African   Histories

The   African   Sickness

Nakuru National Park

Our first day of trip finishes in the Park Nacional Nakuru, where we arrived at average afternoon to mount our camping and had ours first fight, and of course defeat, with a group of monkeys that were pawned on leaving without properties nor utensils us of kitchen and which was incredibly fast for our slow reflections; the battle was settled with a few pieces of fruit that finished in the trees, a box of matches that, after to it to have eaten it, equal improved the intelligence of the monkey by their high phosphorus content, and a few utensils that returned to us in form of projectiles when the monkeys discovered with great climb on the other hand that they were not eatable. After this skirmish, we took our truck to cross the park, and in a short passage, because the night lay down above, we could visit a great lake, or it seemed it at least, since the enormous concentration of flamenco did not allow to see the water, only one stains pink of kilometers of length. In our return to the camping still we had the opportunity to see antelopes, wild boars, impalas and a group of rhinos that rested placidly in a prairie, without desire to move their enormous bodies and that it totally ignored to us in our eagerness to remove photos and to film video; satisfied by the contemplation of these powerful animals, still we had the opportunity to see descend a leopard from a tree that stood out in the African dusk.

Our senses still embriagados by all the sensations received in our first day, we enjoyed of a supper prepared by our fantastic cook Johannes, a African of indefinite age that always covered its head with a hat with cowboy and that had a so hard skin that it remembered me to the rhinos that we finished seeing, since it directly took with total tranquillity the pots of the fire; probably 40 years of cook had tanned their skin, but not their core, because era of good natured treatment and quick smile. With the exhausted body and as much the fed spirit as the affluent crop, we retired to the tent, thinking that all those strange noises that were heard at night to not would let us sleep, but this thought was diluted quickly and we were transposed totally in a matter of minutes.

For noctámbulo like I, to rise to 6 in the morning is always a suplicio, but in Africa it seemed that means in my coat to sleep me ejectaba from the store to that magical hour in which the light begins to filter between the fog of the jungle creating impresionist images in which nothing was what it seemed nor it seemed what was. After an abundant breakfast that puts in form for a new day of movement and activity to us, we disassembled to the camping in piss pas and we went in our truck to the encounter with the giraffes of the park. The sun begins to make be worth its power and the fog is sprightly totally, offering a wonderful vision to us of a group of heads, of 15 giraffes showing by the glasses of the trees; the giraffe is a very timid animal, reason why any attempt to approach to us with the truck is vain, begin to put its impossible body in movement and with 4 strides of their interminable legs hundreds of meters move away of us; as the Maxima of the savannah is that everything what noise moves and does is seen immediately, we decided to stop the motor of our truck and to patiently hope that the giraffes approached us; after awhile we observed what it seems a family, with a male, a female and a young of few months, that appear between the trees near the way and happen to only 10 meters of our truck, distance sufficient to appreciate with detail their wonderful printing and that small head planted at the end of their powerful neck, with 2 small horns as a antennas; they stop to mordisquear the tender leaves of the glasses of the trees and follow his way parsimoniosamente. We returned satisfied with to have shared our breakfast with the giraffes, and we went to one more a higher part of the park from which the lake can be descried in all its splendor which we had seen the previous day and that from the height still it seems more pink. As we have a long passage of highway towards Uganda, we start ourselves quickly.

Our truck is discovered in the lateral ones, protected by canvases that unroll in case of rain or cold, something that luckily we will only have to do 1 time in all the trip; for that reason, the views and the contact with the outside are excellent, and the long hours of route become pleasant because everybody that it advances to us salutes to us with a Thief who means hello in swahili. In the passage we happened of the summer to the winter, is to say we crossed Ecuador, that is symbolized with a circular statue in that to the North and the South are marked and we become the forced photo. We make a shutdown in Kabale to supply itself of food and to give a return by the town that is like the majority which we will cross in our trip, low houses of adobe with streets without asphalting and much vacated people populating the streets, in addition to street markets where it is possible to be absolutely bought of everything, to become a suit by a graduated tailor, to buy a just polished coffin, to cut the hair, et cetera, et cetera. The state of the highways is quite good in Kenya and we began to think that Africa, at least some countries, is not so underdeveloped nor is in a as precarious state as we hoped. Certainly we are at the dry time, since it is beginning of the winter, and the ways are much more passable that at the time of rains. The highways are also the vital axis of the country since any person who has something to sell locates in her borders to deal; every certain time people see themselves selling vegetal coal that he is the one that is used mainly to cook in addition to the wood, and also furnaces of brick baking are observed frequently for the construction; also it surprises to see that many tile roofs of house are done of zinc plates, which us dislikes us aesthetically but symbol reveals like of status economic when we asked it people, since the tile roofs of leaves deteriorate with much facility and rapidity and those that can be bought the zinc tile roof, do not reason with our aesthetic criteria but practitioners, which makes you think that it is an error to draw conclusions on which you see in Africa starting off of our reasonings.

The idyllic vision of a red sun that makes burn the horizon when we are to only 2 kms of the camping breaks abruptly when our truck is clogged in the mud; in these circumstances one account occurs of which in Africa the solution to the problems is not in a telephone call that makes go to the crane, but which you must yourself look for the life and solve them you yourself, since thus we did, to take shovels, trunks, stones and any thing that could help to remove the truck from a more and more deep hole, in addition to 50 arms that they pushed with all its force to get out of the the jam; even so we took 1 hour in being able to remove the truck, with the mud until the eyebrows, and in view of which the rest of the track was in the same conditions, we made the rest of the way on foot until arriving at the camping of Eldoret, a place in the middle of the anything and that surprising offers a hot repairing shower to us with a as basic system as effective to warm up a metallic water deposit with a fire that mixed with originating water of another cold water tank allowed you to enjoy the comforts of the modern life. The proprietor of the camping is a Indian, something habitual in Kenya in the world of the businesses, and that also provides the India food to us more delicious than we have never proven, accompanied by cold beer!

Go To:

Previous:
Next:
Main: