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Pune, Karnataka, India – At the snake farm, there was the most amazing array of animals, huge Bengal tigers, lions, cougars, and while tigers, plus you could get really close to the cages and get a good look at the animals. There was even this man riding an Indian elephant down the path where everyone was walking. We just walked passed him and watched the reactions of other people. The locals were taking coins and holding them out to the elephant. The highly trained elephant then took the coin from the Indian and handed it up to the man on its back. By tapping the elephant to a certain way, the man could tell the pachyderm to pick up the coin off the ground as well. This was one obedient elephant. Rich and I went walking around the zoo, but as we were making our way to the exit, we passed this elephant again. We did not give the man any money the first time and we certainly would not give him any now. So, the two of us just walked passed the beast. I do not know if the man told the elephant to do this, but as I walked passed, the elephant swung his tail nailing me in the shoulder. This was not elephant and even a swat from the beast tail physically knocked me out of the way, punishment for not paying to the elephant’s keeper.
Quote from today’s The Nation “Nairobi – UK awaits election monitors’ reports The Foreign Office said yesterday that it would not make a statement on the outcome of the General Election until it had reports from the British High Commissioner in Nairobi and the Commonwealth observer team. The British High Commission is said to have made plans to evacuate 47,000 UK expatriates in the event of post-election violence.”
When I woke up this morning the KBC was giving us the results (very slowly I might add) that Moi was leading so far with some other guy not far behind him. I rang up Air India at 9:30 a.m. and got us placed on the Nairobi to Bombay flight leaving at 1:30 p.m. that afternoon. We would be in Bombay for New Year! Rich and I packed our bags and said goodbye to Jim, Tom and Mike before heading out to catch the matatu into town. I was sort of bummed we wouldn’t get to have our New Year’s party with the people form our safari truck – we had a great group, but there was no reason for us to stay in a country that was as unstable as it was, along with our own government advising us not to enter Kenya.
We said our good-byes and caught the minivan into Nairobi city center and with one swift motion we were in a cab headed to the airport no less that two minutes after getting off the matatu. We boarded our plane an hour or so later to find a total of 20 people on an aircraft that was almost as large as a 747! We flew six and a half hours and at 9:30 p.m. local time we’d landed on the next continent (or sub-continent) of our world tour. India. We’d clocked almost 7,200 kilometers on our trip with Kumuka in our big blue 1961 German M.A.N. truck named “Bush Pig”
Moi declared today a public holiday so there aren’t any Air India flights leaving today, let alone the fact that no one at the airport was answering the phone anyway. We ended up just hanging around the Kumuka compound watching the only Kenyan television station for any election information. We knew we weren’t going to see a map of the country light up red and blue as the results came in, but we wanted any information. No dice. Election results would begin to be announced in the morning.
Let’s take a moment to tell you about the Kenyan television station (singular). Kenyan Broadcasting Corp only goes on the air for a few hours in the evening, so for the rest of the twenty four hour period they pipe in CNN International to fill the gap. It was on there that the CNN reporter in Nairobi said, “. . . if President Moi were reelected there are the makings for a civil war.” Wonderful – I went off and tried to call Air India again.
The Kumuka guys told us about an Acacia (another safari company) truck coming up to Nairobi from Mombassa a week before the election. It was cruising along when both the driver and courier noticed this large disk shaped thing in the middle of the highway. The driver swerved around it and after a few moments reassessing the situation he asked the courier, who’d been in the British army, if the thing they’d just avoided was a land mine. The courier affirmed the comment and they continued through a police check (where nothing was said) on to Nairobi. Chalk one up for Kenyan politics.
Kisumu, Kenya – One day to go until the election and we were headed to Nairobi to try to get out of a country which no longer the stablest in East Africa. We packed up our stuff and jumped in the truck with Mike, Tom and Jim who were also going to Nairobi to help Mick sort out the truck for his next trip – they were going to meet our group in Nairobi in a few days. We drove all the way through the beautiful Kenyan countryside, drinking beer and sitting inside our sleeping bags to keep warm. It was a really good day – we had a great time and the scenery was fantastic.
We passed Lake Nakuru and could see a pink ring around the edge of the lake where the flamingos were hanging out. We arrived at the Kumuka compound at about ten o’clock that night and ended up just watching the Kenyan news. They were reporting that the police force in Nairobi would be doubled on election day with air surveillance to watch out for any hot spots in the city. The Kumuka guys were telling us that there’s been some riots in Nairobi a week before and that the opposition parties had already announced that they wouldn’t accept the election results if Moi wins. On that note Rich and I weren’t going to be hanging around Kenya to find out who wins the election – we were going to try to get a flight to Bombay the next day.
Today was the day. Today, against my better judgment, the truck left Jinja and headed for the Kenyan border. The Kenya/Uganda border is technically closed for security reasons, but we’d heard that they were letting tourists through. Upon our arrival at the border we could look over the customs gates into Kenya to see a political rally supporting Moi (the current dictator) going on. Wonderful.
We cleared Ugandan immigration and waited at Kenyan immigration and customs while their immigration dudes sorted through everything. He finally cleared the truck and we eased forward into a country deep in the throes of a political learning process. They were learning that democracy is (in my opinion) one of the better systems, but accountability in the process is always necessary. The rally going on was supporting the status quo and these people seemed to be getting into it – possibly because Moi’s government was the only one they’d known since most of their births. When the life expectancy of a population isn’t over fifty years and a majority of them is in the twenty six year age bracket, then of course they’d support the current dictator and keep the status quo.
Our truck was stuck behind the Moi vehicle (complete with loudspeakers extolling the virtues of the KANU party) and as a result, all the people dancing and screaming Moi support slogans were screaming them at the truck full of mzungus as well. Jenni waved at someone and made the peace sign with her hand, but that person who wasn’t a Moi supporter became visible angry and screamed at her. Moi’s sign during the election was the peace symbol and making that sign to the locals showed your support for the KANU party. After we drove for a bit Mike turned to me and said that the people weren’t happy – they seemed concerned.
No doubt – there were four major political parties in their first democratic election in twenty six years: the ruling KANU party, the DP (Democratic Progressivista), the FORD-KANU party, and the FORD-something (the FORD party had experienced an internal rivalry earlier in the campaign and split into two separate parties.) We were heading to Kisumu to camp for the night, but I was beat so I went to take a nap on one of the back seats. I kept getting awakened by the screaming groups of three hundred people all having a political rally of one kind or another. It just made me more and more nervous because when this many people become involved and they don’t agree with the election results then there could be political strife.
We drove towards Kisumu when this bus came barreling down the road, ready to pass us. Africa buses aren’t known for their safety standards ad this one certainly hadn’t passed any safety tests, for the chassis was messed up and the bus was cruising down the highway at a very jaunted angle. It looked as though it was almost cruising down the highway sideways – it’s tail was definitely not in line with the front tires. As the bus passed us its rear slid a bit and hit our side view mirror, shattering it, before heading off down thee motorway in a cloud of black smoke.
We finally arrived at our campground literally on Lake Victoria, where we took everything off the truck. We had another Kenyan registered truck coming to meet us so we wouldn’t look as conspicuous travelling around Kenya. I heard Mick was driving “Bush Pig” straight through to Nairobi the next day so I asked him if we could tag along so we could get our flight out of the country ASAP. No problems. It was our last night with all the people from our safari so we tried to spend some time with them. Boz had arranged for some smoking materials for KSh100, and when it came all of us – Rich, Jenni & I were amazed. It was larger then a pint glass and dense – all for US$3.00. We had our last session together, along with a majority of the truck before retiring to bed.
When we woke up today the music from the disco was still blaring away. Don’t know what the management was thinking because I certainly didn’t see anyone dancing at 6:00 a.m! We jumped in the truck and made the thirty minute drive to Kampala and made a bee line to the Sheraton Hotel for breakfast. After all of us had been not eating that well through Zaire, an all you could eat breakfast at the Sheraton on Boxing Day was something like a God-send. For a mere Sh10,500 (US$9.70) you got everything your heart desired – including a chef to cook you as many omelets as you could eat. Plus you even got things you hadn’t seen in weeks: cheese, bacon, fresh fruit that wasn’t bruised, milk and even apple juice! Every single person on our safari truck pulled out the plastic and charged breakfast as a special Christmas treat. In addition, we were all ravenous from our week prior in Zaire.
After breaky I headed to the Telecom Center and picked up the special AT&T phone they’d come to personally install in this office. Pick up the phone and twenty seconds later you’re talking to an AT&T operator. Nice touch – thanks guys! Talked to the family at 1:00 a.m. California still technically Christmas and told them a bit about what we were up to. The next call was to the U.S. Embassy to see what the Kenyan situation was all about. The dude at the embassy said there was an official travellers advisory out stating that U.S. citizens should not go to Kenya due to possible political unrest as a result of the upcoming election. Good to know, but I didn’t want to spend any more money flying to Nairobi when our truck would be there in a few days.
Back to the truck where we travelled through western Uganda to Jinja, famous because it’s the source of the Nile, at Lake Victoria. The hotel was just down the road, and in keeping with our theme of “the colonial tour of Africa” our truck pulled into the driveway of the hotel, we drove the truck around the landscaped traffic circle as though we were inspecting the place before we’d actually show our faces. After the “inspection” we piled out of the truck and immediately set up our tents right in the middle of the landscaped traffic circle, with the best grass we’d seen in weeks – perfect for camping.
We all were ready to party a bit more since we’d all been so tired on Christmas Day proper, so we headed into the hotel bar and started drinking once again. Dinner time rolled around and our safari truck signed up for the all you can eat BBQ out on the patio. After eating them out of house and home (we ate all the food they’d brought out to cook) we watched some traditional dancing and had more drinks before crawling into the tent to go to sleep. We are to leave for Kenya tomorrow so I’ll do some journal housecleaning here.
UGANDA NOTES: When we first entered Uganda from Zaire we were all stressed from our experience with the soldiers so we didn’t notice the locals’ change in attitudes once we’d crossed the border. Uganda has suffered some horrible war atrocities under Idi Amin. Since the war ended in 1986 the people have become so happy. Just knowing that most people we came in contact with had lived through the atrocities of the was an interesting feeling, but the demeanor of the locals is what struck me the most.
The Ugandans are the happiest people – even six years after their war ended. Every person you’d smile at would return the same smile back to you tenfold. You could actually feel the relief of the people – feel how happy they were to be able to have normal lives again. It was actually a real pleasure to wave and smile at the people from the truck because you’d get more than you gave in return and you could actually feel the sense of relief these people had. Now they could move forward again and get Uganda moving again.
The Railway Motel in Kigoma, Tanzania – In true African form, at breakfast over the course of a few days we’d keep noticing these white bits floating in our tea. I would just skim them out with my spoon because I really enjoy my cups of tea – when I could get them. One morning I actually looked at what I thought had been the skin from the bottled milk that had been poured into the tea – it wasn’t milk skin, I’ll tell you that. I’d gotten rather a large clump this particular morning and after examining it I passed it over to Rich. We figured out that the cooks had been making our poached eggs for breakfast, but due to the lack of power, or whatever, they’d just use the hot water the eggs had been cooked in to make our morning tea. The ‘milk skin’ I’d been fishing out of my tea was actually egg white from everyone else’s breakfast. Gross – but remember, it’s Africa and I’d rather have a cup of tea in the morning than no cup of tea at all.
 So much for leaving at 8:00 a.m.. We woke up at 9:00 a.m. feeling very slow, but not hung over. We all piled into the truck by 10:00 a.m. and had, I think, the most relaxing day of driving we’d ever had because everyone was so out of it from our Christmas Eve party. We drove all day, stopping at the equator, where there’s this large monument to take pictures and wander around, arriving that evening in Entebbe, a resort town that sits on the edge of Lake Victoria – the largest lake in the world. We handed out our Christmas gifts (we’d all drawn a name out of a hat a week earlier) and I received a shell on a piece of string from Raewyn. I made Jenni a portable backgammon set made out of some cotton material I’d sewn into a drawstring type bag to keep the pieces in.
After gifts we went to the resort and had our Christmas diner of fresh BBQ’d fish and chips – just like what you’d get in Malawi – it was great. We sat there talking after dinner until the largest spider I have ever seen outside the Smithsonian descended down from the roof of the hut we were eating in. The thing was big, black and white spotted and must have been about two inched long (it’s torso). If it had lowered itself into the ashtray there might have been a space problem keeping its legs inside the tray. The girls all got up and moved away as the waiter grabbed the arachnid’s web it was hanging from and tossed it into the bushes.
We left the diner table and headed over to the outdoor disco which was absolutely blaring all sorts of different music (none of which I’d heard before), We hung out there briefly but we were still knackered from the night before. We headed over to the truck to hang out and use the phone – the jay fay was still with us from Christmas Eve – before crashing out.
We drove all day through Uganda, admiring the beautiful countryside. I got a photo of four dormant volcanoes in a row – beautiful. Everyone was getting a bit delirious from riding in the truck, plus it was Christmas Eve, so when we pulled into the hotel at Mbarara where we were to camp that night, everyone but Jim and Tom screamed out that they’d pay a supplement and get a room. It was Christmas and we were going to splurge. Rich and I had to cook Christmas Eve dinner, so when we’d stopped at Kabale earlier that afternoon we were in charge of doing the shopping.
At the market we got all the veggies and I found a corral at the back where they were taking live cows and slitting their throats for butchering. The locals were all taking turns holding the bucket that the blood was flowing into. I showed Rich this place and he got up really close to the dying animals while I stood a good thirty feet away. It was only after one of the locals asked him if he wanted to hold the bucket that he’d decided he’s had enough. He came back and got me and we headed back into the market to try and find a main course for dinner. We already had all the veggies and after watching the cows we didn’t want any meat – that was about the time we passed the chicken section of the market.
You can’t get a dead chicken in Africa – there’s no refrigeration, and you’ve got to pay someone to kill it for you. We figured it couldn’t be that hard to find someone to do it so we wandered over to the chicken peddlers, and the second we mentioned we wanted two live chickens there were about four locals surrounding us, each with a live chicken in each hand. The locals didn’t treat the chickens like an animal – they were more a physical item. When we were bargaining over the price the locals would wave the chickens around over their heads of our price was too low, thereby upsetting our possible main course causing them to cluck loudly. After much negotiating and explaining that when we returned to pick up the birds we expected them plucked, no head, no feet, no guts – all for the exorbitant rate of Sh5,000 (US$2.25 each). With the negotiating done they asked me which ones we wanted. I guessed the only way to test a live chicken was to reach over and feel their chests to see how fat they were. I wasn’t that practiced in squeezing live chickens but I choose a couple that seemed pretty well fed. We headed back to the truck to wait the forty five minutes for the cleaning to be done.
After everyone had gotten checked into their rooms at Mbarara Rich and I began cooking Christmas dinner. We had fresh chicken, two hours old, peas, carrots, fresh mashed potatoes and banana custard. After two hours of work (sans shower and shave, for everyone else was already cleaned up) we served our Christmas masterpiece dinner. Rich and I served ourselves and sat down, ready to eat this magnificent dinner we’d worked so hard to prepare. I took my knife and tried to cut into my chicken but . . . the knife just slipped off the meat. I held the bird down and tried to get the knife to take hold but my cutting device just bounced off the meat and landed in the mashed potatoes. No one had told us that you’re supposed to let a freshly killed chicken drain for two to three days before cooking it. The peas were crunchy, the chicken rubbery, the custard on a borderline O.K. basis, the gravy ended up being dumped in the grass, but the mashed potatoes were all right. Rich and I made our exit to go get cleaned up as the rest of our group fought with the rubber chicken and crunchy peas. After showers it was time to shave – two weeks not shaving does give you that mountain man look. Rich hadn’t shaven in something like nine weeks (since we left Egypt) and he had a full beard. After wrestling over my electric razor with the beard trimming attachment I shaved then passed it on over to Rich. When we started our safari Rich had his beard, so all the people we’d met since had never seen him without one. Rich shaved, but it was hurting him too much so he left the moustache, which made him look Italian. The change was remarkable – he looked so different with only a moustache.
I was following him to through the hotel bar, just to see the expressions on our friends’ faces when they saw him. Everyone was pretty shocked at the change and started to give Rich a bit of a hard time. We ordered drinks and started chatting to Jim for a while when Jim called Rich “Guiseppe” because of his moustache. Shortly thereafter Rich excused himself to go to the bathroom while Jim and I moved into our next gin and tonic. During Rich’s absence the rest of the people from the truck arrived in the bar, but no Rich.
About ten minutes later Rich appeared – sans moustache – and boy did he shock a few people – even me. Every time I looked at him I would start giggling – it was such a change. I’ve known him for five and a half years and even I had a really hard time controlling my laughter; actually I didn’t try to control it at all. Everyone was totally tripping off the fact that Rich had made two separate appearances and looked entirely different at each visit. It was strange, but people began to get used to Rich’s new look and the atmosphere just became more festive as the evening wore on.
Everyone was hanging out in the bar, so Erin (our Canadian hitch hiker) started getting us to sing different Christmas carols with her. It was when they started singing the Twelve Days of Christmas that I really got into the Christmas singing. I’d planned to sing the “Twelve Days AFTER Christmas” with Brenda the next morning (incorporating the new verses I’d written while on transit in Zambia) but I couldn’t resist so I stopped everyone from singing the twelve days and said, “We’ve all heard the ‘Twelve Days of Christmas’, but do you know what happened on the twelve days after Christmas?” I then started singing the song solo since Brenda didn’t know the words yet, to a bar full of our friends we’d made over the course of the past five weeks. Here’s a full draft of the song which I’d learned at least twelve years before. Verses one through seven are the original song while verses eight through twelve are the new and improved verses written as a result of boredom while in transit on a safari truck.
The Twelve Days After Christmas
On the first day after Christmas, my true love and I had a fight.
I chopped that blasted pear tree down and burned it just for spite.
And with a single car-ar-artidge I shot that blasted par-ar-tridge,
My true love, my true love, my true love gave to me.
The second day after Christmas I slipped on me old rubber gloves,
And very gently wrung the necks of both those turtle doves.
My true love, my true love, my true love gave to me.
The third day after Christmas, my mother she caught the croup (cough-cough)
And so I used the three French hens to make some Chicken soup.
The four calling birds were a big mistake for their language was obscene.
And the five golden rings were completely fake and they turned my fingers green. (Ech!)
The sixth day after Christmas the six laying geese wouldn’t lay.
So I sent the whole darn gaggle to the A.S.P.C.A.
On the seventh day what a mess I found, all seven of the swimming swans had drown,
My true love, my true love, my true love gave to me.
The eighth day after Christmas I went to the milkmaid’s chalet.
I’d planned to video them dressing for their work that day.
But to my despair I let out a cry, as each of the girls munched another’s hair pie,
My true love, my true love, my true love gave to me.
The ninth day after Christmas I went to a Shriner’s soirée.
The whores were late, the men irate, so I gave the dancing ladies away.
On the tenth day past but to my chagrin, for the ten leaping lords had been getting stuck in,
My true love, my true love, my true love gave to me.
Eleven days after Christmas the pipers had all gone astray.
I rang the local drunk tank to find that they had been at play.
The twelve drummer boys were completely gay;
they’d joined a ballet troupe and were on their way,
My true love, we are through love, and said in so many words,
Frankly dear your Christmas gifts are for the birds —-
(four calling birds, three French hens, two turtle doves, and a partridge in a pear tree).
Everyone was in rally good moods, so we all sang nor Christmas carols and had a few more drinks before closing down the bar. We were ready to keep partying so Rich and I took everyone to our chalet to let the festivities begin. It was so perfect – we’d been given a free-standing chalet, large enough for you to set up three tents in the bedroom/sitting room alone, plus it had a huge bathroom and all the floors were concrete so they were spill, burn and boot proof. The perfect stomping ground for a bunch of Christmas revelers from our safari truck.
Thanks to Rick and Jenny doing their stuff at the Zairian border – no wonder Jenni looked so worried – the jay fay arrived and we had a smoke. Everyone from the truck was there (except for Jim and Mike who’d passed out earlier) and everyone partook in the passing making the evening just flow along. Tom had brought his air mattress (which doubles as a swimming pool raft) to our room and was vegged out on it on the floor. I went and sat next to him and Brenda sat across from the two of us on the bed. We were all wasted – everyone in the room was wasted – and we were all really relaxed around each other so anything could happen. Brenda, Tom and I were talking about Christmas carols and singing when all of a sudden Brenda, who’d been a little reserved up until now, broke out into song singing some popular song from Australia. The thing is that her voice was amazing – it was a really good singing voice, and she’d been hiding it from us the whole time. It turns out that her grandmother was an opera singer.
After Brenda’s performance Tom, who’s also got a really good singing voice, sang a bit while lying on his mat. Everyone had the spotlight for a while and it was really positive. Stefanie, who’s wild when she’s sober was jumping around and even put on our own personal rave environment with flashing and spinning lights and bee bop music (provided by herself) for thirty seconds. Of course she had to improvise for the lighting by flicking the lights on and off and waving an illuminated flashlight over her head. Tina, the New Zealand police woman, was doing summersaults across the room, head stands, and giving Stefanie and Jenny drink driving tests – by the book. Too bad everyone was too wasted to know who was “winning”. At about 2;30 a.m. everyone filed out, or more we poured everyone out the door onto the grass, with Jenni being the last one behind. After a few minutes of chatting she announced she was gong to be sick and promptly opened the door and went and got sick on the grass. She came back and said “Merry Christmas” to us and went to her room to bed.
And a merry Christmas it was – a group of people who didn’t know each other that well four weeks earlier had managed to become really good friends and celebrate the holidays in Africa together in the merriest way possible. Everyone said that they’d had a very merry Christmas Eve.
 National Parc de Virunga, Zaïre – Today was the day we were to see the Silverback gorillas – one of the main reasons we came on this safari in the first place. We hiked up to the rangers station in the hills at 7:30 a.m., only to be told that they couldn’t take our whole group that day because another group of people had already headed off to see the gorillas – that thanks to our courier’s management. After talking to the ranger he agreed to get a guide to take Rich and I to meet the others who’d gone ahead, while the rest of our group went and saw a different set of gorillas. We set off with our guide (who spoke no English and no French) and hiked through the Zairean hills for about an hour, then the guide led us through the dense jungle in search of the gorillas. When the jungle was too dense the guide would use his razor sharp machete to chop through the thick overgrowth – the bushes, small trees, you name it, so we could get through. It was really cool listening to the metallic ring of the blade as it cut through the overgrowth. We passed a few gorilla nests made of flattened tree branches before catching our first sight of “Oscar” the 35 year old Silverback sitting atop a tree looking around. It was an amazing sight seeing this massive animal sitting on top of the tree – the tree almost unable to hold the gorilla’s weight. He really looked as though he were on the lookout for us. After Rich and I had found the rest of the group, Oscar decided to climb down and walk off into the jungle, so we followed him into a small clearing where he sat down and let us sit near him on the ground.
Oscar’s daughter and small son came out of the bushes and graced us with their presence.
 I was sitting about two yards from this massive wild animal which could have killed me without any effort whatsoever in an instant if he had held such an inclination. His daughter and smaller son (which looked exactly like a small stuffed animal) sat in front of the large male playing in the leaves, making the two youngsters less than three feet from where I was squatting. I was taking photos like mad, and ended up using the macro feature on my wide angle lens because I was so close to the creatures. That was a little unnerving – macro lenses are only used when you’re really close to the subject you’re photographing – things like bugs and flowers, not Silverback gorillas.
 There really isn’t any reason to be that close to them, but we were and it was amazing. After sitting with the three gorillas for an hour Oscar decided it was time for us to leave so he got up and walked right through the middle of our group to head off into the jungle.
One of the American girls we were with happened to be standing right in the huge beast’s path, but she couldn’t get out of the way because there was dense jungle on one side and one of our African guides on the other. The guide kept telling her to take a photo of Oscar as he approached closer and closer towards her, but all she could do was scream, “I don’t want to take a photo! I  just want to get out of the way!” Oscar passed within a foot of where I was sitting and I didn’t miss seeing one inch of his huge body mass as he passed by. Since our hour with the gorillas was finished we hiked two hours back to the ranger’s station where we said good-bye to the others in our group. During our hike back we saw another gorilla, a younger male who didn’t have his own family group yet, follow us up the path for a spell before diving off into the jungle.
 Rich and I headed back to the truck, getting lost along the way and paying a local boy 1,000,000 zaires to show us the way. Everyone else had already returned and were just waiting for our return so we could head out of the country into Uganda before dark.
We jumped into the truck and headed off towards the Ugandan border. We weren’t far, but the roads were shit – our truck bumping and sliding around through the mud and when we were about one kilometer (half a mile) from the border we had our first major encounter with the Zaïrean government. We were driving up a small hill (which caused the truck to go slower) when Mick, our British driver, spotted a lone Zairean soldier, in military uniform and holding a large AK-47 waving at the truck to stop. Mick had been driving through Africa for the past seven years, so he’d had a bit of experience in this, and his instinct told him to just wave at the lone guard and keep driving, while making motions that he couldn’t stop the truck because we were going up a hill.
I was sitting on the raised area at the front of the truck on an area called the stage, I had Stefanie (an American) next to me on the bench and across from us, sitting on the facing bench were Jenni (from NZ) and Rich. The stage is at the front of the truck behind the driver’s cab, and is an elevated area with two benches running horizontally along the front third of the interior of the truck. When you’re sitting in these seats you can see out the sides of the truck rather well, but those outside also have a very good view of you too. As soon as Mick had passed the soldier waving us down the next thing I saw was a second soldier jump out from behind a tree, aiming his gun at the truck screaming “Descendez!”, which is French for ‘Get out of the truck’. This soldier wasn’t acting passive about his command either – he seemed more than serious. Three other soldiers jumped out of the bushes at the same time – all with AK-47s leveled at the truck. Mick brought the truck to an abrupt halt, just as the adrenaline in my body shot up into my brain.
Before we’d entered any of the French speaking African countries I’d been instructed by our courier not to let on that I knew French when we were dealing with any official-types. That way we could act like ignorant tourists who didn’t understand the language if there were any problems. This was one of those times, but being able to understand most of what was being said and having a better idea than the others in the truck of what was going on didn’t help either. Boz, the courier, and Mick got out of the cab to talk to the soldiers while the rest of us sat in the back. We’d been instructed not to get out of the truck no matter what the guards said. The guards kept looking into the truck (mostly at the four of us sitting up on the stage) screaming “Descendez!” At one point the craziest guard of the lot, who I’d originally spotted jumping out from behind the tree, walked to the opposite side of the truck, stared at Rich, leveled his gun at him then screamed “Descendez!” once again. Rich was a little frazzled having this guard pointing a gun at him and screaming so he turned to me and asked me what he was saying. I told him I didn’t know French.
The first reaction animals have when truly scared is to form a group – strength in numbers being the idea. Well immediately after the crazy guard jumped out from behind that tree both Stefanie and I instinctively moved towards the middle of our bench until we were touching so we’d have each other for comfort. I don’t know why it felt better, but just sliding myself closer to someone else felt like the right thing to do. I can’t remember consciously thinking I was going to do it, it just occurred. I can remember thinking that that action truly felt like one of the latent animal instincts humans have.
While the crazy guard was screaming at Rich to get down out of the truck, two other guards had climbed up onto the hood of the cab, not four feet to my right, and proceeded to load their clips with bullets – very slowly – one by one. The crazy man was still screaming “Descendez!” at the top of his lungs when our courier came over again and told us not to get out of the truck under any circumstances. The crazy man then walked down the small hill he was standing on to go find something else to do. The guards on the hood had a massive pile of bullets on the folded down windshield and continued to load their clips. They’d occasionally drop a bullet onto the windshield or drop one into the small drawstringed bag, also on the windshield, so we could heal the metallic ‘clink’ and judge how many more bullets they had left in the bag.
I could hear our driver speaking in broken French to the soldiers’ leader saying we were tourists and were causing no problems. Well when the one standing on the hood loading his gun heard that he started screaming “Passeports!” Our driver, in an attempt to distract them from having us hand our passports over, turned to the guards on the hood and asked if they would please get down – they were scaring the women in the truck. After many pleas from our driver the guards got down, but the ‘lively’ one on the opposite side of the truck switched his call from “Descendez” to “Passeports!” I could hear him calling that out every once in a while. I heard another guard saying “argent” and “cadeaux”, indicating that they wanted gifts and money. He screamed it a few times over and over, so when Tom, who was nearby, asked what it meant I translated for him. Mick, Boz and four of the five soldiers were all standing out in front of the truck so I could more or less see what was going on. They’d stopped a local and were trying to get him to help translate what the soldiers were saying. Involve as many outsiders as possible was the plan.
A majority of the time we were all looking at the floor, each other, anything not to make eye contact with the soldiers. I kept my brain busy by analyzing the way the staples in the bench across from me had been applied with a factory precision. I didn’t think thoughts like “Am I in danger” or “What happens if someone gets shot” because my brain had begun to slow down and get mushy; I was becoming drowsy. I did have a fleeting thought of, “As a lifeguard I’ve been trained to deliver a baby, but I’ve not been trained in first aid for gunshot wounds.” That amused me at the time, strange things go through your mind when you’re in these situations.
I looked out the front of the truck at our courier, and saw that the guard was pointing his AK-47 at Boz. Boz said something then the guard quickly pointed his gun away from our courier towards the forest and let off one shot. When he did that the crazy man, who was just opposite the truck’s door let off two more shots into the air. This jolted those of us in the truck, and the first thing I can remember doing was looking outside to see if anyone I knew had been shot. Nope, not as far as I could see. After this display of firepower our courier came and climbed into the truck saying he needed a $100 bill quick. One of the girls pulled one out and gave it to him, which in turn passed it on to the soldier’s leader. Once they’d been paid the guards said they wanted to “escort” us to the Ugandan border 1k away to protect us from Rwandan bandits. On that note two of the guards climbed into the cab with Mick, one held onto the outside of the passenger door and the fourth perched himself so he could see into the rear of the truck as we were driving. Of course he had to be closest to me and our courier, who’d joined Stef and I on the bench. The fifth guard (the crazy one) climbed into the back of the truck with everyone and balanced himself on the door with his loaded gun on his lap between him and us. He sat there for about ten seconds then decided it was too uncomfortable and moved someplace else on the outside of the truck.
So then we started off towards the border with all these Zairean soldiers hanging off the side of the truck. The road ahead of us, which ten minutes before had been full of locals walking along going about their business was completely deserted at this point. We didn’t see a soul until we pulled up to the immigration check point where all the guards jumped off and walked down the road to their military post down the road from the border. Our courier went into the office and noticed the immigration officer was visibly shaken, for he knew what had transpired down the road. He came out to the truck and in very clear English vehemently apologized for what had happened. He said his country had no government and that these things happened from time to time. He seemed truly sorry, and definitely scared. He then said we should give him our passports to process, drive the truck over the border to Uganda, then he’d bring us our passports over on the other side; he didn’t want a truckload of Westerners who’d had a run-in with the military waiting outside his immigration check post. It was still Africa and we told him we’d wait for him to stamp our papers out. The officer grabbed his assistant and the two of them furiously began stamping our passports an quickly as they could; he wanted to help us and get us out of Zaire as quickly as possible.
While we were waiting for our passports Boz told me what had prompted the gunshots. Boz had learned from the immigration guy that these soldiers were members of a rebel faction of the Zairean army. Zaire had had so many governmental problems (including a coup d’etat two weeks earlier), and as a result the military men, along with other government people weren’t being paid their wages on time, if at all. The soldiers’ leader asked for money so Boz told then we didn’t have a lot of money and offered them US$20 (36 million zaires). The guard responded by pointing his AK-47 at Boz, so Boz quickly offered US$50. Still unsatisfied the guard quickly pointed his gun away from Boz into the forest and let off one shot. When he did that the other guard joined in with his two extra gunshots. After this display of firepower the leader told Boz he wanted US$100 (180 million zaires); an unprecedented amount of money for these Africans in their economically ravaged country. The $100 they extorted from us would pay all five men’s wages for over a month.
The passports were finished, the truck’s customs clearance stamped and we were all accounted for so we could finally get the hell out of the country. Mick went to start the engine but we only heard a dry “click” when he turned the key. He tried again. . . “Click”. This was the last thing we needed, especially since we’d finally gotten clearance to leave. It turns out that one of the soldiers had accidentally kicked the switch which disengaged the battery from the rest of the engine. Mick figured this out, flipped the switch, then the engine roared away and we drove on through the customs barrier into Uganda – we were out of Zaire (each paying a $10 departure tax to the military). So much for dictatorships.
Twenty yards down the road we met three women who’d been with us during our gorilla trek earlier that morning. Erin, this tall, blonde, Canadian girl told me what the locals’ reaction to the incident was. She said she and her friends had been walking towards the border when some of the locals went running by (after the shots had been fired) saying that the military truck was coming down the road; in actuality it was our truck with all the guards hanging off the outside of the cab. She and her friends started running to the immigration post so they could escape Zaire before any trouble began. She said the immigration officer met them at the entrance, snatched their passports out of their hands, stamped them and told the women to go across the border – “Quickly!” This entire incident showed me, up close and personal, how corrupt a dictatorship can be, and how scared the people living under that sort of governmental system really are. The whole stop plus the “escort” to the border must have taken about twenty minutes, but it felt like it was a hell of a lot longer.
The Ugandan border took us about an hour to sort out all the bureaucracy and red tape, but we made it through and drove another hour into the frontier before stopping. We wanted to get as far away as possible before setting up camp, just to make sure the Zairean guards couldn’t sneak across the border and hassle us some more. Everyone on the truck had a few stiff rum and cokes (no I wasn’t pouring) in an attempt to relax before retiring to sleep. Later that evening when we were talking about it, Stefanie had a great quote – something like “We saw the passive gorillas this morning and the active guerrillas this afternoon.”
We parked our truck and began to set up camp when Rich called me over and began walking away from camp. He said, “You know that list of “Things You Don’t Want to Know”?. “Yeah”, was my tentative response. “Well I sort of brought something through the border that I probably shouldn’t have.” It dawned on me and my eyes turned big as plates. “You mean the jay fay’s in Uganda?” I then was sitting there incredulous to the fact that Rich had had that stuff, especially with what had just transpired not a couple of hours before. Jenni came over and laid down on the grass next to me when Rich grabbed one of her feet and acted like he was going to take off her shoe. “You don’t want to do that” was her facetious tone. She said that the jay fay was inside her shoe. I was totally surprised, again, for she’d pulled the same trick that Rich had. No wonder she looked so nervous when we’d been stopped by the military men. Later that evening we all got together and had a wee relaxation session in our tent to relieve the stress of the day’s activities.
The Nation (Newspaper), Nairobi, Kenya, 30th Dec 1992 –
Troops Loot
Kinshasa: Zairean soldiers angry over low pay resumed looting in two eastern towns as President Mobutu Sese Seko prepared to hear army grievances yesterday. Residents in north Kivu provence on the border with Rwanda and Uganda, said by radio that troops began looting in Butemo early yesterday, a day after men from the Kasindi base went on a rampage in Oicha.
That is exactly where our truck was when we were hijacked!
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27th March 1993 – Pokhara, Nepal – Zaire Update –
I met up with Cameron, a Kiwi we’d met in Egypt, who told me the situation in Zaire has gotten worse since we were there and that overland trucks are no longer going into the country. He said one of the trucks apparently went missing. They also had passed through Nairobi after us and said the situation in Kenya didn’t get any better – every day at Ma Roache’s some traveler had a new horror story about being robbed.
 En route to Jumba, Zaire – Woke up this morning still very drunk from the night before so I just crawled onto the truck to rest up for the day’s activities. We headed into Goma where everyone got out and wandered around for a few hours. I stayed behind and guarded the truck because I was incapable of doing anything else. Mick came back and I went for a five minute walk over to the meat and cheese store to see if there was any food at all.
Zaire is totally Third World, so when you walk into the shops there usually would only be one item in the entire store. I walked into this deli and all the display cases were empty except for one huge round of gouda cheese. Cheese! I couldn’t even find cheese in countries that were way more modern than this one, and there I was needing it more than ever to help take the edge off my hangover. I paid the price of two million zaires and walked away with about two pounds of the most amazing tasting cheese (or so I thought at the time.)
 Back to the truck, for we were due to leave for Jumba in a few minutes and it was going to take us a long time because the roads weren’t roads. We started off and Mick was trying to avoid the largest potholes, but it didn’t really matter – you still needed to have a firm hold on the truck because it was rockin’ and rollin’ like the Shakey Shack in a funhouse. With my hangover (which was now tuning into my brain full force) it was a living hell. After a few hours I just leaned out of the truck and booted – boy was I miserable. I finally went to sleep under two of the aircraft style seats and woke up a few hours later when the truck had stopped at this bridge.
 Mick was out inspecting the bridge to see if it could support the truck’s fifteen ton weight. The bridge was made of about thirty horizontal strips of metal, spaced about eight to ten inched apart so you could see the water from the river flowing below your feet. After a brief inspection Mick told everyone to get off the truck, so if it were to go right through the bridge Kumuka wouldn’t be liable for our deaths. Mick backed up the truck but instead of going over the bridge he maneuvered the behemoth down the riverbank, gunned the engine, then eased the truck in to the river and drove right through it. So muck for Zairian engineering works!
We continued on this bumpy hell road, going approximately six kilometers an hour, slow enough so every Zairian child within a ten kilometer radius could jump on the spare tires and ride along with us for a while. The kids ended up stealing the charcoal out of our sack tied onto the back of the truck, so we stopped and Rich got out and got a big stick and proceeded to follow the truck on foot – scaring the locals away with his stick so they couldn’t steal anymore. We finally got to the Parc National des Virungas and set up camp for we were to go and see the silverback gorillas the next morning.
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