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The vehicle stalls – for the seventh time – finally lurching forward as the clutch and accelerator are manipulated in the correct order, in – roughly – the correct magnitudes. Our driver, believing in the adage that ‘if you cannot drive well, drive fast’, throws us out of the parking lot and into the traffic, nearly claiming the first of what I was sure would be numerous victims. On this occasion it was a shirtless youth – now furious, fist shaking – who had been pulling a wooden hand cart piled high with sacks of grain along the pot-holed tarmac. His dark, muscular frame is covered in sweat from the toil, a job made no easier by having to dive out of the way of our ill-controlled Landcruiser and its already nervous occupants.
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We leave Nanyuki in central Kenya bound for the nearby Aberdares National Park. Considered one of the last truly wild places left in East Africa, the Aberdares is renowned for the ferociousness of its lion and leopard populations. A safari here, by foot rather than vehicle, was a unique opportunity to engage with the wildness of Africa and anticipated to be a major highlight of our Kenyan odyssey. We had no reason to suspect that it would be otherwise.
Realising the hazardous predicament we’d been thrust into, my companion Jo – a widely travelled adventurer who has survived many a hell ride in strange places – and I reach for the seatbelts. There are none. We improvise a setup placing our compacted sleeping bags between fragile ribs and the unrelenting and unpadded steel of the Landcruiser’s doors. Unsatisfied, I instruct Jo on a position that I hope resembles the airplane ‘brace’ position. How many times have I watched – but paid no attention to – that demonstration? We settle in, holding on as best we can, watching the road like a nervous parent teaching an overenthusiastic child to drive.
At the wheel is Punda, our driver and guide, who set us on this perilous course the previous day, greeting us with the news that we had ‘no food, no tents, no cooking equipment, and no vehicle’. Now a day behind schedule our group – including Ahmed the cook and Jackson the guide-in-training – is hurtling along the highway in the borrowed Landcruiser of Death, dodging fearful cyclists, children herding cattle with sticks, as well as other marginally competent drivers coming at us from all directions. Perhaps it is the day’s delay, the whiplash from the gear changes, or the scam being cooked up in the front of the vehicle, but even the first road sign directing us to the Aberdares fails to dispel the sense of foreboding that now hung heavily over the trip.
We turn off the main road, continue briefly along an unsealed track, before Punda stops the vehicle and turns to inform us of ‘the plan’. ‘You will get out here with Jackson’ – who looked 16, nervous, and was on his first visit to the Aberdares- ‘and he will do the first day’s walk with you.
Ahmed and I will go ahead and set up camp’. Despite not yet seeing the gates denoting our entrance to the park, we were excited to be starting the walk and overjoyed at being out of the Landcruiser.
The walk takes us uphill along the muddy vehicle track, lined on both sides by thick forest. The air is chilled and a thick mist has settled on the surrounding hills. Beside the track a great tangle of vines, shrubs and grasses cascades down the steep hill toward us, spilling on to the track. Further back are stands of cedar trees and giant heather, decorated as if for a festival with white mosses colloquially referred to as ‘Old Man’s Beard’. ‘This is monkey fur’, explains Jackson, ‘the monkeys rub themselves on the branches and it comes off their skin’. Wondering whether he’s testing our gullibility I search his face for any sign of sarcasm but find none. Given the exceedingly long strands – up to three metres – of ‘monkey fur’ his explanation seems creative at best. Deciding not to take anything Jackson says too seriously, we settle into the walk, eagerly anticipating what the next few hours might bring.
Around the next bend – perhaps 45 minutes into our walk – we see our vehicle parked in a clearing beside the road. ‘Welcome to camp, we will stay here for tonight’, welcomes Punda suspiciously. Having just started our walk, camp is an unwelcome sight. It is 2pm, the sun is still high in the clouding-over sky, and we have not yet entered the park. We are still on the vehicle track. We are now camped beside the track. Despite the less than convincing assurances of Punda and Jackson (who has never been here before), we are clearly not yet in the Aberdares National Park. The existence of cows in a fenced field next to our camp is evidence enough. Later I watch the sun drop away behind the trees, as dark storm clouds arrive and settle ominously above the forest. Sitting in camp at dusk, recalling the events of the past two days, my demeanour matches the gloom of my surroundings.
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| Walking, walking… in the rain |
Climbing out of the tent early the next morning, Punda asks how we slept. Summoning a level of diplomacy that should, with any justice, see me end up as a negotiator with the United Nations, I squeeze out a meagre ‘um, yeah, okay’, and then show him the inside of the tent which still contains more than an inch of rainwater across the floor, our mattresses, sleeping bags, pillows and clothes. It is the soggy aftermath of combining a wild mountain storm with a threadbare tent held together by duct tape. ‘Oh’, starts Punda, ‘My friend told me that the tent would be fine, it does not rain in the Aberdares at this time of year’. I consider mentioning his tour company’s ‘Guide to the Aberdares Walking Safari’ (‘Be prepared for wet weather at all times during your stay as it rains heavily in the Aberdares throughout the year’), but instead force a smile and hope that today will be better.
Despite the supposed walking focus of the safari we again climb into the vehicle and drive for 20 minutes up increasingly steep terrain, mostly in first gear. ‘I have never driven a four-wheel drive vehicle before’, yells Punda, unnecessarily, as the Landcruiser strains and screams its way up the soggy slopes. Around a final bend we see a wooden arch, and, hanging from its apex, a sign welcoming us to the Aberdares National Park. I look at Punda, words are useless, and he knows that we know. We’re alert to his scam – saving an entire day’s park fees by keeping us out of the park yesterday – but like all scammers this does not deter him from continuing. Later he comes up with a ‘comfortable solution’ to our leaking tent problem: an iron shelter, only two kilometres from the park gates, complete with concrete floor. It is cold, hard and windy but at least, I concede, it is dry.
The silver lining to the burgeoning dark cloud that threatens to obliterate the trip is the sheer splendour of our surroundings. The beauty of the Aberdares is its lush, green hills, dense forests, huge waterfalls cascading into wildly flowing rivers, and abundant wildlife. The time we spend walking in the park is a joy. Because of the altitude of the Aberdares – an ancient, but worn down, mountain range – here at 10,000 feet the mornings are cold, foggy and crisp, slowly warming to become perfect walking conditions. It rains – in hard, soaking downpours – for short periods during the day, adding humidity to the pungent but still alpine smell of the forest. Along the rivers and waterfalls are Giant Groundsel trees, huge rosette plants which can grow up to six metres tall. These giants are found only on East Africa’s mountains and are perfectly adapted to their environment, their dead and dying leaves do not fall to the ground but droop down, eventually wrapping around the trunk to protect it from this cold, mountain environment.
Since we are walking in a park that is infrequently visited by tourists, with a resident wildlife population that is completely unaccustomed to humans, particularly on foot, we are required by the park authorities to be accompanied by an armed park ranger. Our ranger Joshua is kitted out in army fatigues, his weapon slung over his back, the outfit completed with a pair of black rubber wellington boots. With his rifle and rubber boots we conclude that he is clearly not planning on running from danger. Our wanderings take us through the forests where we disturb an old and raggedy male buffalo who is unamused by our intrusion, and are blessed with a sighting of a small herd of elephants rustling through the giant heather bushes. Watching the gentle sway of the grey wrinkly ears ahead of us, we are caught up in the calm, quiet world that these massive, placid souls create. It is a special place to be. I look across at Jo and we exchange the first genuine smiles in days. Later, back in camp, Jo befriends a reedbuck which visits us each night, approaching in slow, measured steps until she (the reedbuck, not Jo, but sometimes also Jo) is startled and jumps away in fright. At dusk on the third day we make out the unmistakeable shape of a large male lion crouched in a clearing far across the valley from camp. The sensation of engaging with nature in this way, as if we are part of life in this place, experiencing all of the sensations and subject to all of the inherent dangers, is what we came for. It is a feeling that is simply impossible to attain on a purely vehicle-based safari.
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On our last morning, loaded up in the vehicle, anticipating the game drive through the Aberdare Salient, an area of the park with the densest population of wildlife, we wait as Punda tries to grind the gearbox into position. One hour passes. Then two. After three hours the shuttle vehicle waiting outside the park to take us back to Nairobi is summoned to now become our rescue team. Our saviour Wycliffe arrives after battling for two hours up the muddy slopes in his two wheel drive sedan. We say goodbye to our hapless hosts, but I do not ask how they will get out of the park.
‘How was your safari?’ asks Wycliffe innocently. My aspiring UN diplomacy returns, ‘The park is beautiful. Amazing’ which I mean, then add, ‘but the safari was not so good’. He knows that there have been problems. ‘Well let us do a game drive on the way out of the park and see if Africa can make it up to you’. Wycliffe is a sweetheart, with the ability to take the potential heat out of any situation with a few words and a genuine smile. He can join the UN with me.
The drive to the gates traverses the slopes of the park, the thick forest beginning to encroach on the roads edge. ‘This is where the most animals are, you cannot walk in this part of the park as it is too dangerous. I will try not to get bogged here’, reassures Wycliffe. Moments later he slams on the brakes. I look up to see a yellow blur move off the track into a roadside bush. A leopard, its huge spotted back is as high as the front of our car. Pausing in the undergrowth, its yellow and black rosettes in contrast with the green wash of the forest, the leopard affords me a rushed photo before it moves off into the thicker scrub. The Aberdares leopard is Africa’s apology to us, explains Wycliffe, ‘for the problems’. It is the easiest apology to accept because we know, despite the difficulties, that we are truly blessed to be here.
Arriving at the park gates we are held up for an hour while Wycliffe ‘negotiates’ our exit with the park ranger – a fat, bald, lazy heap of a man with a clear disdain for tourists. After providing the ranger with his new and hastily calculated ‘extra fee’, we climb into the car, keen to put some distance between ourselves and our experience. Wycliffe turns the key and the ignition gives a final and fatal clunk. Wycliffe looks back at us in disbelief and we return understanding – but forced – smiles. It is not Wycliffe’s fault, and we might as well all be nice, because it seems that we will be here for some time yet.
Copyright © 2008 Cameron Fergus
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