drinks, food, and even at one point to do a little bit of shoe shopping. By night fall we pulled right next to his house where he unloaded a huge pile if fire wood and tried to get his daughter to translate my desire to know when we’ll be arriving in Addis. After 12 hours of driving we had covered only about 300 km which was torturous looking back at it, we pulled into a cheap motel not too much after that cost about 8 US dollars for two rooms.

 I honestly wouldn’t have cared if I found a dead carcass in the room, I was dead tired and Doc was just happy to see the first bathroom in two days having been too scared to get up and walk around without making a huge mess in his pants. I guess you can’t complain, there was a bed with a place to use the bathroom, painted a dirty turquoise green, with mosquito remains smeared over a good portion of the wall. It’s one of those rooms you’d never settle for given any other circumstance but I was ready to compromise for a good nights sleep. I avoided the floor at all costs and lept from bed to bathroom when needed. We had 7 hours to sleep and at 11 o clock Ethiopian time (4 am ours) we were gonna be on our way to Addis, FINALLY.

I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes expecting something great, instead I was awoken by people already starting to congregate outside our window. I cleared the inside of the window with my shirt sleeve and stuffed my sleeping bag into the bag as slow as I could, I knew it was going to be a long day and knew I was going to have to entertain myself with as much as I possibly could. I could hear the little aluminum kettle boiling on the door step that served as a good cooking platform but I was more in need of a toilet than a quick shot of energy at the moment. I walked to the petrol station next door and asked if they had a bathroom and the guy said that they didn’t before I even finished my sentence. I knew it was a lie, but I just accepted and walked a way intending on finding another way to relieve myself even if it wasn’t into a hole in the ground.

I jumped into the back of the truck and searched frantically for my new favorite “Nestle instant cuppachino” packets through about 5 boxes until I found an entire chest full. I figured out that if I really wanted I could probably drink 3 a day and there would still be enough for the downtrip from Cairo to Cape. Getting to these things was a huge effort but the rusks from South Africa and the 10 loafs of bread I bought from a little hut across the street (for less than a dollar) with honey we bought in Tanzania was the first win of the day. Unfortunately it only took up about an hour of daylight with another 11 hours to go if the vehicle were to not show up.

While we were drinking coffee Ray and Archie had just shown up to Awasa after a long night of driving. Not even 30km out of town they struck a rock and bent the rim of the inside tire on the back axel, which meant that their progress was gonna be slow until they could fix the tire. It took them nearly 6 hours to drive 200 km which to my standard would be like watching paint dry.

We linked up with a guy named Brown, it was the same young man who tried to help us organize a truck to take us to Addis, he was well spoken and probably the only person in the village whom you could actually have a conversation with. He was there to check on us, remind us once again “not to worry” and to throw us both onto the back of a motorcycle and to take us to the otherside of town for some coffee at his expense. I sat that little 80 cc motorcycle to where I swear the bottom of the seat was rubbing against the tire, I don’t think that bike has worked that hard it’s entire life considering at just at 80 km I weigh quite a bit more than most Ethiopian passengers. Having lended his bike to another guy, we walked the remaining half kilometer to this yellow and empty coffee shop decorated with plastic chairs and checkered table cloth and a small color 6 inch tv on the wall.

We sat and chatted about religion and tried to explain to him that I personally don’t know what I believe in yet and that’s okay in my culture. He obviously found it very hard to understand on the account of asking me to pray for us before we drank- even though I was ill practiced in the praying out loud department, I obliged. My step father Paul once taught me a good table prayer to sat at the table as a little prank, and i gave it a good try with my Grandmother one day who was highly unamused by it. A very American joke to pull especially in very religious company “Rubber dub dub, thank you for the grum, amen”, but make sure you duck right away because there is surely going to be a slap coming your way.

But Brown was good company, and he even forced me to eat this yellow and brown cake which he said was very fresh. If fresh meant dry then he was right, I made sure to drink a sip of coffee (made with real cows milk he assured me) after every bite which surely kept my mouth from turning to the Khalahari desert. Like a true gentlemen he paid for everything just as promised, he led me down the street to the “bathroom” which was a wooden fence and then pulled out a very legitimate Sony Cybershot 12 megapixel camera and turned the next 10 minutes into a photoshoot. We struck every pose from the “thumbs up” to “arms locked in an embrace” to “foreheads touching while staring into the camera” which was when I was worried he was going to ask me to be his boyfriend (as crazy as that sounds). On our walk back to get my Dad as it was his turn to get coffee and a free photoshoot, he told me about his dreams to become a minister and how he wanted to marry a white woman. With my nerves finally settled, I enjoyed the rest of the walk back until this little boy through a rock at me whom I would have screamed at if I wasn’t in good company.

After Doc returned with almost the exact same story as mine, we continued our sit in the car, chatting with the crowd of people shamelessly pressing their faces into the window and staring inside. The only thing that bothered me the slightest bit of everyone’s visit, and believe me that by the end of the day everyone had come to say hi, was when every other person would ask for money. If I never hear “you, give me my money” ever again from someone who I never took money from it would be too soon. Brown actually brought this up on his own and called it “disgraceful” to his fellow Ethiopians to ask for money from white people just because they thought they had more. He trully did believe this because not once did he ask for money, and in fact, he even took us out to lunch again when he refused for us to pay.

After a long day of sitting around, exploring the town, and playing ping pong (but you can call it getting destroyed) with the locals who i swear were young and upcoming professionals, Brown came to check on us one last time before we hit the hay. We had been in contact with Ray all day long who relayed messages to us giving us times of when the truck might be there. 12 was the most referenced time of the occasion, but the situation gets complicated when there are two 12 o clocks in one day, AND the fact that Ethiopian time had a 7 hour time difference from which they might also have been referring to. Tours for Africa time which works with South African time no matter what the time so there we waited patiently for 4 different sets of 12′s to pass until we realized that it probably mean 12 in the morning, but as we soon discovered after hitting the hay, when Ray was told 12 (Ethiopian time) meant 5 am in the morning more than 36 hours after stopping in the town initially.

Day 23 blog

Ambush Alley- Gerba, Ethiopia

As I’m writing this I’m sitting in Gerba in the broken vehicle surrounded by 15 locals who are so close to me that I can smell them. Their curious eyes peering over the partially down rolled window because the fog from breath has proved too much to read through. Little do they know that I’m writing about them because as they attempt to sound out the words its obvious to tell that their comprehension is beneath their ability to sound out words. It makes no difference in the world though, I think it’s quite amazing that these kids can communicate with me with something other than a smile or a frown even if its just “hello, how are you”.

Straining to see through the window last night while being towed at 100 kmph was nerve wrecking in itself when it was light out, the situation turned horrific once the sun started setting. The tar road into Ethiopia started in Moyale, the long dreaded road was finally in the past but the radiator had once again broken after only about 30 km on the dirt road. Having at this point broken it to the point beyond self repair, it was time to find another way to replace it. The plan was to make it all the way to Addis, 750 km away. It was the start of 3 long days stranded in the vehicle.

The beautiful road did not come without it’s down falls, there we’re literally deep ravines on either side of the road and not having brakes on our failed backup vehicle made it all the worse. The tow bar is a solid piece of metal attached from our vechile to Ray and Archies. It’s more safe when a larger vehicle pulls a smaller because of its braking and handling ability. Steering the vehicle in the back is a challenge in itself and became more so once we burnt our our brakes going down a steep hill with the other vehicle’s ability to slow us both down. The brakes were smoking on the downhill and the clutch was burning on the uphill, it was all that we could do to get the job done, and so it continued until we got near a town by the name of Gerba about 200 + km from the border we had crossed earlier in the day.

By this time our nerves were fried, adreniline pumping, eyes bloodshot and our bodies were tired. As we came tearing around this hill Ray slammed on the brakes to avoid a pot hole (by this time we were down to only one spare tire) and as he did that our attempt to keep the pull bar aligned with the other vehicle buckled the bar and bent the solid piece of metal crooked. One more instant of that could mean crashing into the vehicle or worse driving off the side of the road, and with us having the heavier vehicle it meant that both vehicles would roll. With no brakes, and now no pull bar, we pulled over and tried to make a decision.

We spoke to a few young guys who were decent at english, although they couldn’t fully speak or understand english. When we were on the way to roll down the hill into town to spend the night somewhere along the side of the road (in particular next to the police station) the guys asked for a lift, and when I said “sorry there’s no space” they proceeded by trying to open the doors while we started moving. Screaming at them did little to ward them off and seemed to just inspire them to try harder, we eventually picked up too much speed for their legs to contend with by which time we were free.

The town was dark with only slight glimmers of light waving through the small shop windows that were still open late into the night. The street was crowded but had died down a little in comparison to the last town we had driven through. Spectators were crowding in the streets as we watched one truck trying to lower another down a hill when the rope unraveled and snapped, sending the other truck flying down the hill crashing into other vehicles on its way down. The people in this town however were not so distracted and instead where screaming at the sight of our two vehicles coasting through their village. When we made it to the other edge of town, our vehicle was crowded by about 20 people asking questions and making remarks. In the dark, it made for a very uncomfortable situation for all of us.

I noticed when ray jumped out he had this massive can of swat pepper spray strapped to his chest, I think that’s what made me worry. He doesn’t strike anyone as a guy who worries but when he does it’s definitely time to do the same. As I grabbed the spray and handed it to Doc I jumped out of the car just to make it seem like we had a lot of bodies around the vehicles. As Ray jumped on the cell to try to figure out a better way to tow our vehicle with a truck we stood guard and tried to ask the locals where the police station was. After more than an hour of hustling around Ray took a nap in the car, and with a failed attempt of loading our truck on another because it was 3 meters too wide, we devised a plan for them to drive on and for us to wait for a tow truck from the Iveco recovery station in Addis.

I slept while my dad watched the truck up until about 2 am, which was when Ray and Arch hit the road, it was then my turn to keep an eye out. After 30 minutes of head bobbing I decided that I’d trust one local named Brown’s judgement, he said “do not worry, it’s safe” and I went to sleep in my sleeping bag expecting to be woken by a bandit in the early morning hours. It’s one of those things I always tell myself, “I can worry my self to death about something, or just acknowledge that something can happen and handle it if it happens”. Either way I slept well that night and the morning couldn’t have come faster.

Day 16 Kigali- Jinja

After some serious rest Ray was finally starting to look like himself again, but if only barely so. For the past few days we had suspected him having malaria and after some serious down time and medication he seemed to finally get the color back in his face. He was not all 100% better yet, as we loaded the vehicles and the bikes at 5:00 in the morning he climbed into the back seat and took it easy for the first portion of the trip wrapped in a sleeping bag and blankets.

As the vehicles took off and the bikes reved up their engines Leon was awoken in a panic from the noise. He dashed out of his bedroom in the commotion and accidentally locked himself out of his room while in his underpants. He had to take a long walk all the way down to reception to get them to open the door for him. This story definitely brightened everybodies morning, especially considering the very long day ahead but on the bright side, the day after was to be another rest day in Jinja.

Rwanda was fog engulfed that morning, to the point where at times you could barely see the white lines dashing in and out of sight as we sped through the mountains. There is no straight section of road from Kigali to the border which fell 100 km apart, it’s a motorcyclist’s paradise, but a hurried drivers nightmare. If it weren’t for being connected to each other via radio we’d probably still be sitting in Rwanda. You notice that the truckers drive very slowly, the buses drive like they’re speeding from the apocalypse, and the pedestrians give way to anything bigger than them. Small motorcycles called “boda boda’s” get pushed of the road by cars, and in turn they take revenge of bicycles and small children. Survival of the fittest as they say.

Crossing the border was quick as ever. I guess the redundancy at which we all do this at one point does settle in to become habit. Even the 50 meter long line didn’t break our speed, we simply found a gap, fitted everyone we could from Cytech/TFA  in there, and moved on with our lives. The border crossing was only a small speed bump in the day, the road to Jinja is a very dangerous one- the one where we counted 8 overturned trucks in the same day because of the concavity of the road from it’s lack of integrity. It was almost like driving on train tracks for cars, once you were in the literal “track” you could let go of the steering wheel and the road would drive the car itself. The danger to the bikes is that if there were pot holes or if they had to get out of the way of something, there was some serious risk in clipping your front wheel on the half foot high lips in the road. There was some real sketchiness going on this very road on the way from Jinja only a few days ago, and on this day it was no different.

As we drove through the heavily congested towns, you usually see some of the most ingenuitive ways of transporting very comon goods with a bicycle or small motorcycle. If it’s not fitting a live farm animal on the back (like a squeeling pig or goat) or transporting 4 human beings in a seat made just for two, it’s usually some kind of food or building material. I’ve seen a guy drag two logs down the road strapped parallel to each side of his bike and another caring 3 sheets of tin roofing strapped verticle into the air. On the Kigal-Jinga road there were two men on a Boda Boda motorcycle holding a 6 meter long rolled up sheet of tin across his lap. For some reason these two stubborn men refused to give way of the truck even after excessive warning with the hooter. As we slowly crept by I carefully watched that we passed them with the trailer but as we drove by the passanger who was holding the tins turned his body to look at the truck (or trailer) and drove the piece of tin right into the side of our vehicle. Instantaniously the two guys lost their stability and the passenger actually pulled the driver off the bike with him with a crash to the ground. Luckily we weren’t going more than 30 kmph and the guys ended up walking away from it just fine. But it just goes to show that the road is a dangerous place because if that guy drove his 6 meters of tin into one of our riders, the outcome could have been worse.

We stopped for lunch and heard that Rob Berman had a small fender bender in town. Apparently he collided right into a Borda Borda motorcycle who pulled out in front of him from no where. This sent him down a huge decline which caused him to break his wind screen. I’ve heard so many versions of the story that I’m not sure which is right, but at the end of the day Robbie was alright if only minus a windscreen for the rest of the trip. As we drew close to the equator Arch and I decided to be the ones who drove Rolf and Jacci’s two sons to the famous Intebe airport where the first ever plane hostage situation ever took place. They were to fly out of there bright and early the next day so we had to get them there by night time. The only issue was that we heard from the locals that the 50 km drive off the main highway wasn’t the typical 30 mins you’d expect, it was supposed to be a 2 hour trip down and another two back up. With no GPS and just a very general map to follow we took off toward Intebe. After many U turns and wrong directions, we finally arrived to the Botanical Beach Hotel just as the sun was setting. We had another 2 hours to drive back so we wanted to drop the guys off with Rolf and Jacci and rock out of there. Before we left the hotel, Rolf ordered us some cokes and offered to buy us a room for the night.

It was a long tedious drive back home and so did we, but we had to kindly refused their offer and left for Jinja. If there was one thing we looked forward to it was the free day so in good spirits we made bets on how long it was going to take us to get back to the lodge. After driving for almost 4 hours, navigating Kampala out of feeling alone, with only one slow colision with a taxi who was trying to force his way in front of us, we made it to Jinja to a beautiful room overlooking the White Nile.  We scored a cold dinner from the guys who were nice enough to order us a food and spent the night sharing a bed with Doc and listening to the water flow down the river and the roof. The worlds largest river was right outside on our doorstep, it was another expedition milestone and was pointing in the direction of our destination, in less than three weeks we’ll meet it again in Cairo.