Step one: be 34 weeks pregnant.
Step two: travel over 2000 kilometers, divided into three, 12 hour days.
Step three: It’s so hot.
Step four…
Abram and I finally, finally got the paperwork for our car at the end of August. By this time we were significantly late for several appointments and meetings, but we were still hoping to get to Nairobi in time to meet with my OB, who will be delivering the baby in October. (We are planning to have the baby in Nairobi- more on that later.) Oh- and then to get back to our village by the beginning of September, so Abram could teach a class. Confused? Me too.
Dar to Mwanza to Nairobi. Our village of Bulima is just outside of Mwanza (on the left side of the screen/route.)
So, at 5am on Friday, August 22, we loaded up our new car and hit the road. 5am proved to be a pretty good time to leave Dar es Salaam, and we made pretty good time, until we hit a diversion, or “dirvision” as it was spelled on the hand-written sign. Even with a several-hour-detour on bumpy, dirt roads, the trip overall was not bad, and we were in mid-Tanzania by 5pm. There are some beautiful parts of Africa to drive through, but this particular view was not my favourite.
Our view for several hours on Friday.
Driving in Africa is very different from driving in North America. I am not sure how to describe it to you. For one thing, one could easily cover 2000 kilometers in a single day, in the US- I’ve done it myself, driving from Portland to San Diego for college. But here, there are speed bumps, bumpy roads, lots of "bathroom" stops (seriously, third trimester, people), police checks, dirvisions and any other number of things that can pop up and slow you down. We were very fortunate that our overall trip went so smoothly- we didn’t even have to add ‘car breakdowns’ or ‘flat tires’ to the list!
One of our bathroom stops.
When we got to the town of Singida, (located in the middle of nowhere, Tanzania), we found a lovely hotel on a small lake. It looked rather isolated, and after 4 months of noisy noisy city sounds, we were looking forward to a good – peaceful!- night’s rest.
We saw a bar on the premises, and remembered that it was a Friday, so one of the things Abram asked about upon checkin, at my request, was if there would be music and noise at night. ‘None at all’, was the reply from our kind and friendly hostess.
So I honestly thought it was a practical joke when, not 20 minutes later, I heard a MARCHING BAND enter the parking lot. I got video, because otherwise I would later convince myself I was exaggerating or imagining things…and then I accidentally deleted it! You people are missing out. Really.
Thankfully, they were just escorting a wedding party into the hotel, and after taking pictures and serenading us for a few minutes, the band left.
Abram and I went for a brief walk to stretch our legs, had dinner (which took two hours!) and went to bed. (I did wake up at 1am to a pounding bass from the music coming from the bar. Oh well…)
We decided to sleep in on Saturday, and didn’t leave until around 8. This day was much shorter, and much smoother- almost the entire thing on paved roads! We reached the city of Mwanza by 2pm, and Abram dropped me off at a restaurant, where I happily sat and drank coffee and read my book while he ran car-related errands in town.
Mwanza- second largest city in TZ, and the fastest-growing city in East Africa.
Mwanza is the nearest city to our home in the village of Bulima. When in Bulima (which admittedly hasn’t been much of the year thus far), we come to Mwanza about once a week, to do grocery shopping, go to the bank/use the ATM, visit my (other) OB for checkups, etc. On this road trip, we ran a few errands, ate lunch, and picked up our friends Steve and Judy- the house parents at Visible Grace- and their baby John. Judy and John had been in Mwanza since John was born, and Steve had come down to escort them to Nairobi to settle in at VG.
We left Mwanza around 5:30 and finally got home- like, to our house- at 7pm on Saturday. This gave me a luxurious 12 hours in my own home, to sorta-unpack, prepare some snacks, and prepare for the next leg of our trip: to Nairobi!
Bright and early on Sunday morning, Steve, Judy, baby John, another friend named Feleshi, Abram and I piled in our car and headed north. (It should be noted that rides around the continent are not to be wasted- riding in a crowded car with friends is always preferable over riding the bus!) The drive to Nairobi isn’t bad- about 600 kilometers. We weren’t sure what to expect at the border, but it only took Abram about an hour to register the car and pay the taxes and fees. We had to verify that we did not have a temperature, had not buried anyone recently, did not have blood coming out of our mouths, and did not have any friends in West Africa, before we could enter Kenya…yeah, Ebola is no joke, you guys. (Thankfully there have been no outbreaks in TZ or Kenya.)
Because Abram and I do not eat any grains/wheat, and because I’m pregnant and eat every hour or so, I had packed a LOT of snacks for our trip. I was a bit worried about being hungry, but between the cold chicken, hard boiled eggs, apples and peanut butter, dried pineapple, grapes, paleo muffins, and coconut macaroons, we actually had more than enough to eat and didn’t even stop for lunch.
Though the scenery was a bit more lively, we found the journey on the Kenya side to be muuuuch slower. Kenya is more developed than Tanzania, and probably has more paved roads overall. But the main road we followed was paved a very long time ago. It is narrow and windy, and there are just more people on the road- bicycles, motorcycles, trucks, personal vehicles, busses and pedestrians. And goats. And cows. And baboons. This makes it harder to pass anyone, should you get stuck behind, say, a truck over-loaded with haybales, which is traveling at approximately 20 kph.
Nonetheless, we made it to Nairobi by 6pm. We were thrilled to get into town ahead of traffic (mostly), and before it got dark. We took Steve and Judy home, went to dinner, bought groceries for the next morning, went to the flat we are renting, and collapsed into bed.
This may sound anti-climactic, but that’s probably because I’ve been here too long to notice or remember any sort of Africa-isms that took place- the things people want to hear about, that make road trips here so different. It’s also because the trip went much more smoothly than I expected- other than needing to stop every couple hours to use a restroom, and to stretch, and needing a pillow for my back, I really did well and surprised myself by how normal I was feeling by the end of the third day!
So- cross ‘ridiculous cross-continent African safari in your third trimester’ off my bucket list.
