No Hurry in Africa

by Brendan Clerkin

  Luckily, his superior officer believed my story, but made clear in his gruff voice,

  ‘You should not have been allowed to get that visa in the first place—if you leave now, you will not be allowed back into Kenya again.’

  Déjà vu, not again, I thought. This would be very problematic because my flight home would be from Nairobi; not only that, I had to leave Bríd back to Nairobi Airport in three weeks’ time. By this stage, she was in tears over the whole business. I would have to take my chances.

  ‘I’ve been through worse before,’ I tried to reassure her, ‘and it always turned out alright.’

  A few kilometres inside Tanzania, our bus was found to be slightly overweight at a weighBrídge. Weighing vehicles is a necessary precaution because of the weak structures that pass for Brídges. The bus conductor looked around and up and down, then forced the two fattest women off the bus. The bus circled back onto the weighBrídge and passed muster the second time around. The two women walked ten yards on up the road, and we picked them up again. Negotiating bridges after that, Bríd and I crossed our toes as well as our fingers!

  When we finally reached Dar es Salaam, weary from the epic journey, we hired what may have been the only stretch-Lada taxi in all of Africa. I never knew such a thing existed. Our driver demanded the equivalent of sixty euro for a five-minute drive. I handed him about two euros worth and he was delighted. Dar es Salaam proved to be a large city; it is the largest in Tanzania, with a population of over two million people. It is a thriving port on the Indian Ocean, and is the economic capital of the country, as well as being home to most of the government departments. Dodoma, in the centre of the country, houses the parliament and is officially the capital, contrary to what most people would answer in a pub quiz. Tanzania itself is a vast country, nearly twelve times the size of Ireland; it is home to more than 120 indigenous ethnic groups.

  ‘How much is the pineapple?’ I enquired in Swahili from a fruit seller sitting on the footpath the following morning. I was given an answer that converted to about sixty euro. He settled for a lot less. I could see a pattern emerging.

  Exotic Zanzibar Island lies around fifty kilometres from Dar es Salaam, in the Indian Ocean. Our boat to the island resembled nothing more than a refugee ship; noisy multitudes, mostly in Muslim dress, were jammed on deck and in every available corner, some being seasick because of the choppy seas. We only realised, after some time, that Bríd was on the male-only end of the segregated boat. We pleaded ignorance and laughed it off in the Irish language to ourselves, knowing we would not be understood by anyone—unless that amazing Gaeilgeoir shopkeeper in Mombasa was on board!

  The slow boat to Zanzibar town was supposed to take three hours from the time we boarded at midday. In the end, the engine broke down, and we limped into port in the dark, a full nine boring hours later.

  ‘Slow boat to China more like,’ I quipped to Bríd.

  She was still coming to terms with the strangeness of it all.

  At passport controls, we declared our intention of staying for over a week on the island. For historical reasons, Zanzibar maintains its own immigration controls. It gained its independence from Britain in 1963; a year later it voluntarily united with mainland Tanganyika to form Tanzania, and it maintains a very strong degree of political autonomy to this day. After stamping us in and inquiring about our accommodation, the immigration officer immediately morphed into a tout for a particular guest-house—his wife’s!

  ‘I will show you very good guesthouse. That one you want to stay in is no good. You will find my wife’s guesthouse much superior!’

  Zanzibar town and, in particular, the old Stone Town quarter resembles Lamu in many ways: in its narrow winding alleyways, raised terraces, shady squares, bazaars, and mosques. Unlike Lamu however, Zanzibar has a new town attached, a few souvenir shops for tourists and, more significantly, has cars. We were only just off the boat when we saw a car crash into the back of another. The lights were smashed on both cars, but both just drove away without even an exchange of abuse.

  Another big difference is that Zanzibar has pet monkeys that attempt to pull the skirts off women walking down the narrow lanes. Had they been trained to do so, we wondered. We heard quite a few high shrieks of annoyance from the women. Being from Mars, I subtly chuckled to myself in amusement; being from Venus, Bríd told me off.

  ‘Whist, Brendan, you shouldn’t laugh at that!’ she scolded, while laughing herself.

  It was a pure delight for us to wander together through the maze of alleyways in the old town, exploring the spice markets with their exotic array of cloves, cinnamon, lemongrass, and vanilla. How could you resist the invitations to taste? Occasionally, we got lost in the labyrinth of laneways, distracted by the brightly painted signs. Some of those in English were more noteworthy for their colourful artistry than their grammar; one read:

  The main man in town for motorbikes is a colourful caracter called Ally Keys. He not as disreptable as he looks and her bikes is safe [sic]

  On one lane, real daggers and children’s toys were being sold together on the same stand. Beside the market, a crop of maize was growing in the courtyard of the Old Fort in the middle of town. Along the seafront, we discovered one of the highlights of the town; a lively open-air market, lit up from evening by paraffin lamps, that was offering delicious fresh seafood. We regularly re-fuelled there with octopus, squid, shark and such like, that the talkative proprietors barbecued on the spot—all for next to nothing. We savoured eating our feasts as we sat on the seawall, while the pleasant aroma of smoke from the barbeque fires fused with the warm sea-air.

  We were the only people in the previous fortnight to stay in our large ornate guesthouse. The most distinguishing feature of Zanzibar town is the exquisitely carved, large wooden doors on the front of the tenement buildings, formerly mansions, dating back to the more prosperous era when the Sultan of Oman ran all the ivory, spice, and human slave trades of East Africa from his palace in the town. Zanzibar fell under the control of the Sultan of Oman in 1698 when he routed the Portuguese rulers. The island boomed as the coastal epicentre for trade with Africa’s interior. The Sultan’s territory in Africa at one time stretched from Mozambique to Somalia, and the island became the ninety-nine percent Muslim it is today.

  Trading in slaves and spices became so lucrative that the Sultan had moved his capital from Muscat to Zanzibar in 1840. Then, in a succession struggle between his two sons in 1856, the sultanate was split into the separate sultanates of Oman and Zanzibar. Britain seized control of Zanzibar in 1890 in a dispute over human slavery, but the Sultan was retained as a figurehead. The Sultan took over once again on independence in 1963. However, a mere 32 days later, he was forced to flee on being ousted by a popular uprising of the indigenous Swahili Africans.

  Bríd found our visit to the underground slave chambers very moving. The conditions the slaves were forced to endure, before being sold at the slave market, were indescribably callous. It is estimated that over half a million of these unfortunate Africans were sold here in the forty years prior to 1870.

  It was in Zanzibar that the pioneering missionary, Dr. Livingstone, first landed in Africa, stayed a few years and invited the British to intervene in order to abolish the slave trade. The British dutifully—some might say opportunistically—accepted the invitation, then won the shortest-ever war in history. It took only forty-five minutes for Zanzibar to surrender. Dr. Livingstone then built an impressive Anglican Cathedral, right on top of the underground slave chambers on the site of the slave market.

  I was intrigued and somewhat amused at the end of our guided tour of the holding cells when, without knowing I was living in Kitui, the English-speaking guide explained,

  ‘There is a tribe somewhere in Kenya, I think they are called Akamba or something like that, who, when every other tribe would be fighting off the Arab slave traders, the Akamba would tell them, “Pssst, I’ll sell you my neighbour here. I’ll go catch him. How much will I get
for him?”’

  The Akamba indeed had, and have, a reputation as traders. They were always well known to the Arabs, and to the British later on, as the middle-men between the coastal Swahili traders and all the tribes of the interior with whom they wanted to trade beer, ivory, medicinal plants, tools, weapons, ornaments, food, and cattle. Such was the tide of corruption spread by slavery that many African tribes engaged in capturing and selling their tribal neighbours. However, I could not verify the guide’s claim that the Akamba were so willing to trade their own people.

  For the next week or so, Bríd and I headed to the near-deserted picture-postcard tropical beaches and coral reefs further up the island towards its northern tip. When we arrived in Nungwi village at 11am, a staggering drunk showed us to nice chalets overlooking the fabulous palm-fringed beach. Then he proudly boasted in almost his only words of English,

  ‘I am the watchman. I protect the chalets.’

  I pointed him out to Bríd later that evening. He was lying asleep on the beach, an AK-47 on his lap.

  The security guards at these places, including the upmarket hotels that charge guests hundreds of dollars a night, are paid about one euro for an entire nightshift lasting from 6pm to 6am. Before coming to Africa, I used to hear this tired old ‘dollar a day’ cliché so often from Bono and Geldof that it did not really register. Only now could I fully comprehend it. I was not entirely surprised when our bag was stolen on the second afternoon, while we were swimming at a secluded beach. Luckily, we did not lose anything important.

  We found the long white sandy beaches of our tropical paradise largely deserted. Nungwi, and nearby Kendwa, seemed like some of the private islands of the Caribbean; it was so relaxed and tranquil and laid-back under the palm trees. Bríd and I were cocooned in our own state of bliss, waltzing on the sand as the sun set, to the sound of the waves breaking lazily on the seashore.

  We fell in with the same English lads I had met while climbing Mount Kilimanjaro in March. Small world, we agreed. They were now in their last days in Africa, having spent a year teaching in Tanzania. They had attended some of the more famous English public schools, but were far from the posh-school stereotypes. We played pool one night with the resident sharks at an outdoor bar next to the beach. Unfortunately, the Africans were much more familiar with the contours of the dodgy table, and we lost a few Tanzanian shillings. Part of the appeal of beautiful Nungwi is that it caters for a variety of people in season. It is one of a tiny handful of backpacker hideouts in East Africa. As such, it can be relatively cheap, provided you stay away from the expensive hotels catering mostly for Western newlyweds.

  Bríd and I went snorkelling at the nearby coral reef. In the warm tropical waters, we were treated to a spectacular display of colourful fishes and other exotic marine life, including turtles. It was hugely enjoyable, but I felt slightly seasick coming back on the sailing dhow. On our last evening on Zanzibar, I held Bríd in my arms as we drifted with the tide in a warm turquoise sandy bay. The setting sun produced a magnificent array of colours, from bright orange to deepest purple. It was one of those perfect moments in life, with everything in harmony and the two of us deeply in love.

  CHAPTER 21

  SAFARI IN THE SERENGETI

  AFTER A FEW HOURS’ SLEEP on the overnight boat from Zanzibar to Dar es Salaam, Bríd and I went looking for a bus to the inland city of Arusha next morning. A tout tried to drag us onto the ‘Pope Benedict XVI’ bus.

  ‘How much is it for the popemobile?’ I asked the driver in Swahili.

  About fifty euro was his asking price. No big changes in Dar es Salaam in the meantime, I thought.

  Near one small village on the way to Arusha, where we stopped for a break, a complete brass band, instruments gleaming in the sun, was practicing on the roadside. Were they expecting a celebrity? Had they been misled about the popemobile? It was one of those bizarre random sights frequently witnessed in the African bush.

  Stepping off the bus in the dark, when it finally reached Arusha, we were immediately accosted by Robert Mugabe’s double. He offered us a good deal on a safari. In fact, we decided it was good enough for us not to shop around, and we were to set off early the next morning.

  Arusha lies 650km to the north-west of Dar es Salaam, along the main road to Nairobi. The clock tower in the centre of the town is supposedly the exact midway point between Cairo and Cape Town, the two termini of the British Empire in Africa. Its importance in modern times is for being East Africa’s ‘safari capital.’ Practically every safari in northern Tanzania starts and ends in Arusha. The 14,980 feet high Mount Meru, towering over Arusha, was clearly visible from the hotel rooftop where we had breakfast—as was every male using the urinals along the sidewall of the corridor leading to the rooftop buffet. The staff took away the breakfast buffet long before it was due to end.

  ‘That’s because you’ve gone up to help yourself too many times,’ Bríd suggested.

  I had been looking forward to our classic four-day safari on the vast Serengeti plains since before I left Ireland. I really wanted to complete my sightings of the ‘Big Five’ trophy animals in the wild: lion, rhinoceros, buffalo, leopard, and elephant. I termed this particular trip the ‘soup, dinner, and dessert safari,’ as we were starting with Lake Manyara, followed by two days in the Serengeti proper, and finishing with a day in the wildlife bowl that is the Ngorongoro Crater. They are all located in a corner of Tanzania to the west of Arusha, between the city and Lake Victoria.

  Bríd and I were joined in Robert’s jeep by an East Belfast man named Brian, who bore some resemblance to Peter Fonda in Easy Rider, and by his New Zealand-born wife, Leonie. Brian and Leonie were travelling overland together from Copenhagen to Cape Town via the Middle East. They were typical of the intrepid adventurers you meet in Africa.

  ‘We’re going the whole way by using only public transport,’ Leonie explained. ‘The Middle East proved much safer than we anticipated, certainly better than Sudan. Northern Kenya was another story again. Tell them about the dust, Brian, and about those Africans in the back of the lorry with us … ’

  Brian and Leonie were an outgoing couple in their mid-forties. As a group, we hit it off straight away. Less than an hour after meeting them, I looked through my binoculars straight at Leonie, and joked,

  ‘Look, look, there’s a kiwi!’

  She turned around instantly.

  ‘Where, where?’ she exclaimed, before twigging.

  There followed four days of never-ending bad jokes that often had us all in stitches. Robert eventually stopped trying to teach us about the animals because we only ended up laughing at some surreal gag we made up about them.

  The Serengeti plains provided us with one fantastic surprise after another. We watched a pride of female lions sitting in a tree, watching, waiting, then jumping down to hunt down gazelles crossing a nearby river. The gazelles just made it to safety on this occasion. Later on, we were enthralled by the sight of a lone male lion suddenly standing up from his camouflaged position in the tall dry grass, then licking his front paws, before mounting a small rocky hillock and roaring at full volume only a matter of yards from our jeep. Then he turned his back on us and walked casually away. King of the Plains.

  Shortly after this, we saw a leopard lunching on an impala that it had hauled up onto the branches of a tree. That first day in the Serengeti, we also spotted white rhinos, zebras, ostriches, elephants, giraffe herds, and a cheetah with her playful cubs. Bríd was beside herself with excitement. There were lots of baby animals about at that time of year, and many mothers nurturing their young. Then there were the countless animals, both big and small, that I had not heard of before: topis, hartebeests, klipspringers … Robert identified them for us as we drove across the plain.

  On Bríd’s birthday in the first week of June, we were up and going before dawn. This was a great time for spotting hippopotamuses, elephants, and zebras crossing the tracks, lit up by the headlights of Robert’s jeep. A rosy dawn in the
Serengeti is pretty spectacular too. This particular morning we happened upon a feeding frenzy. Several wildebeest had drowned while crossing a river during the night, so it was breakfast time for any number of hyenas, crocodiles, vultures, and jackals. There was fierce and noisy competition among these predators and scavengers as they attempted to drive each other off.

  Hovering serenely above the savannah that morning was a solitary hot-air balloon. Leonie was in a bantering mood.

  ‘How come you didn’t organise a flight in that for Bríd on her birthday, Brendan?’ she teased.

  ‘One hour in that balloon with a champagne breakfast to follow,’ Robert interjected, ‘would cost you over four hundred dollars!’

  ‘Is that all?’ I remarked. ‘Sure let’s book it for the whole day tomorrow.’

  We had timed our safari extremely well. In the vastness of the Serengeti, we appeared to be the only jeep observing the huge annual wildebeest migration.

  ‘This is something special, Bríd—even for Africa,’ I explained, as she stared in amazement through binoculars. ‘This is one of Nature’s greatest spectaculars. At the end of the rainy season over a million wildebeest and around 200,000 zebra and various types of deer migrate north to Kenya’s Masai Mara. It happens every year at this time. They are endlessly on the move in search of water and grazing.’

  ‘But what are the zebras doing in the middle of the wildebeest? Bríd asked, reasonably enough.

  Robert took up the story as he drove the jeep right into the middle of them.

  ‘The zebras actually marshal the wildebeest herds, because the wildebeest forget the migration route from year to year. In return, the zebra are protected from the great predators—mainly the big cats like the lions, as well as crocodiles—by the sheer numbers of wildebeest,’ he enlightened us.

  We hung around a long time marvelling at this extraordinary scene, and felt privileged to have experienced it.