Day One

One of the first things I noticed when I stepped off the plane at Nairobi Airport in Kenya was the heat factor. The heat in New Zealand can be very subtle. You do not realise you have been burnt until afterwards due in no small way to the ozone hole. In Kenya, the heat hits you straight away and you can see the heat shimmering off the asphalt as you make your way to the terminal. The next thing you notice is that you are in a third world country. Upon using the men's toilet, I discovered there were no taps on the basins, so it made it difficult to extract any water fron the system (if there was any such substance) to wash your hands with.

The next thing you will experience is Customs where simple tasks like checking passports become a wearisome task designed to test the patience of chess players. You can expect even greater delays if you haven't arranged a visa prior to arriving in Kenya as I soon discovered much to my chagrin. However, to the first time traveller in the dark continent, a few hiccups at the airport can be overcome by the thirst for new and exciting experiences in a strange new land. The first of many was about to follow.

Taxi drivers in certain cities like Bangkok and New York have a reputation for giving passengers a certain amount of excitement as they whiz themselves unerringly to their destination. To that list can be added the Nairobi taxi driver. After being accosted by over twenty such individuals a few nanoseconds after entering the Arrivals lounge, I regained my composure and chucked my backpack at one likely lad and followed him to his car. I use the word 'car ' loosely when describing his transport. This "thing" appeared to be a composite of several different models - none of the doors matched, and we were fortunate that all the windows were intact, as several cars around us seemed to be lacking in that department. However, winding the window down turned out to be a severe obstacle as there were no window winders in the back of the car.

On such a hot day, I suddenly found myself wishing I had gone for one of the windowless cars. As my driver approached what appeared to be a reasonably busy roundabout, I noticed that we did not appear to be reducing speed to allow the steady stream of traffic to pass by. Instead, my driver maintained a more than useful velocity as he casually careered into the traffic flow and diagonally steered to the inside lane oblivious to the cacophony of beeping and honking directed mainly at us. Only the Arc De Triomphe roundabout could surpass the chaos I had just experienced. My driver then veered to the outside lane to make the appropriate exit from the roundabout, having maintained a consistent speed throughout. I began to have lingering fears about this car actually being fitted with brakes, but these were soon dispelled when we came to a shuddering halt outside my hotel. It pays to haggle with taxi drivers over prices, as they have no qualms about charging exorbitant sums to the ignorant tourist.

One of the first unexpected delights you will find in Kenya (and in fact all of Eastern and Southern Africa) is the high quality of the local beer. In Kenya, the local product is called Tusker and appropriately has a rather large elephant pictured on the label. The cost of a reasonable sized bottle equates to NZ$1.40 (USD$0.75c) and increases the pleasure accordingly. In a hot climate, a cold beer is a natural accompaniment.

I stayed in a rather moderate hotel in Nairobi for my first two nights in Kenya, as it had been named as a meeting place for the overland truck safari that I had signed up for.I soon met a few other intrepid travellers that were embarking on the same safari as me.

Ted and Heather were archetypal yanks but had a love for the outdoors that had drawn them to Africa. Ted was an architect for high rise buildings and Heather was doing a business degree at Berkeley University in San Francisco. Ted soon got a reputation for being a "Tooltime" type character and was quickly tagged "Ted Carabena" by a few of the wits on our trip. When things didn't go according to plan on our trip (which was invariably all the time), " Aw Man!" was the usual utterance from our frustrated American. Heather was the opposite however and nothing seemed to be too much hassle for her, which is a good temperament to have in Africa.

Danny arrived at the hotel about an hour after I had met Ted and Heather. He was fresh off the boat from Australia (to coin a phrase) and was a real country boy, but easy enough to get along with. We were the only ones on the trip at the hotel the first night as the arranged meeting time was the following night.

Day Two

The next day Danny, Ted, Heather and myself ventured into the city centre of Nairobi. It was about 15 minutes walk. The town was a madhouse. We seemed to be the only people there with white skin. Consequently, there were people coming up to us trying to sell us things every five seconds. If you ignored them they eventually lost interest though they would follow you down the streets for a fair way. Someone tried to clean my sandals but I decided this was a bit dodgy as he insisted he had to remove them from my feet. I retrieved them before the guy could run off with them.(trusting fellow aren't I?).

We went to the Railway museum which interested Ted more than us though there was a good exhibit on the man-eating lion that jumped onto the trains in the old days and ate the conductors, before he was eventually shot. We decided to get a taxi back to the hotel and managed to haggle the price down to 250 shillingi (the local currency) from 400. We were learning.

Later in the evening the rest of our fearless truckies turned up. There was Paul and Kathy from Brisbane, Australia; Peter and Kylie from Sydney, Aus; Vanessa and Kevin from Rotorua, New Zealand; Kim from Auckland, NZ; Corey from Kamloops, Canada; Craig from Tasmania, Aus; Jill from Brisbane,Aus; Suzie and Lisa from Sydney,Aus; Michelle from Perth,Aus; Max and Sarah from Sydney, Aus; and the two drivers - Rob from New Zealand and Darren from England.

That night we introduced ourselves to each other bearing in mind that we were all going to be living on a truck for the next four weeks (nine weeks for some of us) so it was all imperative that we all got along. Luckily we turned out to be a great little team.

Day Three

In the morning we were introduced to the Whale. The Whale was a big red leyland truck that had formerly been used as a bread transporter before it had been bought by African Trails, the tour operators, and converted into an overlander. It was called The Whale as when it encountered any mud on the roads it would wallow like a stranded whale and would be very difficult to get out of the mud. Tales of being stuck in mud in The Congo (formerly Zaire) for weeks on end didn't install us with any confidence. The only reassuring factor was that the truck wouldn't be going into the Congo on this particular trip.

The back of the truck was set up so that the seats all faced inwards rather than like a bus facing frontwards. I guess this was to encourage conversation with other travellers, but also because it made it easier to retrieve our belongings which were stored under our seats. Near the front of the truck was an area that you could climb up to and where a big mattress was installed. This could be an open air area or covered up by a tarpaulin depending on the weather conditions. You could sunbathe, take in the scenery, read, or sleep on what we lovingly referred to as "the beach" and it could easily accommodate 8 people at one time. After everything was packed into the truck, we were ready to set off on our African adventure. Yee Ha!

After escaping from the mad Nairobi drivers we were on the main highway to Tanzania. This is still a two-lane road however. Most of us spent the first few hours taking in the scenery and trying to spot any wildlife. We saw the odd Zebra off the road and also an Ostrich or two but nothing startling. Most of the day was spent driving.

Rob outlined the usual setup with overland trips when we had a lunch break on the side of the road. Because of the vastness of Africa, a lot of time would be spent driving to get to places of particular interest. This meant there would be a lot of early starts to the day so that we would have plenty of time to get where we were going to so we wouldn't be setting up camp in the dark. There would be the odd sleep in on the trip but if you can't even entertain the possibility of rising from slumber consistently between the hours of 6 and 7, for at least one month, then stop reading right now... For those of you still with me, I will continue.

There was also a participatory element to the trip meaning there would be a roster comprising teams of two where you would be building the fire one day, then cooking, doing dishes, and cleaning the truck on consecutive days. Whoops. I think I lost a few more of you there. After you had completed your 4 days you were on a break until your turn came around again. However, when it was a big job like cooking , the hungrier ones were quite helpful in preparing the meals even if it wasn't their turn. I appreciated this a lot. I have enough trouble feeding myself let alone 20 others. Unfortunately, my team partner Corey was also as deficient in the art of cooking as I was so it made for some interesting cooking experiences.

Later in the afternoon, we reached the border of Kenya and Tanzania. We had passed through a lot of small villages and were shocked by the poverty of some people. Their houses resembled straw huts and the children were wearing ragged clothes covered in dirt. Not that it seemed to bother them, as they would cheer and hoot as we passed by.

Border control can be a frustrating experience if you get a pedantic border guard. Luckily it was getting near the end of the day and the man was happy to see us through so he could knock off work. My adventure continues on the Tanzania webpage so please go there to see what happens. Click here for TanzaniaIf you are concerned only with Kenya , we reenter Kenya from Uganda and the story picks up again on the Kenya2 webpage. I apologise for any confusion or disjointedness in advance.