The plane made a smooth landing and I was back in Addis after having driven some 3000 kilometers across some of the most remote parts of Africa. My slight feeling of nostalgia was only increased by the three glasses of wine that Kenyan air had pushed on me, but that said I was glad to be back in Ethiopia.

    Eleven days prior I had been feeling the exact opposite. I wanted to get out of Ethiopia really badly. So when my friend Barney asked if I would like to accompany him on a ten day trek to Tanzania I jumped at the chance. Mike, another stay at home dad, filled out the crew. As Barney made final preparations to Sailor the eleven ton overland truck that would be our home for the trip Mike and I bought food and drink for the road. 

                                                        DAY ONE

    Our plan had been to leave as early as possible but as is most often the case we postponed our departure until around noon. That gave Mike and I time to go to Thursday morning play group. This was a good thing for a few reasons a. a bit more time with Maxine before leaving b. I did not have a return ticket yet and the  Hilton had a travel agent c. the play group was at the Hilton and thus was catered by the Hilton ie: smoked salmon! Barney was unable to go as he made final preparations to Sailor but Mike and I made sure to text him and tell him what he was missing.

    I got back home around 12 and headed over to Barney’s. Mike, who tends to be a bit late, had to meet us at a gas station on the way out of town. Fueled up and pointed in the right direction we headed off. It felt so good to be leaving Addis. I had not left Ethiopia in six months and it was time to get moving. Our plan was to drive down to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Langano lake, only three hours away, and camp for the night. The drive was uneventful and we made good time. Langano, at this point, is a home away from home and camping there an easy affair.

    Mike, who had been in charge of food until we got to Nairobi, had purchased three-foot and a half long steak fillets for dinners, eggs, and bacon for breakfast and nothing else. Well it was a manly trip across Africa so nobody complained. The steaks became known as donkey dicks because well they looked like donkey dicks. I handled most of the lunches and dinner cooking, Mike took over breakfasts, and Barney did all the driving. Labor divided we dug into our first meal on the road.

                                                DAY TWO

    The next day we woke up early and Mike made some bacon and egg sandwiches. Our plan for the day was to drive all the way to the Ethiopian boarder and into Kenya where there was a National Park campground. We had a long way to go and needed to get to the boarder before it closed, and we all needed to get out of Ethiopia!

    The road all the way to the boarder is paved the only really bad part is the last 150 k where the road shrinks to one lane. This caused many scares as we dodged other trucks on the road. In light of the fact that Mike had brought only meat for the trip we kept our eyes peeled for road side food vendors. As we drove through each small village it would quickly become apparent what the village was known for. One town produced charcoal and every ten feet or so there would be a guy on the side of the road selling it. We passed through tile, paving stone, corn, banana, pineapple, mango, orange, coffee and of course chat selling towns.

    We stopped and bought oranges, pineapples, bananas and charcoal. To buy something you pull over and the car is instantly swarmed with people pushing their product through the window. Sailor has a distinct advantage as we are 8 feet off the ground! I was able to sort of peer down and pick the best of what was available. To give you an Idea of prices I bought six large pineapples for about two dollars. As Sailor filled up with fruit raced to the Kenyan boarder.

    The land in Ethiopia gradually changed as we headed into the mountains beautiful semi rain forests spread out on either side of the road broken up by farms and villages. As the road was good we made good time but we still were on a tight deadline. If we didn’t get across the boarder then we would have to camp in a really nasty boarder town.

    One thing that is very quickly apparent in Ethiopia is that pedestrians and animals seem to have absolutely no concern for their safety when it comes to roads. People decide to cross the road right as a car is passing. Usually they get half way stop sort of sneer at you as you slam on the brakes and then when you have stopped walk back the way they had come from! It is truly aggravating! Farmers also encourage their animals to cross the road as you approach them. I did notice that as we headed south into Kenya and then Tanzania people became more road weary. As we kept slamming on the brakes our desire to get out of Ethiopia increased.

    The Ethiopian side of the boarder closes at 5:30 we rolled into town at 5:30! Grabbing everyones passports I raced over to the immigration building only to be stopped by a guy locking a gate. He told me the boarder was closed and that I would have to wait until tomorrow. Putting on my friendliest face I asked him to please let me in. Luck would have it that he did not actually have to do anything in the way of work if he did let me in so he opened the gate. One down...how many more to go?

    He pointed to a building and told me to head to room four. Outside of room four there was a line of about eight people. Shit! Oh well time to pull out the ignorant and rude american card. I barged to the front of the line and into the room. The immigration man did not want to do anymore work. This was my first lesson with a diplomatic passport. No I do not have one but both Barney and Mike do. So I put them on top and waved them in front of the guy as he was trying to head out the door.

    He stopped and I could see his mind going over the situation. He thought “these three could just be spouses of aid workers or they really could be diplomates in which case a true shit storm might rain down on me...” He turned around and did the paper work so that we could get the hell out of Ethiopia! We did just that and in a few minutes we were sitting in the same office but in Kenya. The first thing that struck me was how friendly the Kenyan immigration man was and how many flies there were in Kenya.

    Seeing as I was in Obama’s homeland I declared that I was just an ordinary american. This seemed to please the official and he gave me ten dollars off my transit visa! I was beginning to like Kenya. Once through the Kenyan boarder we made a short drive to the park camp ground and enjoyed a cold beer. As barney was making his inspection of the truck he found that a bit that held the exhaust was broken and would need to be repaired in the morning. This was the first of the many injuries that Sailor would sustain during the trip.

    As we sat around the fire eating the second of the donkey dicks we learned something new about Mike. Mike does not like bugs. All things crawling, flying(except for birds), or slithering were on Mike’s squish list. Unable to help himself Mike spent the evening fighting off really big ants. The strange thing was that the ants really only seemed to be interested in him...

                                                DAY THREE

    We awoke early and got on the road as quick as we could. We were a bit delayed as Barney needed to weld a bit of metal. Sailor carries a welder onboard so the fix was not much of a problem. The next bit of road was the worst that we were going to have to drive. We had about 200 k of dirt road ahead of us and if it rained we would be unable to drive it. The mud gets that bad. The other route we could of taken travels through an area known for road side bandits. I voted mud.

    Within minutes of departure we ran into the first of many road blocks and the first of many really bored policemen. Basically the police string a line of spikes across the road here and there and wait until a car comes along. They then harass  the drivers until a bribe is given. Our first road blocked proved to be the worst. It was manned by a fat pig of and official. He strode up to my window ready to cause trouble. At all of these road blocks the police would walk up and speak to the passenger, either Mike or myself. They did this because Sailor is a left hand drive car while Kenyan cars are right hand drive. Even though there was not a steering wheel in front of the passenger they still treated the passenger as the driver!

    So fat pig climbed up and leaned in the window. He asked where we were going and what we were doing. Just as we thought it was over he spotted big nepali knife that Mike had put on the dash the day before. He grabbed it and held it in the air declaring that we needed a license to carry such a knife. Grrrrrr...the guy just wanted the knife because it is a cool freaking knife! Once again the diplomatic passports were pulled out and a whole bunch of yelling. Finally the fat pig decided that we were not going to give him the knife or any money and let us go.

    Away we went! We needed to get this first bit of road, about 100k, completed before any rain fall. If it rained the dirt road would become ‘black cotton’ a sort of mud that swallows cars whole! We never saw any because luckily it did not rain but Barney seemed pretty concerned whenever a big black cloud floated over head. The road was very rough and we saw a few trucks that were stuck. We were driving through a vast desert. We drove through small settlements of a few hundred people or so. Life in northern Kenya is hard, really hard!

    Along the road we saw many wild animals; bush buck, impala, even a leopard of some kind. Towards the end of the day Mike shouted out “Giraffe!” and sure enough a bit off the road there stood a mom and baby giraffe. Mike and I jumped out of the truck and ran into the bush, not so wise but hell it was our first giraffe! We ended up getting very close to them and took some nice photos. Then they loped off into the desert. It was the highlight of the day. When we got back to the truck Barney said he had some bad news. At some point durning the day our main water tank had sprung a leak...we were in the middle of the desert and running out of water.

                                                DAY FOUR

    Waking up to the sound of your water supply dripping away is one thing but then finding out that the trucks leaf spring hanger is broken makes for a worse day. On top of that we had one too many beers the night before and all had pig poop behind the eyes.

    That morning as Barney looked around the truck he found that we had a major break down on our hands the bit that allows the eleven ton truck to swing on its leaf springs had broken along with the water leak. Oh and the exhaust pipe had cracked. Basically driving a truck of that size over such a rough road had taken its toll. We were stuck!

    Here is the thing about owning a truck like Sailor you get good at fixing it. Barney along with being a decent mechanic had done a lot of repairs of Sailor already so we limped out of the bush and on to the hard packed surface of the road. Over the next six hours we chopped down three trees, to help jack up the truck, took off the shocks, took off some sort of stabilizing bar, and finally were actual able to fix the truck! I was really amazed, in the middle of the desert when all looked lost we had fixed the truck!

    But we had lost a lot of time. We were not on the road again until almost two. Bouncing along at a bit slower pace we headed for the pavement. Along the way we did cross a major landmark the equator. It was the first time that I had driven across it. With the aid of GPS we stopped right on top of the equator and snapped a few pictures. Another hour of driving and we were on the pavement again. We decide to camp that night in a government guest house compound. It felt good to be out of the desert.

                                                DAY FIVE

    We had about 400k to go until Nairobi which we covered in record time, seeing as it was all paved. Arriving around two we headed straight for the grocery store. Addis has western stores but they are about half as good as you would like them to be. Nairobi has grocery stores straight out of the US. It was so nice to buy  some food that you just cant get in Addis like cheddar cheese! Supplies purchased we headed to Barney’s friends house.

    Mouse, Barney’s friend, was born and raised in Kenya and works as a safari guide. She lives in a part of Nairobi called Karen which looks just like England down to the cottages and polo horses. We decided we would BBQ that night and I took on the cooking. I was a bit nervous as I would be BBQ’in for a few local kenyans. These guys know their BBQ and I wanted to make a good impression, ie americans also know how to BBQ. I decided on some pork ribs and chicken wings all marinated in a home made BBQ sauce. It went down well, no food left over! Mouses dad commented that americans were not as bad as he thought...

   Seeing as I had been sleeping in a tent the whole trip I got to sleep in Mouse’s guest room. It was great to have a full nights rest and not have to get up at the crack of dawn.

                                                DAY SIX

    Day six was partially spent in the industrial part of Nairobi getting some stainless steal welding done on Sailor’s water tank. This needed to be taken care of seeing as it was our water supply. Luckily we were finished by around 3 and were able to take a quick drive through Nairobi National Park.

    The part is situated right next to downtown Nairobi and at first I thought it was going to be more like a zoo than a park. It turned out that I was wrong almost right away you feel as if you are in the middle of nowhere and you can see tons of animals. The feeling of isolation is broken by jets flying over head and when you look to the horizon you can see housing developments but all in all it is worth a visit.

    We spent a few hours in the park and during that say many gazelles, ostriches, water buffalo, bush buck, giraffe, impala, wildebeest, and got stuck in a traffic jam behind about twenty zebra. They just waltz across the road. We were so close that you could easily have reached out and touched them! But I didn’t. Finally we drove up a small mountain to a view point where we had a sundowner and watched the animals grazing below us. All in all it was a very nice afternoon.

                                               DAY SEVEN

    The next morning we woke early and headed back to the park. Not to look at more animals but to find Barney’s keys which he had lost. Luckily they were at the lost and found. So we hit the road on our way to Tanzania. Our goal was to reach Terengeri park http://www.tanzaniaparks.com/ by sundown. We were going to camp in the park that night and then drive around the park in the morning.

    Getting to the boarder was no problem the boarder on the other hand was a complete pain in the ass, for me at least. Mike has a diplomatic passport and he walks around sticking it in everyones face. So as I was getting my transit visa, $30, Mike was busy at the next window declaring that he would do as he pleased. This pissed off the immigration man, who really could not stop Mike from ‘doing as he pleased’. The official could stop me from ‘doing as I pleased’ though. Once he figured out that we were traveling together he stomped over to the window where I was and said that I could not get a transit visa but rather must get a multiply entry visa, $100!

    It came down to two choices for me either I complain and he would not let me into Tanzania or I get a multiply entry visa. I have the multiply entry visa! Thanks Mike! But after spending a few days in Tanzania I know that I will be back and now already have a visa.

    Through the boarder and on our way. We started to see many Masai people. We even stopped and bought some charcoal from them. They are very tall and thin people often carrying spears. I saw many of them riding bikes down the road spear in hand. Combined with the landscape it felt very much like the Africa I had pictured.

    We got into the park at around five and parked at a dry watering hole where we hopped to see some game. Zebras and wart hogs walked around in the mud but no elephants which the park is known for. Barney promised by the next day we would see some. Driving a bit further we arrived at our camp for the night. We set up camp and then climbed on the roof of the truck to watch the sunset and have a beer. Animals were roaming all around us zebra, wart hog, impala, and baboons to name a few.

    Barney went inside to get another beer when we heard him call up “Oh bloody hell! It happened again!” The leaf spring hanger had broken....again. Too tired to deal with it at the moment we decided that we would go to the parks service station in the morning and enlist some help. Our moods a bit down as we quietly BBQ some pork chops.

    Just after dark a truck pulled up with two park rangers in it. One stepped forward and said that he was dropping off our guard for the night. I asked what for and he quickly answered ‘poachers’ and then as if realizing his mistake he changed his answer to ‘wild animals’. Many park rangers have been killed by poachers and the guard was sent to look after us in case they showed up!

Ken, the guard, waived at us and then disappeared into the bush not to be seen again. I did hear him pee in the middle of the night so I know he stuck around.

    I camped outside that night and was awoken many time by the sounds of animals. I heard wart hogs and baboons and might have heard a lion or two. Very cool experience.

                                            DAY EIGHT

    We woke up early, once again, and headed to the park entrance. Once we explained the problem about ten guys went at the truck. We basically stood back and shouted warnings and advice now and again. Luck would have it that we did have one more bolt that was needed to make the repair. In the end it was fixed again!

    Next we took a drive through the park. Mike and I sat on the roof as Barney drove us around. Almost immediately we saw our first of many elephants. He was right by the road busy eating a tree! We drove around for about two hours before deciding that we needed to get on the road. Most of the day had been spent fixing the truck and we needed to get some road behind us before camping.

    We drove for a few hours and arrived in Awash around five deciding that that was enough. A game of bocci and a BBQ sent us all to an early bed. I did make friends with a dog that lived in the camp ground we were in. He spent the whole night guarding my tent.

                                            DAY NINE

    The final day of driving! My butt was looking forward to not sitting all day long everyday. We woke up to lots of rain. This was no good because we were going to drive right past Kilimanjaro and the clouds would block the view. But as luck would have it just as we were passing the mountain the clouds cleared and we had a great view of Africa’s tallest mountain. Kilimanjaro is a very beautiful mountain that rises up from the farm land around it. It took about an hour until the mountain was behind us. 

    The rest of the drive was uneventful compared to trekking across the deserts of northern Kenya. We followed a nice paved road all the way to the camp ground in Dar. The camp ground turned out to be a Yacht club right on the Indian ocean! Yes we would be spending the next few days in style. We showed up just about at happy hour and happily watched the sun go down enjoying a Dvou beer.

We met many of Barney’s friends and made plans for the next day. We were to go fishing bright and early and then sailing in the afternoon.

                                                    DAY TEN

    I woke up to Barney kicking me and telling me to get my butt out of bed it was time to fish. Oh staying up until three the night before had been a very bad idea! I crawled out of my tent to a blast of hot humid air. Seeing as I was going on a boat I would need to take some motion sickness pills I took two and then we headed to the boat launch. Barney was not doing too well either as we stumbled along the beach.

    Happily once I was in the boat, a small one, I started to feel a bit better. We headed out of the bay and into the big waves. The Indian ocean is really nice warm but not too warm and a lovely green color. Once out in the big waves with our poles in the water the motion sickness pills hit me and I fell asleep for most of the trip. I woke up three times twice to watch a small fish come in and finally to reel in a large clump of sea weed! Towards the end of the trip I really wanted to get off the boat. It was hot I was hungry and we were not catching fish.

    Out on the water I saw many fishermen plying their trade. These guys go out on really small rickety boats right into the big waves. Most of them do not know how to swim because they figure if they fall off the boat they would rather go quickly! Having very little luck we headed in around lunch time.

    I dropped out of the sailing trip as I had had enough of the ocean for one day. Hey I’m a desert rat at heart! Instead I spent the afternoon on the beautiful beach. I read and swam then read some more. Across the bay there is a huge cement factory that was the inspiration for the factory in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Roald Dahl use to live in Dar and he look at the factory everyday. The sun went down as Barney and Mike floated on it.  We all went and ate Indian food and had a relatively early night.

                                            DAY ELEVEN

    Homeward bound! Mike and I were to leave Dar at around 1 pm and head back to Addis. We had one last fried breakfast packed our bags and headed to the airport. All was going well until Mike decided that as a diplomat he did not need his bags searched! About a half and hour later, with his bags searched, we were getting on the plane. We flew back to Addis excited to see our children and wives. It had been a great trip one that I doubt I would ever had the chance of taking without having moved here. I was glad to be back and looking forward to leaving again...