The Last African Bus

I'm now in Nairobi, Kenya after a 13.5 hour bus ride yesterday, which was officially my LAST AFRICAN BUS! In the last 72 hours, I've spent six hours on a minibus packed full with 17 people, nine hours on a public bus packed full with about 100 people (we were sitting six across in a row on a regular bus), and13.5 hours on a 'luxury tourist bus' to get to Nairobi, for a grand total of 28.5 hours on a bus. Needless to say, I'm ready to get off.

I'm about at the halfway point in my journey home that started in Lake Bunyoni in Southwestern Uganda. My mom managed to get me booked on the direct flight home from London, so I'll be home sooner than expected--Thursday in the early evening. Thank you, Mom--you are a star.

The ride from Kabale to Kampala on the punishing, stinking, loud, fume-belching, chicken-squawking, body-odor exuding, frequent stop-making, tiny seat providing, no-ass-legroom public bus was brutal, so I decided to splash out for the 'royal' class offered by one of the tourist bus companies. Instead of the normal five seats to a row (which really means up to seven, plus a few small animals like chickens), there were only three seats that more resembled a business class seat on an airplane than a bus seat. But I wouldn't go so far as to say it was luxurious (pronounced frequently by the bus driver as lugs-yure-i-ous). The bus still broke down once and we had to transfer to another, the door didn't close so the inside of the bus was covered in thick red dust, and the seats--while seeming 'lugsyurious'--had springs poking through in all the wrong places. But my god was it more comfortable than the public bus.

The ride would actually have been somewhat pleasant were it not for the decrepit state of the road between Kampala and Nairobi. Now, if you're like me, even if you've been in Africa for over two months, you might be forgiven for thinking that the road between two major cities in the region would be paved and halfway decent. I mean, it's only about 300 miles--not much more than the distance from Seattle to Spokane. But if you thought that, you would be wrong. Very wrong. I'd say less than half of the road is paved, and the half that is paved is so riddled with potholes that the bus driver drove in the shoulder on the dirt anyway. We averaged under 25 mph for the trip, and that includes the last 100km or so into Nairobi which is paved and fast, so for much of it we were cruising along at about the same speed as a bicycle.

I really enjoyed the drive through western Kenya. We drove through these sprawling tea plantations that covered the rolling hills as far as the eye could see, punctuated by the occasional laborers picking the tea leaves and the collection of whitewashed, small houses built for them and their families. It was made more interesting because I'm reading a fantastic book right now, The Zanzibar Chest (thank you, Marge!), that chronicles one British family's colonial history in the East Africa region and a combat journalist's subsequent experiences here. So many of the other countries I've been to--Namibia, Malawi, even Tanzania to a certain extent--were largely ignored by the colonial powers. But Kenya was a big focus for the Brits, and with its lush farmland, I guess you can see why.

My last night in Kampala was an interesting one. I bumped into my British friend, Zoe, again, with whom I traveled from Namibia up to Zambia. We had dinner with a middle-aged Australian woman who finished every sentence with "and da-da-da-da-da-daladala-da". Rather than relying on mere vocabulary to communicate, she seemed to think this cryptic code more efficient. So it was painful to talk to her. It was made more painful later on when she and her newfound African male friend (again! this phenomenon is everywhere!), retired to her room, which was located just next to mine. This hostel was such a hole that they couldn't be bothered to provide walls up to the ceiling. So instead it was more like a bathroom stall, with walls that started at the ground and came up to just above head-level. They don't do a hell of a lot to prevent noise passing through, let me tell you. I tried not to listen to the activity going on next door, but, dying to know if she was going to climax with one roaring "da-da-da-da-da-daladala-da", it was hard to ignore. She didn't, but I would have rathered that than the painful pillow talk I had to endure later on.

It's raining in Nairobi today, so not much I can do on my last day other than chill out and reflect on the trip. Nairobi is often known as Nai-robbery (and sister cities Dar es Salaam and Kampala are similarly known as Dar-Is-a-Slum and Kam-pothole, respectively), so I'm just going to take it easy and do my best to not lose my camera or any other valuables on my last day. Last night I went to dinner with my two Kiwi buddies, who are coincidentally also flying out today, at a great restaurant called Carnivore. It is boldly considered 'Africa's greatest eating experience', and it didn't disappoint. As the name would suggest, the focus here is on meat from all over the region, which they keep bringing to you until you put a white flag down on your table as a gesture of surrender. It was good fun, and a fitting last meal in Africa.

Hard to believe the trip is coming to an end, but I'm excited to get home and see everyone.