Nairobi, Kenya

There is not much colonial style architecture left in Nairobi.

Left Jinga after an early morning storm and the taxi had to take care with the motorbike taxis and bicycles on the wet slippery clay road. We arrived in plenty of time to get our bus connection to Nairobi and were lucky to have bought our tickets in Kampala previously as a few people hoping to get on the same bus were turned away as it was full.

The bus was promoted as a business class service. It had large seats with wide armrests between two seats and then just a single seat across the aisle. A most unusual seating plan for the countries we have been in so far as you can squash more people into a three and two seat configuration across bus and make more profit! It had air conditioning but it was inefficient and people kept their windows open. We were given an aluminium foil dish with a vegetable samosa and a piece of bread fried in egg as breakfast and it was included in the price of the ticket.

We were two hours from the Kenya border and exiting Uganda was a shambles with people shoving and pushing to get served and the moneychangers all wanting to get your money. The Kenyan border was even more disorganised where we had to wait to get a visa for $25 US each. There was a man in a white coat and a board with a sign saying it was a health checkpoint where they wanted to see proof of yellow fever vaccinations but as no one approached us we walked on and although we have had the vaccinations we didn't want to be held up in case we missed our bus. There were hordes of people trying to sell all kinds of things and loads of children begging and it would be the most desperate border town we have crossed so far.

The road was pretty potholed until we got to Kisumu. We passed dozens of tea plantations with gorgeous rows of whitewashed houses all joined together. The red rooves looked stunning against the green of the plantations and would have been housing for the field workers. They were in beautiful condition from the outside and the roadsides and towns nearby were well maintained and planted with beautiful gardens. We tried to get photos but the bus windows were badly crazed acrylic and it was impossible.

We stopped in Kenicho and Nakuru for toilets and food and arrived in Nairobi eleven hours after leaving Jinga. The towns in Kenya seem more prosperous than those we left in Uganda and we passed several wild zebra grazing on the roadsides.

Our guide book says the locals call Nairobi "Nairobbery" so many travellers we met told us about accommodation six or so kilometers out of the city, but we didn't want to be taking public transport in and out so chose a hotel in the city centre, and we were glad we did. We felt safe no matter where we went and other than taxi drivers approaching us we were pretty well left alone.

Across from our hotel was a 24 hour supermarket/shopping complex where we could get food and snacks. John found he had a hot spot on his ankle which was an old football injury so we were able to see a doctor in the shopping complex. We were conscious of deep vein thrombosis as being a problem when you fly and we were about to fly to Madagascar. On the doctor's suggestion John took some low dose aspirin. We also stocked up on more insect repellent and toiletries. Once again we bought a local SIM card and loaded data to our mobile dongle so we could have an internet connection. We were so busy we didn't have time to get any postings done and hoped to be able to do them in Madagascar.

Nairobi was unrecognisable to the city I visited thirty four years ago as many of the old colonial buildings have been replaced with glass towers. Our hotel was surrounded by several new buildings under construction so there is still a lot going on.

We have contacted a guide recommended by some Canadian travellers we met and after paying a deposit to him we have arranged to climb Mount Kenya when we return from Madagascar. I had to buy some warm long pants and some more socks for the climb. We are able to get warm jackets through the guide if needed. We will have a porter and a cook accompany us.

We tried to do as much walking as we could each day to get fitter and walked out to the Westlands shopping centre to get a Lonely Panet guide for West Africa in readiness for the next section of our travels. The prices were certainly much cheaper than if we had bought the book in NZ.

Have posted home a small parcel with some things for our daughter and the Southern Africa guide book we no longer need. We always burn two CDs of photos and send one home and keep one until we know that the first has arrived safely. The Post Office as one of the places I thought I would recognise as that was where I would go to get mail from John when I travelled in 1976, but it was completely changed. However, the system for posting parcels etc is still as shambolic as it was then. You have to wait for the clerk to frank every stamp on your mail else someone will take the stamps off and resell them!

While in Nairobi we saw lots of people in Uhuru Park registering with a government department which had set up tents to cope with the crowds. We also saw government workers assembled outside the town hall and wanting information on the "Ocampo Six". The news on TV and in the papers was all about the President and five government officials being investigated by the ICC in the Hague on election violence at the last elections. We enjoyed our time in 'Nairoberry' and felt safe. One night we did want to walk down a hill but a hotel worker stopped us and advised us not to go there at night. Many shops have armed security guards at night outside the closed shops.

Jinga, Uganda

Checked out the website for a rafting company in Jinga and saw that they offered a free shuttle to their camp so got up early to catch it along with 6 other young people.

Leaving Kampala along the Jinga Road was quite depressing. The villages on the outskirts of the city are squalid, made worse by the rain the night before. People are scratching a living selling what ever they can from shops made from roughsawn timber planks. They have no running water and no electricity. In the back of the shops they have constructed cages for ducks, or hens, and pens for goats or sheep, and everywhere there is mud and waste so the place stinks. Some people have hair salons while others sell some kind of food cooked on a charcoal fire.

As we neared Jinga we saw the usual terraced fields of maize, bananas, beans and potatoes. We passed a lot of tea plantations with their hill tops covered in mist. We also saw a large pulp and paper factory.as well as a big sugarcane processing factory, and several newish factories with Chinese names.



The rafting company has a backpackers in Jinga and a camp beside the Nile River so we went there where we got a safari tent. It was no where near as nice as the one we had at Lake Bunyonyi. I had to get the cleaner to come and show her how to clean the tent before we could settle in. Lots of Gappers and young backpackers come here and they don't care if their accommodation is clean or not so they set the standard very low.



From the town we walked to the Source of the Nile where we saw this cormorant with a huge Nile perch in its mouth that it was trying to eat. The place was teeming with birds.


There was a monument commemorating the CHOGEM in 2007 and saw NZ listed as being there and probably attended by Helen Clark. John thinks this would have been when she climbed Mount Kilimanjaro.

There was also a bust of Mahatma Gandhi, erected by the local brewery, as his ashes were dipped into the Nile here. There were several Indian families gathered at the spot having their photos taken.

34 years ago I went from Alexandria, Egypt following the Blue Nile to where it met the White Nile in Sudan and now I have been to the source. The river runs for 6400 kilometres and it takes the water about 3 months to get from the source to the Mediterranean Sea.

Jinga is known for its adrenaline sports and there are rafters and kayakers on the water everyday. Some of the young people we have met from Scotland, England, Sweden, and Norway have rented accommodation in the village and some have spent 7 weeks playing on the water and getting thrills on the grade 5 Bujagali Falls. The camp offers mountain biking and horse riding activities as well. On the weekend several people working for the NGOs come to enjoy the place.



We have met lots of people here, including a group of 5 Kiwis on a overland truck tour. We watched NZ play in the rugby sevens and enjoyed supporting our sportsmen with them.

Met some very young lads from Ireland and England who had been kayaking for several weeks in the river. They shared a dorm room and all 7 in the room had come down with malaria. Most of them were pretty pale skinned and a side affect of the doxycycline drug for malaria causes your skin to be sensitive to the sun so you can burn easily. They all stopped taking their medication as they were in the sun often and it also caused indigestion, especially if it is not taken with sufficient food or water. Of course they blamed the mosquito nets in their room as not working. It's a shame they hadn't been offered a different drug that didn't cause sensitivity to the sun rather than put them selves at risk.

We struck up a conversation with an American lady working in Arusha, Tanzania for the International Criminal Court, on cases for the Rwanda genocide. She worked with Dorothy whom we had met in Zanzibar and was also working for the ICC. She couldn't believe we knew someone in the office near her.

One of the rafting guides spotted our NZ flag on a bottle cooler and asked us where we were from. When we told him we were from Papamoa, he told us his uncle Kerry lived there. He was most surprised that we knew his uncle but then he was gobsmacked when John told him he knew his dad, Tony, and we had 3 days before got an email from his grandparents Lex and Rae. Grant had been river guiding in Scotland and Japan. We sent Lex and Rae this photo to see if they could recognize Grant. Lex and Rae are a well travelled couple and we enjoy getting together and chatting about our travels as they back packed into their 80s.

Jinga has some beautiful buildings that were constructed by the English speaking Catholic Christians, from Goa, India who came to work as traders in the early 1900s। The Indians valued education and in 1968, the Jinga Secondary School had one white student, half a dozen black students and 500 Asians। In 1972 all Indians were expelled by Idi Amin.


The Ugandan government has plans to construct another dam on the river and this will affect the river activities of some of the businesses here and we have heard different views on what will happen then. The electricity produced, they hope, will be enough for the country and some to sell to the neighbouring countries.

Kampala, Uganda

We got a motorbike taxi out of the lake to Kibale bus station where we crammed into a bus with three seats on one side and two on the other. Some of the sliding windows were broken and it was a bit of a wreck. People standing in the aisles had to bob down when we passed police checkpoints.



Katja whom we had met in Kinigi gave us the address of a hotel in Kampala so when we got off the bus we had to negotiate a ride with two motorbike taxis. It was rush hour in Kampala so the streets were smokey and jam packed. The hotel was clean and cheap and we were able to get something to eat before we rushed out the door to see the jam session at the National Theatre. Katja sings with a jazz band so we were hoping to see her there. Unfortunately there was a talent quest going on and then the jam session started but most were reggae singers. We didn't manage to see Katja.



We contacted James and Vanja that had been in our gorilla trekking group and they were having a farewell dinner the next day and then flying to UK straight after it. With thoughts of our Mt Kenya trek coming up we decided to walk the 45 minutes to the restaurant and use our new African map programme to get us there.



There were several Norwegian and Ugandan colleagues and friends to see Vanja and James off. Vanja wrote a poem for each person there and gave away some of her things to each person. She is very talented being able to whip up a poem in a few minutes in a language that is not her mother tongue. We were given a blow up plastic ball with a map of the world on it.

Vanja's poem: Even though you are both better fit than me and raced me to the top

I find your company quite entertaining and nothing close to a flop

You are both two inspiring lot, I am glad I met you

We'll sure meet again

Take the globe, no use for it now.

It's been a pleasure, One I will treasure.

And again my only rhyme is insane

We spent a bit of time walking around the city. It is pretty smoggy and people park anywhere so you have to pay attention to where you walk. Cars block off the footpaths and the paving is broken and the paths muddy. When you walk on the road the motor bike taxis could be coming at you from the wrong direction. There are so many 4x4 vehicles and they push their way in front of everyone. The minivan taxis follow each other around the streets racing to get the first passengers and trying to fill their vans. The arguments can get pretty loud with lots of hand waving, finger pointing and shouting and in no time the passengers or passersby also join in the bun fight. I reckon it is a national sport!






The trees in the city centre have dozens of Goliath storks nesting in them. They can be as big as a four or five year old child. The footpaths are white from their droppings and when it warms up it is pretty smelly.



A street side butcher shop.

This building is still covered with the protective plastic covering that came with the copper coloured glass panels. It was scaffolded and it looks like they maybe trying to get the sticky covering off which looks pretty baked on now but is peeling off in some places.

Our hotel was in a street where there were dozens of restaurants so we had a vegetarian meal at Govinda's Hare Krishna restaurant and also had one of the best curries I have ever tasted at the Masala Chaat restaurant.

We took our spare Vodafone internet modem to a repair shop to be unlocked but have not been able to test it yet so hope it will work when we need it.

Kerri has managed to get us some flights to Ethiopia from Kenya cheaper than we could find online. We would have gone overland but the Lonely Planet forum tells us that it is not possible to get visas at the land borders, only at the airport or in your home country. We have tried to contact the Ethiopian Embassy but to no avail. The visa is also only valid for 30 days from the day it is issued so it will expire before we get to the country if we get it in Kenya.

We met three Nepali Policemen in our hotel who are on leave from the UN peacekeeping group based in Dafur, Sudan. We have rarely met Nepalese travellers in all our years of travel.

Lake Bunyonyi, Uganda

Negotiated the 7 km ride to Lake Bunyonyi with a couple of motorbike taxis. The road was rutted red clay with lots of rocks and potholes. I remembered the words 'pole pole' which mean slowly, slowly and the drivers laughed but they did go slowly. There was a steep climb which meant I had to lean forward into his back so I wouldn't slip off the back of the bike, as I had my backpacked strapped tightly to my back as well. It also meant that when ever he revved I banged my head and glasses on the back of his helmet. Only the driver has a helmet and although they are compulsory most drivers don't wear them. They only see the passengers as money earners and don't want to spend money on helmets for them.


On the way up the hill there were lots of pine trees. In what looked to me like the fire breaks, people were shovelling the silt into piles. You could see where the rain flashed down the gullies that they created after removing the soil and causing terrible erosion. If the rock was exposed near the road they lit a fire under an overhang to crack hunks of rock off. Nearby were hordes of people with metal hammers cracking the rocks into smaller even sized pieces. There were piles lined up by the side of the road where the graded stones and sand were waiting for buyers to arrive. Dozens of children were also cracking the rocks and both sides of the road were a hive of industry.



The lake was really lovely. There were several islands in the middle of the lake and one was called Prisoner Island. It was pretty small with one dead tree and one live tree. Any woman who got pregnant before she was married was dumped on the island. As most of the women could not swim they died on the island. Other women were rescued by men who couldn't afford a dowry or were too old or no one else wanted to marry.



We met Kath and Mick from the UK who were travelling in their Landrover from London to Cape Town. They enjoyed the lake so much they stayed 7 days. They were kind enough to copy an African travel computer programme with maps for us and we spent a bit of time working out how to use it. It gives us ATMs, restaurants, transport depots and other places of interest in Africa. It could also tell us how far to locations on foot or by car etc. It will certainly be really useful for the rest of our trip.

We also met Paul from Ireland and he had started in Cape Town like us for the World Cup games. John saw him sitting alone and struck up a conversation with him. He turned to John and said I have met you before in Knysna, South Africa. We would never have thought we would have met someone from that far back in our travels.



We took a safari tent which was perched on poles overlooking the lake. Outside the tent was a deck area with tables and chairs and electric plugs and lights. The whole place was covered with a corrugated iron roof which was so practical and comfortable.

We could watch the locals going to and from market in their dugout canoes. We also watched two German guys going round and round in what the locals call 'the muzungu corkscrew'.

We were 2000 metres above sea level so it was a little cool at night but we had warm sunny days. John had his 63rd birthday while we were here and with our local SIM card and dongle we had a lot of data time to do what ever we wanted on the internet. We met an English guy and he managed to get our SKYPE working so we spent a couple of hours talking to our daughter Kerri and her fiance as well as chatting to John's brother Evan.

Several overland trucks stopped at the camp and the lake was busy with younguns jumping off the trees by the lake or swimming across to the other camp opposite us. On the weekend a Ugandan government department had a group stay for a conference so it was pretty busy.

John was happy to join the camp staff in the evenings and watch soccer on TV. We were able to network with a Canadian couple and get information on trekking on Mt Kenya in January.

It was a lovely relaxing time to set us up for the chaos of Kampala.

Kisoro, Uganda

Walked to the highway out of Gisenyi and hitched a ride on a taxi motorbike to the bus station. Caught one of the small buses that left every half hour for Musanze. The terraced hills on the way were seething with workers preparing the ground and planting seeds.




People walk every where at any time in Africa. They are always on the move. We often wonder why the buses are so full and where everyone is going. They don't carry a lot of luggage but travel long distances.



At Musanze we had to wait a short while for a minibus to the Uganda border. While we were waiting we bumped into the French guys who were turned back at the Rwandan border because they hadn't booked their visa online. They went into Burundi and then did what they should have, to get their visa, and came into Rwanda that way. It was good to know what happened to them so we don't say to each other"I wonder what happened to the French guys".

We had no problems at the Ugandan border getting our visas for $50 US each. John asked one of the immigration officials the rate to get a shared taxi or motorbike taxi to Kisoro and then the touts arrived quoting us 10 times the rate. John told them to give us the proper rate so they halved it and then he told them that they were cheating us. We left them to think about it and found a place to have our lunch. One of the taxi drivers had a call from one of his regular clients so he offered to take us into Kisoro at a reduced rate which was opportune.

Kisoro is a small place with shops along its long main road, which sits a long way below the shops. You have to climb up slippery clay banks to get from the street to the shops. There were small posters being pasted on to the houses and shops as there will be elections in Uganda in about three months. The locals told us that they are happy with the current president as he has brought peace to the country. He has served 4 five year terms already and looks set to do his fifth. We were also told that the president was due to make a visit to the town and we could see that there were a lot of road works and town beautification going on which would certainly encourage the locals to vote for him as they could see he was making improvements in their town.

The president with his trademark hat.



The locals had grasshoppers spread out drying on sheets of plastic which the locals eat. They stunk and were going a yellow-brown colour.


We found a basic guesthouse and which had a camp ground and a well set out front yard. The room was OK but needed a lot of maintenance. They were building a new block with guest rooms behind so it looked like there was no money for renovations. The night was really cold and wet so after waiting for a meal for an hour and a half we headed off to a warm bed.

The next morning we caught a minivan in the main street. When we put our packs in the back the driver lifted the whole bench backseat off the floor of the van and dumped our bags under it. The seat just floated above the bags. There were huge rusty holes in the floor and the windscreen was cracked in several places. The thing was a wreck!





We got the two front seats and even before the van was full we headed off. The conductor had to push start us. There was some kind of disagreement between the driver and a passenger as a suitcase got pushed in and out of the van window accompanied by a lot of raised voices and finger pointing. The suitcase owner chased us down the road and the commotion continued. We headed up a hill out of town and the driver got a call from the suitcase owner and we had to wait for someone to come and get the suitcase. Every passenger got in on the discussion at this point which we thought was hilarious.

While stopped, the driver got out his tools and and bashed away at the battery terminals. The bus had to roll backwards so the driver could start the engine again. The van smoked badly and it came through every hole in the floor.

We stopped at a barrier across the road, as a small private plane had to fly across the main highway, which ran through the middle of the airstrip. Maybe the president had made an early visit.

Travelled over the Karaba Gap where the road was being prepared for asphalt and we could see a lake in the distance. At a traffic police point we were pulled over. The driver was issued a blue traffic violation ticket and had his number plate seized by the police. We took this to mean that the vehicle was banned from operating. However, we did continue our journey to Kibale.


Kibale is a busy small town similar to Kisoro where the shops all line the main road and they go on and on. Looked for a hotel as recommended in our guide book as being scrupulously clean. They only had a single bed that they said was a double and clean it was, but not' scrupulously', we decided we would continue to Lake Bunyoni instead.


We found a MTN cellphone company office and the lovely lady there activated the Ugandan SIM card that we had bought so we could use it on our modem to get internet connections in Uganda. A short trip to the Barclay's Bank and we could get money out for our stay and we were ready to head to the lake.

Gisenyi (Rubavu), Rwanda

We had a leisurely small bus to Gisenyi and Lake Kavu. Many towns in Rwanda had name changes when the President rezoned a lot of the provinces so we were a bit confused when we thought we were heading for the place on our map only to be told we were going somewhere else.

While in Kinigi to see the gorillas we met Albert, his wife Jill and daughter Savannah. They were showing Albert's mum and dad about. Albert worked in the DRC (Democratic Republic of the Congo) for Mercy Mission as a water engineer but lived in Rwanda at Gisenyi which is a few kilometres from the DRC border town of Goma. Albert invited us to contact them when we got to Gisenyi so we did. We met for a drink and a pizza snack at their friend's restaurant on the lake.

We stayed in a guesthouse that looked like it had been decorated in the 70 s. We were the only guests and the place was on the side of a hill overlooking the lake and town. The town was a dusty place with potholed roads and only one sealed road in the shopping area near the market, and it had only been put down a couple of months ago.



The peninsula in the photo is actually in the DRC. We could see planes coming and going from the airport in Goma several times a day.

We didn't have a map of the town so just wandered around the lake front where children were swimming and families sitting under the trees. There were some luxury hotels along the waterfront where the rich Rwandans like to come and relax away from the diesel fumes of Kigale.

Lake Kivu is one of only three known 'exploding lakes' caused by limnic eruptions; exploding underwater methane pushes a huge cloud of CO2 above the surface of the lake. It triggers a tsunami and the carbon dioxide, being heavy, sits on the water surface or ground causing animals and people to asphyxiate. In the middle of the lake is a methane extraction plant. This is piped out of the lake and some of it is used to power the boilers at the Bralirwa Brewery. In theory the use of methane gas for electricity could increase Rwanda's energy production by 2000% and allow it to export some to its neighbours.

The electricity was erratic all the time we stayed and it rained on and off. One day the rain was so heavy we had to get pots from the kitchen and put them under the leaks in our room and in the lounge. One bedroom completely flooded.

From our patio we could see the Nyriagongo volcano in the DRC, in the day it would let off a steady puff of steam and at night there was a large glowing red ball. I tried several times to photograph it but there was too much cloud or rain. The volcano erupted in 2002 and buried much of Goma in the DRC in lava. With so much volcanic activity the soil is pretty fertile and every where where crops can be grown they are thriving.


We watched this sign go up from our patio.


These guys worked all day digging sand silt from the river and tossing spadefuls onto the bank, while others then shovelled it onto the back of a truck. It was taken around the corner to where they were building a large two storied building near the hospital. We could hear lots of cheering and chanting and saw lines of men and women passing cement in trays, made from plastic jerry cans cut in half, up to the top of the building. This went on for two days and the singing and chanting motivates them to get the tedious job done quickly, even in the rain. No truck pours here.

We were quite a walk from the town centre so had to hire motorbike taxis to get us to and from the bus station with our bags but we were lucky enough to be next door to a nice hotel where we could eat reasonably priced meals in the evening and enjoy the night lights of Gesenyi.