East Africa Adventure

I have recently returned from my journey to Western Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and Tanzania.  Here is a quick recap:

My journey began when I left Maua early in the morning.  I opted to meet my travel companions in Kakamega where we were to tour the Kakamega Rainforest.  Instead of traveling through Nairobi, I took the northern route.  Took a matatu to Meru then another past majestic Mt. Kenya to Nanyuki, past the Aberdares and through the Great Rift Valley to Nakuru, then to Kisumu, then to Kakamega.  It was a long day full of uncomfortable matatu rides but the scenery was beautiful.

Mt. Kenya

In Kakamega, I met up with Paul, Charlotte and Lee.   As a result of some miscommunications with our first choice of accommodations, we decided to stay at Rondo Retreat, an upscale place in the forest.  We stayed in a luxurious cabin with a fireplace and a porch overlooking the rainforest.  It was the perfect place to relax and play cards with some friends after a stressful school term.  It was a little on the expensive side but worth it.

Rondo Retreat

We took a guided tour of the rainforest although we probably would have been better off hiking on our own.  Our guide would occasionally grab a leaf or stem of a plant and claim that it could cure some crazy disease just by eating a certain part of it.  Despite our guide’s claims, I am fairly certain we did not stumble upon a remedy for cancer during our five hour hike of Kakamega Rainforest.  We spent the evening getting our asses kicked by Lee in gin rummy.  After a few days in Kakamega we continued our journey west to Jinja, Uganda.

 
Kakamega Rainforest

After a long day of traveling we arrived in Jinja where we met up with several other volunteers for the big rafting trip.  We stayed at a nice campsite that had a comfortable dorm and a beautiful patio overlooking the Nile.  We enjoyed Uganda’s finest brew, Nile Special.  I can’t tell you how great it was to have a beer that was not from Kenya.  I’m getting sick of Tusker (the popular Kenyan beer).  This was also the first time that I met many of the public health volunteers that have been here for almost a year.  A perfect example of how infrequent we see other volunteers.

Rafting was awesome.  We flipped the raft on the final rapids.  At one point our guide got his legs tangled up in a rope and had to be rescued by fellow PCV Allen.  It was definitely worth the money as we spent two whole days rafting THE NILE.  Of course all this time on the water and in the blazing equatorial sun resulted in some sun burn.  My group was the only group that did the two day trip.  The others decided to do the bungee jump over the Nile on the second day.  Since I had already bungee jumped one of the world’s tallest bungees with Andy in New Zealand, it was an easy decision to continue rafting the Nile for a second full day.  Not that I’m bragging or anything.  After Jinja we had a brief stop in Kampala, Uganda’s largest city and capital.  From there we headed south to idyllic Lake Bunyoni.

Lake Bunyoni was beautiful.   We stayed on a peaceful island in the middle of the lake.  There was just a handful of people staying here which made it even more weird when I met a man from Wisconsin who was also a huge Brewers fan.  Great to see another cheesehead and talk about the Brewers for once.  The two days we were here we just relaxed, ate some awesome food, enjoyed some more Nile Specials, and again got our asses kicked by Lee in gin rummy.  All this cost a mere 40 dollars (something like 80,000 Ugandan shillings).   From here we headed south to Kigali, the capital of Rwanda.

Lake Bunyoni

Rwanda was surprisingly modern and well developed.  The people were very respectful and there were several nice restaurants.  Even more surprising was the traffic stops for you when crossing the road, something that NEVER happens anywhere in Kenya.  If you even think about stepping into oncoming traffic in Nairobi, you’re as dead as a doornail.  In Kenya, the vehicles always have the right away.  So we were all pretty shocked when we were waiting to cross a road and the traffic stopped, just for us.  Mind blowing.

Rwanda is mostly known for the genocide in which over 1 million people were murdered a short 15 years ago.  We visited the Kigali museum which outlined the events of the genocide as well as other genocides such as the holocaust in Nazi Germany and the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia.  The final, most moving exhibit was on children who were victims of the genocide.  It simply had a picture of a child with a brief biography below it listing his/her name, age, favorite activity, favorite song, certain personality traits, and then concluded with how the child was mercilessly murdered.  Its amazing what humans are capable of doing to each other.  Perhaps even more touching was when we visited a church in nearby Nyamata where thousands of people were killed.  The church now serves as a memorial to the victims.  The victims clothes filled the pews of the church.

Behind the church was a mass grave, which you could walk into and see several coffins as well as the remains of many victims.  We were allowed and actually encouraged to take pictures so that people can be more educated on what happened.  However, I feel uncomfortable posting these pictures online but I’ll share them with you when I return to America someday.  While visiting all of these memorials, it was hard to believe this happened during my lifetime.  It was hard to imagine I was walking the same streets where people were once systemically murdered.

After Rwanda, we said goodbye to Charlotte and Lee who flew back to Nairobi but Paul and I pressed on through Tanzania.  We left Kigali for Rusomo Falls at the Rwanda-Tanzania border.  We stayed the night at a questionable hotel in the tiny town of Benako.  We had an interesting time trying to find transportation for our next destination, Bukoba, located on the west coast of Lake Victoria.  Once we made it to Bukoba we took an overnight ferry to Mwanza.  We had originally intended to take a train from Mwanza to Dar es Salaam but rather than face probable delays with the train we decided to head back to Kenya.

We were going to explore some islands near Homa Bay but I ended up getting sick with a high fever.  Since we were in such an isolated area Peace Corps decided it was best to put me up in the hospital in nearby Kisumu primarily as a precautionary measure.  I had all the symptoms of malaria but tests showed that it wasn’t malaria.  I stayed a few days in the hospital for observation.  It sucked being in the hospital but I did get a free flight from Kisumu back to Nairobi.

All in all the trip was fantastic.  I’m glad I got to share it with Lee, Charlotte and Paul.  We had some funny moments of trying to haggle with cab drivers and dealing with the many exchange rates.  Paul and I certainly had some interesting times trying to find our way through Tanzania.

Despite being sick at the end, the trip was really awesome. 

And how is Lee so damn good at gin rummy?