Anyone wanna buy a Vespa? 7/16

April 20, 2003

Man, alive…..I would really love to stop sweating. I’m currently in Stone Town, Zanzibar and it’s 34C in my room with the fan on high. Imagine the temperature in the sun! So needless to say, I constantly look like a bucket of water has been poured over my head. You try to protect your skin from this insane sun with sunscreen but it just slips right off your body. Not that I’m complaining…

Obviously my being in Zanzibar it means I’ve finally left Uganda. It was a bittersweet goodbye. Went to all the clubs and bars, specifically Al’s Bar and said bye to all the hookers. Even managed to run into some Ugandans I had met at a disco in Fort Portal about a month earlier. You know you’ve been in a country too long when. My final night a group of us went to see some live bands at Just Kicking (an expats bar). Turned out the band was led by this guy named May that I had hung out with at the full moon party in Jinja weeks earlier. Binange (lugandan for ‘my god’…loosely translated), I’m telling you, Uganda is a very small country. After the show Duncan (my young Scottish soon to be travel companion friend) and I headed off to a party we were invited to by some ngos (yeah, really, I was set there…I do have braggarts rights, I think) and managed to hook up a ride with a fellow named Mark, who worked for the UN. We had been told that you needed to bring a bottle for entry, similar to parties at home, so we stopped and got some Waragi (my love) and crisps. The party was held at a house that sat in the shadows of the Sheraton Hotel. I should say mansion , not house. Turned out that the mansion was owned by the EC Rep for Uganda and she just opened up her home to all the expats. I don’t think she was even there. Turned out there was a fully stocked bar, buffet table filled with food and a DJ (who I had met at Dr. Grant’s dinner party days earlier). Pretty cool exit from Uganda…

Managed to grab a couple hours (literally) sleep before finally leaving Red Chillis for the last time (? no one believes it anyway) and heading to the Uchumi Supermarket for a full stock of Waragi and some chow. Met up with Pete and Jan at the Scandinavian bus at I guess around 11am, can’t remember, but it was to be a 20 hour bus ride to Tanzania via Kenya. Did I already mention these guys? Basically I met them at an Irish pub, both of them are Americans living in Norway, thereby believing they are Norwegian not American and they informed me of their plan to go on safari in Tanzania. It inspired me to finally move so I joined them.

The bus was plush. We even got movies! Ok, some very strange African movies but it was TV, dammit! Did you know that there is a tradition in Africa that when a woman’s husband dies, she is inherited by his brother. Meaning he can sleep with her and she has no choice. Even if the brother in question is married. Fantastic…. Border crossing was fairly uneventful except for this one Kenyan guy who noticed my passport. He said “Are you Canadian?” “Yes.” “Oh, I don’t like anyone who is against the United States.” Hmm. Wasn’t expecting that!

We did, for some reason stop for 3 hours at the Tanzanian border. No idea why but I was very happy that I had left over valium from my illness, enabling me to sleep until we got to Arusha at 8 am, a few hours early. Got into a hostel and passed out for a few hours longer. We needed our strength. We were in search of a safari company!

Another interesting thing that happened was the altitude descent. You could totally feel it going down through Kenya from Uganda. Uganda is quite an elevated country. When we saw the gorillas we were at about 2400 meters. Oh, did you notice in the news the rebel action going on there right now? Nice…. The other interesting thing is the rains. The rains have started, slowly, and often, at dusk, you can see clouds shooting lightning for hours but not one drop of rain or one sound of thunder. Just amazing.

Imagine arriving in a town you have never been, tired and vaguely confused after a long journey. You exit your prison of 20 hours to the bright sunlight of the early morn and are greeted by dozens of men shouting for your attention. Where do you want to stay? Do you want safari? Good price, special price. Hey mzungu! You want batik? Holy shit. And everyone is grabbing at you and your bags. It’s enough to make the gentlest person blow. But somehow, I imagine it was the valium, I kept my cool and got to the hostel without having made one promise to one person. I was impressed with me.

It turned out though that some of these safari touts were quite helpful. They, of course, waited in the court yard the entire time we slept, which was at least 6 hours, hoping and praying we chose their safari company. Now, they don’t actually work for these companies. They’re homeless and get money from the companies when they bring them new clients. Keeps the town safe in a weird way, I suppose. They can be helpful though. They showed us to the ATM, drove us to the tourist bureau, drove us to any safari office we wanted. They even picked us up that night and drove us to the restaurant we were to dine in. Not that they had any ulterior motives.

Pete, Jan and I finally chose a company, Victoria Expeditions, based on other travellers’ reports. Our plan: 1 day Lake Manyara, Serengeti for sorta 2 (long drive), and the Ngororo Crater for a night and day. We were a little pissed because we had to stay in lodges. On the night of our company decision we fought with them to take us on a tented safari and they did cave but when we got back to our ‘hotel’ the sky opened up and sent buckets of water down for hours. The whole road turned to mud, very quickly, and we all looked at one another and decided maybe a lodge would be a good thing. And it as the same price. And I had gone on a tented safari in Kenya. And I plan on more safaris in Southern Africa, which is not in the long rains season, aka winter.

We joined our new team the next morning which consisted of 2 girls from Sweden, Anne and Kristen, who had been studying biology of some sort, it included the soil, and were treating themselves for their last 2 weeks; Ed, and English teen who had been working in a village on Pemba (near Zanzibar) for his gap year; and Bianca, a German girl who was at the end of her journeys having come up from SA. And then there was the driver/guide. I called him Bwana Freshi (Mr. Cool in Swahili). He was a dude. He immediately nicknamed Jan and I. We were the most trouble/fun. Lots of singalongs….etc. Had to keep Team Konyagi’s (the Tanzanian Waragi) spirit up! But sadly my nickname was Mama Kubwa. Big Mama. I’m telling you, it’s easy to get fat in Africa. All the girls complain of it. Jan was like Mr. Tall or something stupid.

Our first day was Lake Manyara. Pretty cool. Lots of baboons, flamingo, ugly marabou storks, all the type of deer like creatures, giraffe….basic cool stuff. But, see, I needed to see a Leopard….and a kill. But I would be completely satisfied with just a leopard, the hardest animal of all to see. So I wanted to move on, get to the Serengeti. The circle of Life. Home to Simba. Ok, the irony to that: Simba means Lion. You will certainly see a lion in the Serengeti. They tag them.

The Serengeti was awesome. Really. Just a sight to behold. I had been a little concerned that it would too similar to Masaai Mara, which it’s sorta attached to but it’s not. There are these wild rock formations and theses beautiful streams…really spectacular. We arrived just in time for the dusk drive. Got in, had a race with an overland truck, we won, Freshi became an even bigger dude due to good driving skills and then we heard the word we wanted to hear..Leopard. All of us agreed that we wanted the cats, the rare ones and maybe some rhinos and shit but the cats were priority number one. Off we raced with all of us perched atop the giant Land Cruiser we were in. We were driving down this road leading to the fabled leopard when we stopped to talk to another truck. This is common practice. Helps to stay in the know of things. Get this: I knew the passengers. They were 2 American doctors I had met at Dr. Grant’s the week before. So bizarre.

We raced down the road and sure enough, there was a leopard lounging up high in a tree. I couldn’t even see him for a few minutes. It was amazing! And to celebrate, we all did shots of waragi, including Freshi. This actually aided us. See, it was decided that we would take a shot with every big cat we saw. Well, that night we saw 2 leopards and a servile, a very shy nocturnal cat. So we had quite a bit. Enough to inspire Freshi to race back to the first leopard and off-road it to his tree, parking right under him. Big no no off roading in Serengeti. And this was around the time that we were to be getting back to the lodge. Mad dog. Super cool. Oh, and then he decided to chat with some rangers! And he was pretty pissed. Africans aren’t very good at holding their alcohol, but they do like to drink it. Man alive, it was a good night.

And then it got better. We drove to our lodge and it turned out to be this 5 star lodge smack dab in the middle of the Serengeti! And I got my own room! (Freshi made sure I got the best) The room was all wood with one wall made up entirely in glass (sliding door) looking out onto the Serengeti. It’s almost indescribable. And it was designed to be a part of the environment….and it was supposed to be $230US a night. We were paying $85 each for everything a day. And we got 5 star food. All you can eat. Oh, like we didn’t take advantage of that!

We spent most of the next day in the Serengeti before heading off to the Crater. It was a pretty quite day as far as animals were concerned, although we did spot 4 cheetahs looking for shade, but the drive to the Crater was a sight to behold. Giraffes racing through an open field with a Maasai village in the foreground. Rolling hills, maasai warriors out hunting, children dressed up all in black with painted faces for the ritual circumcision (at age 12!)…way too cool.

Our lodge in the Crater was even more amazing. The whole one side of the building was made of glass so you would always have a view of the Crater below and the animals. The Crater, by the way, is, I believe, a crater lake about 260 sq. km and packed full of animals. Every where you look there’s an animal. It’s so cool! We saw pretty much all the big 5 on that trip and most of it came from the crater. Really, if you ever come to Tanzania, the crater is a must!

We finally had come to an end to another beautiful safari and went back to Arusha. There I decided to join the girls in their journey to Zanzibar. We had one last good sendoff for Jan, Pete and Ed who were not able to join us, at a very good Ethiopian restaurant in Arusha and left the next day. But doesn’t that all sound too easy? I mean, really, if any of you have been reading my emails you would know it’s not possible for me to have easy travel or at the very least uneventful travel.

I had been meaning to catch the bus with Bianca early the next day on the cheap bus while the Swedes had already been booked for the good bus. We went, I was told it was full, the driver said he could get me on the same bus as Bianca for a slight fee, I told him to piss off, I was sick and tired of the touts in Arusha hassling you 24/7, and opted for the afternoon bus even though that would get me into Dar pretty late. Got on the 11am bus, stopped in Moshi (saw Kilimanjaro covered in clouds…same as everyone else) and low and behold, there were the Swedes! Their bus had broken down (not mine for once!) and they managed to get on mine and we had a very uneventful drive to Dar, save for bad movies which I watched anyway.

Stayed just a few hours in Dar….but it seemed cool. Got a on the ‘2.5’ hour ferry to Zanzibar which actually took 6 hours. Were met by a beach boy aka tout aka druggie sent by Bianca’s friend Katrina to take us to Kendwa, the north beach. Cool but first I had to get to a doctor. Seems I picked up some kind of weird rash. Well, it started as a rash, on my neck and my upper right arm as well as my right forearm, then they turned to big bubbling blisters. Luckily not my neck but my arm looked pretty gross. Went to a doctor in Stone Town. He looked at it, asked “Does it itch?” “No.” “Does it feel like it’s pulling at your skin?” “No.” “Huh. I don’t know what it is.” Then he looks through a book, turns to a page and asks me “Do you think it may be this?” Oh my god, can I have my money back? In the end he gave me cream which turned out to be a cream for third degree burns, which did work out when I got sunburnt but I think the salt water actually healed it. And I will never know what I had. Africa….but the whole doctor thing only cost me $4US.

We got to Kendwa finally at about 9pm after a really cool drive listening to Moby. Can I just mention that Zanzibar is wicked? So beautiful, so styling, and, yes, there are quite a few tourists even though there is a terrorist warning on the place. But let’s face it, the warning has been going on for over 4 months and I believe that there was not one warning on Bali…

Kendwa/Nungwa….the 2 north beaches with Nungwa being the big area/village about 3 km from Kendwa. We opted for Kendwa cause it’s just more chill, more beach. But sadly, with beach comes touts and in this case touts come in the form of Rastas. Yeah, sounds cool but there is something sad about locals trying to be western but also rats. Just doesn’t work. And, having spent a bit of time up there (shocking) I learnt that most of them are so lonely and confused. They seem to love tourists on one hand and then despise them one the other. I did manage to befriend one rasta who was legit. Nice, down to earth and not trying to get into my pants. And his name was Jesus! How wicked was that? Ok, he didn’t really see the humour in it but I chalk that up to his not understanding my english sometimes.

My first days in Kendwa were spent with the girls. Snorkeling, tanning, etc. Getting sunburnt so bad on my ass I couldn’t wear underwear for 3 days. 30 sunscreen my ass! Then we came back to Stone Town and went on a spice tour. It was so much fun! I had no idea spices were so weird. Anyone seen what nutmeg looks like? And did you know that it’s an aphrodisiac for women? And the food of Zanzibar! Oh! The coconut sauce, the pilau rice! Heaven.

Bizarro run in number_: One of the passengers on the spice tour was Dave, my white water rafting guide in Jinja, Uganda accompanied by his wife Sara, and some Dutch dude that I saw all the time in Uganda.

The girls left and I spent a few days chilling in Stone Town, getting lost in its maze and basically loving it. Then my friend Duncan arrived from Kampala and we went back up to Kendwa for the Full Moon (in 3 days) Party at Kendwa Rocks. Yup. Gotta be a fun time. Man, not such a good party but that’s ok. We’re in paradise!

The next day we woke to overcast skies. As it turned out I had experienced summer in Kendwa the week before and now we were in winter. ‘Kay. We were sitting in the open air restaurant thing when I noticed all the beach ladies freaking out. They were staring up at the sky and, in unison, running to the left , then the right. I rushed out from our covering to see what was up but saw nothing. Then one fisherman pointed up at the sky, showing my the tornado that just skimmed past us. It left in its wake an uprooted tree and it stole a tin roof.

Those days were spent entirely on the beach. Really did nothing except tan, swim, and workouts. No this is true. Duncan and I decided we were sick of being out of shape and I started doing exercise class for him and these 2 English people, Jess and Brendan. Every night. Jesus found it amusing. (See, it’s statements like that that make his name great!) But the beach was fun…I actually do have a tan now….well, I did….I’ll explain.

We left the beach finally, which was fine cause it seemed to be raining more and the attacks on tourists were increasing. I suppose I should mention that. We all noticed, the ones who stayed for a while the underlying tension in our paradise. It was almost violent. Then the attacks started increasing. They would occur in broad daylight, always in high tide when the mzungu would be wading through the water on the walk back to Kendwa from Nungwa. It was always 2 guys with machetes. And they always got money. From one woman they got $1500US. My question is, what will happen to the mzungu that has no money? These people don’t believe we have little or no money. And the locals, the rastas didn’t seem to give a shit. No one cared. We actually went to Nungwa one night for dinner in the village and I suppose we were quite lucky we were safe getting home, although I think the dudes would be on the piss in the pub. Busy day scaring mzungus….and I also think the locals know who’s doing it.

Ok, so we came back to Stone Town, Duncan, Jess, Brendan and I for some good Easter fun. Spent Friday night at this gorgeous restaurant called Monsoon eating delicious food and catching up with a Toronto girl, Melanie I met in Kampala. Yesterday we rented vespas. It was so much fun, booting around the island. What a way to see Zanzibar. Until I drove.

At first I was rocking. Old hat really. Like I was born on a vespa. Jess and I felt really safe with the steering column in my hands. Until we came to the junction where I lost control. I’m still kicking myself, which means we’re alive and well ( a given since I’m typing this!), but really can’t believe how badly I fucked up…but basically we headed into a turn and kept turning until we saw 2 large boulders and somehow I managed to dump the bike before smashing into them and used my face to stop. Somehow I didn’t break anything. Somehow Jess didn’t break anything (though she says she’s prone to breaking bones and now believes we had a guardian looking over us…maybe it was Jesus. He did recommend the company). I mean, I slide with my face over the ground and my nose didn’t break. I that’s the only thing I have…well, ripped pants and a slash on my leg and Jess’ arm is pretty scratched but no hospital and the scratches are superficial. I don’t think I’ll have any scars. And we use my face now for bargaining. And it works! Plus all the zanzibarians dig the fact we too have had a vespa accident. Now we are African.

I also forgot to mention the Jigger that I found in my foot. Yup. I got me my first parasite. Found it in its first day and a local up in Kendwa (that was wearing a Bramalae hockey shirt so guess what his name became) took it out of my foot with a piece of wood he ripped out of a thatched roof and tore down to toothpick size on the dinner table by the light of a candle and the full moon. It was all very romantic. And Jess and B gave a running commentary. I tried to keep the sucker but the wind blew it away after we cremated it.

We’re now keeping track of all the weird shit you catch on your journeys. The most makes you more African. I’m on top right now but Jess and B might pull through. Zanzibar has cerebral malaria and their prophylactic doesn’t protect from that. Ok, neither does mine…

Now that I’ve scared you all, I should actually tell you I am safe, healthy and happy and I’m with a great group of people who all take care of one another.

Today, Easter Sunday we plan on having an Easter egg hunt so now I, Scarface, will sign off.

Happy Easter and get jiggy with it!
Love thi