The terrible journey from Nairobi to Addis Ababa!

Hi everyone! I’m in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia. I had a bit of trouble publishing this post because there’s currently government censorship blocking access to blogging platforms like the one I’m using, so I had to use a proxy to bypass it. By the way, fuck off all censorship!

Like I was saying, I’ve finally arrived in Ethiopia. On the roads there are camels, and in the sky the North Star is back. A wanderer of the web who lands on this blog and sees the banner "Dekaro in Southern Africa" might think: Ethiopia in Southern Africa? Isn’t this Dekaro a bit confused? No, dear wanderer. The thing is, the journey started there, and little by little I’ve ended up here. So don’t bother me. Anyway, now I’ll tell you about the journey from Nairobi to here. As an Israeli couple who had done that journey in the opposite direction warned me before I started: "They told us to expect the worst, and the worst is what we got". And now I can fully agree. In fact, it was extremely hard and stressful, but in the end also very adventurous and fun.

So, shortly after writing the last post, I took a taxi to a suburb of Nairobi called Isli, mostly inhabited by Somalis, where I had been told that buses or trucks leave for Moyale, the town on the border between Kenya and Ethiopia.
I wanted to go there and back before dark because Nairobi, with the exception of the central area around the Hilton, becomes very dangerous at night. But we got stuck in an insane traffic jam. So we arrived in that neighborhood when it was already dark, and the taxi driver was absolutely terrified, he kept nervously looking around and muttering that Somalis are bad people, bad people…
We didn’t even know exactly where to go. Then we were directed down a dark street that was completely blocked by some cars stuck in the mud. So we got out and continued on foot. The taxi driver was getting more and more scared, and he was putting an incredible amount of stress on me as well. On top of that, I had everything with me, passport, credit card, and that damn camera (this camera has taught me one thing: whoever owns it is owned). Finally, we arrived in front of a tiny, run-down shack that served as the office for this bus.
Inside there was no one, but a man showed up and issued me a ticket. He said the bus would take at least 35 hours, but almost certainly more, and that it would leave at 11 the next morning. "Be on time", he pleaded.

The next morning at 11 I was there, but the bus wasn’t. I looked inside the little shack, and at first it seemed like no one was there. Then I spotted a tiny, emaciated boy curled up in a corner. He already had the look of an old man, and his eyes were a deep yellow, perhaps due to some kind of illness.
I asked him where the bus was, and he told me it would arrive in minutes. I sat down on a plastic chair by the side of the road and just stayed there for a while, watching people pass through this Somali neighborhood. Towards 4 in the afternoon I started to slightly suspect that no bus was going to arrive. By 5, that opinion was shared by everyone waiting there, and many of them had already had the same experience the day before. The little guy, though, kept assuring us that the bus was just about to arrive, only a few minutes away. At 6, even the little guy, under pressure, admitted that no bus would arrive... but the next day for sure it would!
Me and most of the others took it in stride, but some got pissed off and started yelling at him. In the end, an elderly woman completely lost it and, after storming into the little shack-office, started beating him badly. To be fair, the little guy didn’t really fight back, he just tried to block the blows, while everyone else was shouting at the woman to stop (I guess, they were speaking Swahili). But no one physically stopped her, maybe because, in the end, we were all kind of glad he was getting a bit of a beating.
Then, after she had given him a good beating, the woman left, and with her, almost everyone else.

We were left with only the few of us who absolutely had to go (it was April 10th and, as I mentioned in the previous post, I absolutely had to reach Addis Ababa by the 15th for an appointment at the airport with a friend coming from Italy). We made it clear to the guy that he’d better sort the situation out, and he actually got right to it, running back and forth through the trucks, trying to find us a ride.
In the end, he had found me a spot on a truck that was leaving for Moyale, but the problem was that usually you can ride on top of these trucks, so it’s not that dramatic. This one, however, was different: it was carrying wooden planks, and there was a small space between the end of the planks and the edge of the trailer, just over a meter wide. I was supposed to squeeze in there, sitting down at the very bottom, tightly wedged in. Doing 35 hours or more buried down there with four other unlucky guys didn’t really seem like an option. Besides, I don’t think it was even that safe, because if there had been a sudden brake, the wooden planks could have shifted forward and crushed me.

Luckily, in the meantime I had met a distinguished man in his thirties, Hussen, who had been in Italy as a child and has a sister working in Milan. Hussen, without asking for anything in return, really put himself out to help me, and in the end he found me a situation ten thousand times better: a place in a truck, in the driver’s cabin, heading to a town called Marsabit, about 8 hours from the border. There I could rest for the night and then catch another truck the next day. Perfect.

In the truck cab I felt quite comfortable, it was spacious and had a nice view. Between me and the driver there was a young man named Ismael, who had also been waiting for the bus. He could speak English, so once we set off we started talking about various things, in particular religion, he is, in fact, a devout practicing Muslim.
Around 3 a.m. we stopped for a break in a place called Isolo. Up to that point the road had been in good condition, but from there on it would be terrible all the way to the border. In the rest area all the truck drivers were talking in an agitated, heated way, and I asked Ismael what they were saying. It was about the fact that that night bandits were active on the stretch of road from there to Marsabit, and some trucks had been attacked.

So it was decided to continue together with two other trucks, like a mini convoy, to be safer. Ismael explained to me that these bandits usually block the road in some way and, when the truck stops, they come armed with rifles and force you to hand everything over. Other times they simply jump out suddenly from the sides of the road with their rifles pointed, and if the truck doesn’t stop, they shoot. He added that if we were stopped, I absolutely shouldn’t react or resist in any way to what they said, otherwise I could be killed. Ok.
So we set off again with one truck in front and one behind, and indeed soon the road started to get terrible, at times you could hardly even call it a real road. The truck in front was going very fast and often disappeared from sight, anyway, at some point it also took a different route. The other one, meanwhile, often fell behind, so in the end we were almost always on our own.
The area was desert-like, there was a full moon, and the shadows of the bushes constantly created in my mind the illusion of fierce armed bandits. When the first rays of sunlight appeared, a wave of relief washed over me, and despite the bumpy road I fell asleep.

A couple of hours later I woke up, we had stopped. Ahead of us, the other truck was also stopped, and everyone was talking animatedly. The guys riding on top of the other truck’s cargo claimed they had seen some armed men among the bushes in the distance. I said to Ismael, "How is that possible? There’s light now!", but he replied that it didn’t matter. The bandits are active 24 hours a day.
After about ten minutes, it was decided we would rush through that stretch at maximum speed, both trucks keeping close together. Ismael was calm: God would help us. Yet moments later, he took out his cell phone and said quietly that he wanted to make a call. I asked, "To whom?", "To my wife, in case I never get to speak to her again".
And it certainly didn’t reassure me to hear the driver complaining that the bandits often beat people badly, even when there’s no resistance, and that you could end up with a few broken bones. And that was the situation.

We fired up the engines and off we went! From that moment, the driver didn’t utter another word, completely focused on driving. We sped like mad, bouncing along that road full of ditches and potholes. Nothing happened, except at one point, a guy suddenly appeared from the bushes, running toward us, shouting something and signaling us to stop. But he wasn’t armed, so we just ignored him.

And so we made it safely to the only checkpoint in the entire area. There, we had breakfast while waiting for the other trucks to arrive. Before long, we formed a convoy of six or seven trucks, and from there we set off together, because the most dangerous stretch was about to begin. Luckily, when a convoy is this long, bandit attacks are rare. Each truck carried about ten people on top of the cargo, so there were quite a lot of us.

As we went along, the driver grew increasingly worried, recounting attacks that had occurred nearby. What was really striking was when these attacks had happened. It wasn’t a year ago, or months, or even weeks. No. The day before yesterday, they came out of there. Three days ago, they attacked a friend of mine just after that curve. Yesterday, someone was ambushed right here...
He also told us about a particularly unlucky truck driver who, three days earlier, had been attacked twice in the same day, both on the way there and on the way back! I asked Ismael if he knew who they were. He said they mostly belong to the Rendille tribe, who inhabit those areas largely as nomads, living off hunting. They dress almost like the Maasai, but unlike them, they don’t shy away from firearms. When, as now, there are periods of extreme drought and they can’t hunt animals to survive, they resort to attacking trucks.
We also made two stops in small Rendille villages. And indeed, they are not exactly peaceful. They didn’t want to be photographed, so I took a few pictures secretly, trying not to be noticed by the people I was photographing. But others would pop up instead, protesting quite aggressively! Luckily, Ismael was always there to handle the situation for me.

After passing the last dangerous stretch, where rocks sloping down to the edge of the road created a perfect hiding spot, we finally arrived in Marsabit at around 5 in the afternoon.

The next day (April 12), Ismael, who had now reached his destination, helped me look for a truck to Moyale, the small town on the border with Ethiopia. At first, I had found a ride on top of a truck that, I was told, was about to leave. I climbed up, and it wasn’t uncomfortable, but soon I learned that the truck wouldn’t go directly to the border, it would stop overnight somewhere in the middle of the desert. I feared I wouldn’t make it in time for my appointment, so I got down and started looking for something else.
But there were no alternatives: it was already late afternoon, and all trucks would stop overnight. In the meantime, I found another truck with space in the driver’s cab and, on top of that, I was glad I had left the previous truck, because it didn’t depart until 7 p.m., which would have meant sitting on the cargo in the sun for about five hours!

We set off around 8 p.m. As cargo, we were carrying the car of the only tourists spotted during the entire Nairobi–Addis Ababa journey: three American guys who had miraculously made it this far in a regular car (not an SUV). The car had arrived more dead than alive, and by now that stretch of road was truly impassable. We entered a real desert, no bushes in sight, and around midnight we stopped to sleep in a rather spartan shared room, so to speak.

The next morning, around 7:30, we set off again. The driver said we’d reach Moyale in three hours. Great. The road was a muddy mess, and it kept getting worse. About an hour later, we got stuck for the first time, and we didn’t get free until a couple of hours later. Just fifty meters on, we got stuck again. We weren’t the only ones: trucks were blocked all along the road. After a couple more hours, we finally got moving again, but by then a tire had blown. There was no spare, so it had to be repaired on the spot. Luckily, by then we were no longer in the open desert, with some bushes providing shelter from the sun. I sat in the shade and waited. We set off again around 2:30 p.m., so basically it took us six hours to cover a hundred meters. Not exactly a Schumacher performance.

By evening, we finally arrived in that damn Moyale, a town split in two by the Kenya–Ethiopia border. And once again, I have to thank the Swiss couple (and the saint who sent them my way) for telling me that you can no longer get an Ethiopian visa there. Otherwise, after all this, I would have had to go back to Nairobi! I would have shot myself.

The next morning (April 14), I left for Addis Ababa, with an overnight stop in a town called Awasa. On the bus, I met two Ethiopian sisters, Yeshi and Isega, who helped me with everything. That evening we visited Awasa, its lake, and a park full of birds, and then enjoyed a delicious traditional Ethiopian meal (cost: half a euro!). The following afternoon, I finally reached Addis Ababa just in time for the appointment… only to find out that my friend hadn’t shown up! At the last moment, he had changed his mind and didn’t take the plane.

The proxy I'm using made the photos too slow to load, so I put them in this external album instead: Follow the link to see them.


Photos of the journey from Nairobi to Addis Ababa

Lake Bunyonyi (Uganda) and the journey back to Nairobi (Kenya)

Hi everyone, I’m writing from Nairobi, or “Nairobbery” for friends, where I arrived this morning after another 15 hours on a bus from Kampala, but at least this time the bus had working shock absorbers.
I had already been to Nairobi about ten years ago, and I remembered it as uglier and more stressful than it feels now. Since this morning I’ve just been wandering around the city centre quite happily.
Let me tell you about the last few days.

After the last time I wrote, I arrived in Kabale, in the southwest of Uganda, practically just a few kilometres from Rwanda to the south and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west. From there, I went to Lake Bunyonyi, a truly spectacular place, because it contains a small archipelago of dozens of green islands. One of these islands was entirely taken up by the guesthouse where I stayed for a week, with an extraordinary view and total peace, really one of the most tranquil places I have ever been.
You could hear and see a huge variety of birds, from very tiny ones to larger ones like small hawks, ibises, and herons. It also had a small library, with books on African history in particular, so I managed to clear up a few things in my head. There was also a small room where they screened films in the evening, but apart from the first night we were always without electricity, by candlelight.

One day I took a canoe tour of the lake with a guide. It turned out to be quite demanding. I had assumed the guide would do all the rowing, but as soon as we set off he handed me a paddle, and we only reached the shore after a full two hours.
We were right on the border with Rwanda. From there we walked for about an hour through green fields to a pygmy village, although to be honest they weren’t actually that short.
As the guide had suggested, I gave the village chief, a cheerful old man, a small amount of money, about the equivalent of 3 euros, and maybe for that reason they felt they should put on a dance for me. I don’t usually enjoy watching dances, but this one was really bizarre. It made no sense at all. Some people started singing and others dancing, but it was clear it wasn’t any kind of traditional dance, it was simply everyone doing their own thing in a very rough, improvised way. Some were jumping, some were running back and forth with their arms in the air, some were even throwing themselves on the ground. Apart from the children, who were dancing happily and having fun, the rest seemed like complete nonsense to me. Some of the men also looked a bit drunk. Then finally the dance ended, and everyone went back to what they had been doing before I arrived, working the land, cutting branches, preparing food, and so on...

On the way back by canoe, a light drizzle started, and then suddenly it turned into a total downpour. It’s hard to describe how much rain was falling. We hurried to reach the shore and took shelter there, as best we could, under some banana trees. The rain just wouldn’t stop. At some point I started shivering from the cold, and then I still had another hour and a half of rowing to get back to the guesthouse.
Later on, I had a strange thought: could the storm have been triggered by the pygmy dance?? 😄

From Kabale I was thinking of spending a few days in Rwanda, but in the end I didn’t go, partly because the visas alone were costing me too much (it would have been 60 dollars to enter, plus another 50 dollars to get a new Ugandan visa), and partly because I don’t have much time. In fact, I have an appointment on April 15 in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, where a dear Italian friend of mine, Tiziano, will be joining me.
About the visas on this trip, I didn’t mention before that they are usually quite expensive: 80 dollars for Zambia, 50 dollars for Tanzania, 20 dollars for a transit visa for Kenya (which I’ve already had to get twice), 50 dollars for Uganda, and this morning 30 for the Ethiopian one.

Now, to reach Ethiopia, I’m facing the hardest and most difficult part of the whole trip, as those who have done the route in the opposite direction, coming from there, have unfortunately confirmed to me. “We were told to expect the worst, and the worst is exactly what it was” a couple of Israelis told me. And, among other things, it’s very likely that the stretch from here to the Ethiopian border will have to be done on top of a truck across the desert! There is only one bus a week, but nobody has been able to tell me which day it runs. As soon as I finish this post, I’ll head to the outskirts of Nairobi to try to figure out how to leave. And luckily, a Swiss couple I met when I was at the lake told me that the rules have changed and it is no longer possible to get the visa at the border, but you have to get it here in Nairobi. Otherwise I would have gone all the way there (about 20 hours if I manage to get a bus, or around 30 hours on a truck) and then had to come all the way back! As happened, in fact, to a poor guy they had met.
To make things even more entertaining, there are bands of bandits roaming the border area, and if they show up, they simply take everything.
Anyway, no one ordered me to do this, so there’s no point in complaining. But just so you know, I’m doing it for you, only for you, dear blog readers! 😄

Finally, I’ll tell you that last night, while travelling, there were a couple of strange situations with the police. I remember that before leaving I had read all sorts of crazy stories on forums and blogs about African police and how they are always trying to rip you off, but to be honest, maybe I’ve just been lucky, so far they’ve always been very kind to me everywhere.
Nothing particularly serious happened yesterday either. The first incident was at the border, when after getting my passport stamped and the visa, I was walking the stretch of road to reach the bus.
These stretches of road at any border are usually a real ordeal. In particular, there are often hundreds of people hanging around trying to exchange money either at blatantly unfairly low rates or blatantly unfairly high ones (because in that case the money is fake).
Last night, however, there was no one around, but at some point a soldier with a big rifle suddenly appeared out of the dark. He asked for my passport, and I gave it to him. Then he asked for the yellow fever vaccination certificate. And that was a problem, because I don’t have it. In fact, until the very last moment I had been unsure whether to get the vaccine in Kampala, but several travellers had assured me they never ask for it.
I actually had the vaccine almost 10 years ago, and its validity is exactly 10 years, so in reality I’m in order, but I’ve lost the certificate in the meantime. So I started answering a bit vaguely: yes, everything’s fine, I have it!
But he kept insisting on seeing the certificate. It was clear he was really just trying to squeeze some money out of me, and I wouldn’t have minded giving him a few euros, but I was afraid that by doing so I would be admitting I wasn’t in order, and then he might ask for a much higher amount. Because in fact it is mandatory to enter Kenya (and also Ethiopia... let’s hope I won’t be asked for it when I arrive there). So I kept being vague, saying that I was just in transit anyway, but he kept insisting. In the end, I pretended to look for it among some papers and then told him I had it in my backpack on the bus. Luckily, he didn’t feel like walking all the way to the bus. He asked a couple more times: so, what are we going to do about this? But in the end, he shook his head, smiled as if to give up, and waved me on.

Shortly after we left on the bus, there was the second episode. We were stopped at a checkpoint. Nothing unusual here, African roads are full of checkpoints. Whether you’re on a bus, a minibus, or on your own (like when I was driving in Namibia or riding a scooter in Zanzibar), you get stopped countless times. It’s usually a very quick check, lots of smiles, maybe a joke or two, and then you’re off again. Sometimes there are more thorough searches (I remember in Botswana Pablo was once searched for a very long time, and we on the bus had to wait a long time before they finally let him go). Oh, and another curious thing I hadn’t mentioned yet: especially in Botswana and Zambia, every now and then the bus stops, everyone gets off, and you have to walk over a kind of soaked mat on the ground. Why? Because this way the bacteria on your shoes are supposedly killed and can’t enter the territory you’re heading into. I don’t really know much about this kind of thing, but it does seem a bit absurd to me.
Last night, however, the police who stopped us were strange and immediately behaved in a very aggressive way. They seemed tired and stressed.
First of all, they made us get off the bus with everything we had with us, in my case my camera bag. Then they made us line up right in front of the bus headlights. In one line were the women, and in the other, us men. It was a strange situation, and whenever someone moved even slightly out of line they shouted at them to get back in position. After about ten minutes of standing there like that, they started checking passports and bags, all while shining a powerful flashlight just a few centimetres from people’s faces.
At one point, the guy checking the passports kept saying to me: “It’s not you! Not you!” I was completely blinded by this damn torch until I finally realised he didn’t have my passport in his hand, but someone else’s, and so, despite being tanned, I was clearly not the man in the photo.
Then I went back towards the bus, but another police officer standing at the entrance started hitting my bag repeatedly with a kind of stick, saying: “And what have you got here, what have you got here?” I told him: “Stop! There’s a camera in there!” “And what do you use it for?” “Photos.” “Oh, so you’re a journalist?” “No.” “And so?”... At that point I didn’t know what to answer. I don’t know if such an absurd interrogation was pure madness or some well-planned tactic designed to make you break down and admit everything (but looking at the policeman’s face I’d lean towards the first option). Luckily, just then a colleague called him and he walked away.
So I finally wanted to get on the bus, but nothing was allowed to be taken on board. All luggage had to be stored underneath. Some people had accepted it and got back on, while others were complaining because, in fact, if you have anything fragile in your bag, it will definitely get smashed down there. The driver, somewhere between scared and pleading, kept saying: “No, please don’t protest, just do what they say, they’re doing it for our own good!” I wasn’t complaining, of course. I was just waiting for everyone to put their bags inside so I could hopefully find a reasonably good spot for my camera. But for some reason, the same strange officer from the interrogation called me over, spoke briefly with a colleague, maybe in Swahili, and then said that I, and only I, was allowed to keep my bag with me on board.
By the way, I was also the only one who wasn’t searched. Must be the usual muzungu privileges (another thing I hadn’t mentioned: in all the places I’ve been so far, regardless of the language spoken, white people, and especially non-African white people, are called muzungu. It’s not a derogatory term, maybe a bit ironic, yes).
Anyway, they might be worried about terrorist attacks, because everywhere, before getting back on the bus (at the station before departure, after the border, after every stop), there was always a police officer checking all passengers with a metal detector.

Some photos:

Monkey.


Monet.


From here on, photos of Lake Bunyonyi and its surroundings.
























































A 16th-century Congolese mask used as an amulet for healing.
I don’t think I’ve mentioned African art so far. It’s extraordinary, especially the masks (used in rituals, theatrical performances, dances, or as amulets). More or less during our Middle Ages, they were creating works that resemble our contemporary art. Of course, in their case it’s considered “primitivism,” while in our case it’s pure “genius”.

See you!

Uganda and rafting at the source of the Nile

I was driving west—from Nairobi to Kampala. It was early Sunday morning, and the road, running over creased, hilly land, was empty. On the asphalt ahead of me, the rays of the sun created lakes of light, glistening, vibrating. As I approached, the light would vanish, the asphalt would be gray for a moment, then turn to black, but soon the next lake would flame up, and the next. The journey was being transformed into a cruise through a realm of radiant waters, abruptly igniting and dying out, like strobe lights in a crazed discotheque... Well, up to this point I copied it entirely from Kapuściński (The Shadow of the Sun) 😉 Now let’s move on to Dekaro, with his slightly more sparse, odd, and sometimes ungrammatical style, though no less pleasant, it must be said. So. It wasn’t a Sunday morning but a Thursday when I was on that stretch of road, and I certainly didn’t feel like being poetic at the time. If anything, I felt like swearing. But let’s start from the beginning.

I forced myself to leave the beach bungalow in Zanzibar and throw myself back into the chaos of buses, minibuses, and all kinds of stress. I spent a day in Dar es Salaam and then made it to a city in north-central Tanzania, Arusha, where, with a local guy, I visited on foot several small Maasai villages around the city, where they speak only the Maasai language, not even Swahili.

Since I had already visited Kenya on a previous trip, after a couple of days I decided to continue on to Uganda. I still had to pass through Nairobi, using the only available means of transport: a huge, completely rickety bus at an obscenely low price.
On that bus it was as if the suspension didn’t exist — every bump, even the smallest one, sent you literally flying into the air! After just ten minutes I couldn’t take it anymore. It lasted 18 hours, from 5 in the afternoon until 11 the next morning. It was a constant bouncing, and during some of those “flights,” everything fell from the overhead racks. The floor was covered in broken glass and various spilled liquids. It was awful. At least, as seems to be tradition on this trip whenever I take long overnight bus journeys, I had a nice girl sitting next to me, Dalin, from Tanzania, who is studying at university in Kampala.

Eventually, I reached Kampala, the capital of Uganda. It’s not a beautiful city and the traffic is absolutely chaotic, yet it’s still quite pleasant to stay in. The city centre is on a hill, where the parliament and luxury hotels are located, while heading down towards the main bus station it turns into total chaos, with stalls spilling into the streets on both sides or completely taking them over. The best way to get around is by motorbike taxis, which, although a bit recklessly, manage to weave through the traffic.
In the trees and on the poles there are some strange birds, maybe pelicans. Very curious to look at, kind of ugly and clumsy. It’s funny watching them, when they move it looks like they’re always on the verge of falling, and when they fly short distances it almost seems like they can’t manage to carry their own weight. But once they’re up in the air, they glide around in a majestic and elegant way (like Baudelaire’s albatross).

My hotel was right next to a majestic mosque perched on another hill and visible from all over the city. The problem with staying next to mosques is that every now and then they blast the prayers at full volume through loudspeakers. They sound like endless, heartbreaking wails. I had already experienced this in Stone Town, but especially in Arusha, where in the middle of the night I would be woken up by a loud, mournful cry coming from the mosque next door. It was still pitch dark and it just wouldn’t stop. Then, just as I managed to fall asleep again, other mosques would start up. On the second night I checked the time: 5 a.m.!

After two days in Kampala, I went to Jinja to do one of the most fun things of the entire trip: rafting at the source of the Nile. Extraordinary. I’m not really a rafting enthusiast, but according to experts I’ve done two of the best rafting experiences in the world: here in Uganda and in Nepal. This one, however, was more demanding. In Nepal they had given us some instructions on what to do if you fell out of the raft, but here it was basically assumed that it would happen at least once. So before setting off, we practiced on some small rapids how to behave once we ended up in the river.
Even the raft capsizing was considered almost certain, and we practiced for that as well. So off we went. 31 kilometers of pure adrenaline! In reality, many stretches are calm and you can relax, drifting slowly and enjoying breathtaking scenery, between the green of the river and the surrounding vegetation. Going up that river was like travelling back to the earliest beginnings of the world, when vegetation rioted on the earth and the big trees were kings. (This one is also borrowed, but this time I’ll leave it to you to guess where it comes from).
Anyway, of course, the main attraction was the rapids. Sometimes, before certain sections, we could choose between the difficult or the easier route, but needless to say, in those situations you always go for the dangerous one (otherwise we wouldn’t have gone at all).
Even as we approached the first rapid, the guide asked us whether we wanted the easy or the hard option—in the difficult one, it was very likely the raft would flip over. And all of us: go for it! It won’t flip! Let’s do it! And of course, we flipped over. But it’s nothing dramatic, you suddenly find yourself in the water without even knowing how, and you try (current allowing) to get back to the raft.
But after that, I messed up the part where you flip the raft back over. The procedure for righting the raft was as follows: we all hung onto one side of the raft, pulling it down, while the guide, standing on top, flipped it back upright. So for a moment we all ended up under the raft and had to swim out from underneath it as quickly as possible. I hadn’t really understood it properly. The guide told us to take a deep breath, but I didn’t even have time to do so before I suddenly found myself under the raft. I had no air left, and my head was being pressed down by the bottom of the raft. I started swimming around blindly, trying to find an exit, but I had no idea where to go, especially because the raft above me was still moving as well. Then, just when I genuinely felt I had no air left at all, I suddenly found myself back outside, gasping for breath. Pure adrenaline!
And it was more or less like that for the whole trip. That was the only time we actually capsized, but some of the rapids were absolutely thrilling, like small waterfalls. There were as many as three Grade 5 rapids, which is the highest level in the world of rafting (there is also a Grade 6 rapid, which means that no one has ever managed to run it without flipping over. If someone ever does, it is automatically downgraded to Grade 5).

In the evening and at night we relaxed, drinking and eating on the terrace of the guesthouse, with a view of the river flowing slowly about fifty metres below. For sleeping, I set up my tent, which I hadn’t used for a long time.

The next morning, I had just woken up when I started hearing heavy drops falling right on the tip of the tent (it is an igloo-shaped one). But it wasn’t raining. Strange. Then a large lump of something fell again on the very top, silhouetted against the light. I suddenly had a terrible suspicion, which unfortunately turned out to be correct: a monkey up in the tree pissed and pooped on my tent! Disgusting. I went out and there was no one in the tree, but right next to the tent there was indeed a large monkey. His testicles were bright blue, I’m not kidding! Since there were no others around, he was almost certainly the guilty one, so I cursed him out loud and signalled for him to get lost. But he didn’t move and instead stood perfectly upright, as if posing. I got a bit closer, and still nothing, he just stayed there, almost as if he was challenging me. I picked up my shoe and I really was about to throw it at his head when finally, somewhat reluctantly and very slowly, he left.

In the afternoon I went with three girls to visit Jinja and the exact point where the Nile is born, branching off from Lake Victoria and eventually reaching the Mediterranean Sea after about three months. There, Mahatma Gandhi chose to have some of his ashes scattered. A decision that left many people puzzled: why there? But it’s obvious: because he wanted to be the first man to go rafting on the Nile! May peace be with you.

Photos:


Arusha bus station, Tanzania.



Small church in a Maasai village near Arusha.



School in a Maasai village near Arusha.









Goat.



Eye.



The strange bird in Kampala, Uganda.



The mosque near my hotel in Kampala.



Football match, Kampala.



The source of the Nile, where it branches off from Lake Victoria.



The Nile, seen from the guesthouse terrace near Jinja.


And now some photos of my rafting! In the photo at the beginning of the post, you can see the group: four Pakistanis at the front, a Danish couple in the middle, me at the back, and the guide behind us.

Let’s start with the highlight: the capsizing sequence!


I’m the one with the yellow helmet, already almost underwater.



Here only one of my arms is visible.



And that’s it.



Eh eh...

Other photos, I’m the one with the yellow helmet in the back.

























Pure adrenaline!!

I reply to a comment:

Hi Pierre! Yes, I saw many interesting places since then. The best I think is Zanzibar, it was wonderful!! :-)
I will show all the pics in full resolution when I will be in London, I think maybe at the end of may. See you soon! :-)

Map of the places visited so far and some answers

Hello everyone! I can’t upload photos on this computer, so I’m taking the opportunity to share a zoomable map of the places visited so far and to answer some questions from the corresponding Italian blog that might be of interest.

In general, from Johannesburg into Mozambique, up to Vilankulos and the Bazaruto Archipelago, then down into Swaziland, along the South African coast to Cape Town, then Namibia, traveling up and down by off-road vehicle, then east again... Zambia, down into Botswana, back to Zambia, then Malawi traveling up along the lake, and finally Tanzania here in Zanzibar.

The questions from my friend Marco were: “Which place has been the most beautiful so far? What’s the most delicious and unusual food you’ve eaten so far? What about the drink? Have you learned any phrases, or at least a few words in the local languages? Have you made any local friends?”

As for the "most beautiful place", it’s really hard to say, but if I had to pick one, I’d probably say Zanzibar. The thing is, I especially like the sea with a nice beach, and here there are plenty of them. There’s nothing truly spectacular on the island, like Victoria Falls in Zambia, the red dunes in the Namibian desert, or the Okavango Delta in Botswana, etc., but overall everything is very pleasant: the town of Stone Town, the green-blue-turquoise sea, the little streets surrounded by greenery, a certain “Arab” charm, and so on.
Then of course it depends on personal tastes and the reasons for travelling. If you want to see the most authentic Africa, then Zambia and Malawi. For animals, Etosha National Park (or the Masai Mara and Serengeti between Kenya and Tanzania, which I visited on a previous trip). And so on... every place has its own charm and magic, it’s impossible to say objectively which one is better.

As for "unusual food"... well, it’s strange this question came so late. One dish that stands out is something I had in Stone Town. A local guy suggested I eat in the market area, where at sunset women set up small street kitchens. I tried cassava with coconut, something I may never have eaten before. It’s a kind of tuber, like a potato, mashed with coconut into a white paste. Really tasty and very cheap: about half a euro.
Another unusual food is Nsima in Malawi, which is always eaten alongside other dishes. I don’t like it. It’s a sort of white porridge made, I think, from maize. It’s used mostly like bread, to dip into dishes such as curries or soups. People then keep shaping it into balls with their hands, and once it is already coated with various sauces, it was a bit off-putting for me to look at. In any case, it doesn’t really taste of much. In Malawi I didn’t eat very well, and I remember staying at a guesthouse that the Lonely Planet recommended for its “excellent cuisine.” I’m not very demanding when it comes to food and I can easily be satisfied, but there the food was really bad, almost inedible. But sometimes it really feels like Lonely Planet is just making fun of people... I’ve come to realize that. I could give dozens of other examples.
In hostels in Swaziland and South Africa, on the other hand, they almost always prepared delicious traditional dishes, usually a fixed plate with meat, vegetables, and more. Every evening it was something different, and they never disappointed me.
Then I remember a particular skewer I had in Namibia: each piece was a different exotic animal. There was zebra, antelope, ostrich, crocodile! Crocodile has a strange taste, right in between chicken and fish, a bit like snake meat, I don’t like it very much. The other pieces weren’t bad, but overall I was pretty indifferent, since it was just for fun. I don’t really want to add more animal species to those I already eat.

As for drinks, in South Africa they are crazy about Amarula, but it basically tastes the same as whiskey cream liqueur. The wine there is excellent and very cheap. In Malawi I tried the local beer brewed in the villages. It’s very yellow and thick, it doesn’t really taste like beer but more like a generic alcoholic drink. It’s good. Ah, I didn’t mention that Namibia has, probably, the best beer in the world: Windhoek. Maybe the only positive thing left by German colonialism. I drank who knows how many litres of it! It’s the classic easy-drinking beer, very smooth, not too strong in taste, lightly carbonated, really good.

Regarding languages, here in Africa each person knows at least two, sometimes more. First of all, the language of their own tribe, then English, which is now almost everywhere the official language, and then often also that of some neighboring tribe. At ATMs in South Africa, the language selection screen had English, Afrikaans, and then another six tribal languages, which I think changed depending on the location.
I have learned very few words. In Afrikaans I only remember: Dankie = thank you. As I mentioned before, a boy in Malawi taught me a few phrases in Chichewa, but now I only remember: Muli-bangi = how are you? (used as a greeting), to which you respond: Dili-bino = fine. Children used to always shout something like "Giambuia", which meant they wanted to have their photo taken. Here in Tanzania, the main language is Swahili, and people say "Jambo" to greet someone, and "Hakuna Matata" = everything is fine, no problem.

Yes, in general I am meeting many local people, except in Namibia where we were mostly on our own (also because there was often literally no one within kilometres!). People often approach to try to sell or offer something. In some cases it is indeed annoying and they are just trying to trick you, but many also have a genuine desire to meet you and tell you about themselves. For example, the boy I mentioned earlier who took me to the market to eat cassava. The next day he even took me to his home to meet his family. Of course, he had a typical large African family: his mother, aunts, brothers, cousins, and, despite being very young, a beautiful 8-year-old daughter he was particularly proud of. We all watched a really terrible Nigerian movie together, and then some African music videos. Afterwards, when he took me back, I had the feeling that something was missing from the family picture, until it finally came to me and I asked: "And your wife?"... He completely flew into a rage: "My wife?? My wife?? That whore!! Whore! She only cared about sleeping around… with everyone! Whore!!" And so on... I tried to change the subject (which had also become very repetitive), but there was no way. By then he was just muttering to himself, and he went on like that until we parted ways.
As for keeping in touch, I usually use email, but here in Africa it’s very rare. Not only do people often not have their own email address, but they also rarely know anyone who does. Very occasionally someone does have email, for example, I’ve just received one from a singer from Zambia I met on the bus. She said the tour was a success, but that it was a real shame we didn’t meet again. A pity.

Finally, I’ll answer a question from Danilo, who asked me whether Africa is dangerous. In general, Africa is not dangerous, and I have not had any mishaps so far. I have felt a bit of tension in some bus stations, especially in Zambia, Malawi, and Tanzania. Once in Malawi, a poor guy who had rightly suggested taking a minibus instead of the one I was about to board ended up being beaten by the driver of the latter!
There are, of course, countries that are currently very dangerous or not recommended, such as Somalia, the Congo, and Darfur in southern Sudan.

See you!

Still in Zanzibar!

Hi everyone! I’m still in beautiful Zanzibar. After Stone Town, I spent four days in Nungwi, in the north of the island, and three days in Jambiani, on the east coast. I liked Jambiani less than Nungwi, mainly because of the tide, which recedes by hundreds of meters, making it almost always impossible to swim. In both places, though, I didn’t do very much.

In Nungwi, I went on a tour: we went to see dolphins, had lunch on a small island, and I had the best snorkeling I’ve had so far in Africa, thanks to the crystal-clear water. There were loads of colorful fish of all shapes and sizes, lazily drifting around the corals.
There was also a little stall where you could swap used books by adding one euro. I rather reluctantly gave away a wonderful book, The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin, and somewhat randomly picked up Eye of the Needle by Ken Follett, an author I had never read before. It’s a very good spy story. Spoiler: in the end, he dies. Then I returned it and picked up Christiane F. – We Children of Bahnhof Zoo, which I had read when I was a teenager. I remembered it quite well, perhaps also because I had seen the film as well, which is very accurate.

From Jambiani, one day I cycled to a nearby village to the north, Paje. The distance was just a little over ten kilometers, but the day was extremely hot and humid, and by the time I got back I was half dead.

After that, I went back to Stone Town for a few more days. By chance, I met Min again, the Chinese-Canadian girl I had also met in Botswana and Malawi. She was with a French girl, Celine, and for dinner we went to a small park near the port where, in the evening, dozens of stalls sell fish skewers, baby octopus, sugarcane juice, and other tasty treats.

Now I’m back in Nungwi, where I’ve taken the same bungalow on the beach. It’s really nice here, I’m almost thinking of moving here forever and changing my name to Zanzibaro.


Me and two Italian friends I met in Nungwi. Across Africa, Zanzibar seems by far the most popular destination for Italians.
At night, the local guys light bonfires on the beach, and people sit around drinking under the stars while they play the bongo drums. The hypnotic dance of the flames, the sound of the waves in the background, the starry sky above, the moral law within… sometimes we even end up singing a Swahili song that you hear everywhere here, which goes: "Jambo, jambo bwana! - Habari gani? - Nzuri sana - Wageni - Wakaribishwa - Zanzibar Yetu - Hakuna Matata!". Once you’ve memorized it, you can practically have a conversation in Swahili, because it contains almost all the phrases you need!


Fishing boat in Jambiani.


Women harvesting seaweed in Jambiani.


Rudimentary sailboat in Jambiani.


Jambiani.


Woman in Stone Town.


People in Stone Town.


Street scene in Stone Town.


A cat sharpening its claws on a wooden door, Stone Town.


A kid looking up, despite the sign suggesting not to.


Window in Stone Town.


Glittering sea in Nungwi.


Nungwi.


Young girls in Nungwi.


Boat in Nungwi.


Women harvesting seaweed in Nungwi


Sunset at the beach in Nungwi.


Sunset over Nungwi.


And finally, a little quiz:

Who was born in Zanzibar?

a) Queen Elizabeth
b) Freddie Mercury
c) Prince
d) Martin Luther King