it was to be another weekend in akagera national park - it's our favourite place to go to; for me personally it's the most relaxing place in rwanda where the world stops, anything which is not immediately related to the people in the park with you, the fire, the food and of course the cars somehow never makes it up the hill. and since our neighbour has some friends visiting, akagera is the place to go to, after all, there's wildlife there too.
so - as usual we planned our trip well, organised the shopping and the preparation and had everything ready on thursday evening so we could take off smoothly around 2pm on friday; it was going to be 'team lima charlie' in the rented landcruiser vs. 'team uranus foxtrott' in my recently overhauled samurai. we set off on time and by the time team uranus foxtrott arrived the captain of team lima charlie had already negotiated the price and paid everything. we were good to go; well, almost.
there are a lot of tse tse flies in the park and we have been stung badly by them before, so I got out the mosquito net fabric which we promptly taped to the windows so we wouldn't need to drive up the hill in a sauna box. and we were off.
creative solutions against tse tse flies
since it's the rainy season the park was lush and thick with vegetation, the roads wet and muddy - just how I like it. we were driving through mudpools with the water splashing out to the sides, sliding on muddy patches and at one point even bumped the back of the car slightly into a tree - the kind of adventure I simply love. we started the ascent on the steep rocky road in the fading daylight, I put my 4WD in and urai managed the road no problem. there was one point at which something hit the car from underneath - my guess would be a stone - and made a big clonking noise somewhere in the vicinity of the gear box. but when you're driving on that stretch there's not time to think of what this could have been. and the engine kept running just fine, so I didn't give it much importance. after the worst part I stopped to take out the 4WD - and after what happened at christmas 2 years ago this is always a moment of slight nervosity for me - I moved the shift to put it back into normal, but it only moved out of 4L into neutral. no further, and not back anymore either... ARGH! the landcruiser's rear lights had already disappeared into the impending darkness and mobile reception is sketchy up in that area. I called nonetheless - all I managed to say in the 3 seconds of connection we had: 'problem, problem, turn round!'
before anything else it was announced that 'this is a mutzig moment' - mutzig is the local beer of preference. we opened a beer and toasted to the first adventure of the trip. then we tried moving the 4WD gear stick, which of course simply didn't budge. now - just so you understand the problematic of the 4WD being stuck in neutral: when you put the normal gears in and accelerate they transmit the power of the engine onto the axle which makes the wheel turn and permits you to drive the car. in normal mode the power gets transmitted onto the back wheels, when in 4WD mode it gets transmitted onto all four wheels, meaning you have more power and stability in difficult terrain. when it's stuck in neutral there is no power going onto any axle, so even though the engine was still working, the wheels would simply not turn... and that, is a problem.
after a quick assessment of the situation we decided that since the camp site was another 20 minutes away we should tow the car to the camp and sort stuff out in the daylight. we got the 'car box' out and attached the towing cable - which has saved us many-a-times already - to the cars. and off we go as the day fades into the night, the stars come out and the moon is a tiny slither in the sky. my co-pilot says to me: 'you know, sometimes the sky is reward enough' - how very true. we hadn't been going 5 minutes when I hear a strange noise coming in through the window. the front left tyre has gone flat. F***!
we stop, we open another beer - after all if there's ever been a mutzig moment, this is it. luckily I have had my fair share of flat tyres in the past and so in 10 minutes the tyre is changed. we finish the beers and get back in the cars. captain charlie lima turns the key and all he gets from his battery is a pathetic stutter. and since the car's an automatic there's no way of bumpstarting it... ooops!
luckily my co-pilot had brought back jumper cables from her recent trip to europe. but the problem we have now is that we have two cars that can't be moved except by human force. add to this narrow rocky, muddy roads with steep falls to one side and solid walls to the other; the grass on the road is as high as a 12 year old kid - overall not exactly an easy situation. luckily we were on a relatively flat stretch. so we pushed the big car to one side, and tried to push the little car next to it. in the process we very nearly scratched them together and damaged the paint, but we managed to avoid that disaster. as the two cars were standing next to each other someone noted that normally it's the big cars that should jump start the little ones, particularly considering that urai's battery is 12V, the landcruiser's 16V. I start my engine - glad that in all this mess my car comes in handy too - and rev up the engine. the landcruiser springs to life. and we open another beer, after all you have to let the engine running a bit so that the battery can charge for a little while. rather buzzed after that many mutzig moments we commence the final leg of the journey and arrive at our beloved mutumba hill around 8.30 - a journey that should have taken us approximately 4 hours took us 6.5...
what's wrong with this picture?
once at the camp we all got down to business as usual: start the fire, prepare the brochettes, wrap the spuds, open another beer - this time we call it the 'beer for winners' :-) and finally we settled around the camp fire and gosh - those brochettes tasted GOOD. nothing in life is free, right?
waking up to this compensates just about everything!
the next morning we get up around 5ish for a game drive - apparently dawn is when you see most animals. we all squeeze into the LC and are mildly surprised when the battery does nothing but it's pathetic stutter again. ok - out we get, and we start pushing the cars into position again. I pray that urai will start; when it's cold in the morning he's sometimes a bit lazy. but I guess he wanted to prove that he's a good car after all and after a couple of tries the engine comes to life beautifully. once again, we jump the big car - which springs to life too. and we set off down the road for the lake tour. on the way there we see exactly no animals.
eventually we reach the valley, a.k.a. tse tse hell. before we left we had taped the veils onto the window as the car doesn't have AC and it gets hot in the sun. but somehow the buggers still make it into the car. at first we grab them with pieces of toilet paper and crush them to death; it's really quite ugly as you have to hear the 'crrrrunch' to make sure they are no more. at one point we start using strips of duct tape (very versatile by the way!) and just tape them down. so there's points at which we are wildly chasing tse tse flies behind each other's ears whilst the car is bumping over stones and sliding through puddles. we kill most of them, but not before some of them managed to bite us. animals we see very little on this trip; except for said tse tse flies of course.
action shot from the game drive (how gutted was I about not being able to drive my car!)
3 hours later we arrive back at the camp site, sweating, hungry and tse tse'd out. time for a breakfast for champions: cappuccino (yes, we are that decadent and bring our milk foamer to an adventure weekend in the wilderness), baked beans, fruit salad, bread, cheese, reindeer sausage, boiled eggs, honey and avocado. and after breakfast a general lazyness sets in, but when you've reached a certain age you somehow don't sleep so easily anymore after 3 cups of coffee so we end up looking at the car. we lie underneath it and establish which gearbox the problem's in. one person's lying underneath, the other one tries to move the gear stick - nothing happens. we even hammer against the gearbox mildly to see if we can un-block the problem. nope. we call the ninja, he tells us to lift the front of the car, turn the wheels and put the shift into place. doesn't work. we call again - and try the same thing this time lifting the car on the back wheels. still no luck. we call again - and get some more tips. none that lead to a change in status. and so we just settle in the hammocks admiring the view, dozing and lazying around.
the hamburgers that night are exquisite even though we had to move all the stuff from round the fire into the gazebo several times because of impending rain. after we'd enjoyed dinner the rain finally comes for real. so we move the two tents which have doors that don't close properly anymore into the gazebo and settle down with cups of wine and music and funny talks. and turn in for the night a couple of hours later. I wake up around 6ish because my weird insect bites have doubled in size and are permanently itching. lying in bed is no longer an option. so I re-kindle the fire which still has hot embers despite the rain and start making coffee. as I'm sitting by the fire enjoying my cappuccino I notice a herd of buffaloes about 100m away, and one lone one which is even closer to the camp site. my friend's still sleeping in his tent which is between the fire and the buffaloes. I wonder briefly whether I should make him come out of his tent, but decide against it as the buffalo has not reached the imaginary demarcation line yet.
we take it easy that morning, chill out, drink coffee, eventually prepare another breakfast for champions and try not to think about the trip back. we decide eventually that we should aim for take off around 1pm since it will take time to tow the car back. we try one more time to shift the gear stick into place; to no avail. so we start packing up and just as everything is dried and packed and ready to be put in the car the rain starts falling in biblical proportions. it is raining sideways and into the gazebo - there is not a single spot where we could stay dry, so we simply choose the spot furthest to where the rain hits the hut and wait it out. we start singing 'hey jude' and 'yesterdaaaaay, all my troubles seemed so far away; now it looks as though they're here to stay... lalalala'.
the rain...
eventually the rain stops, we jump start the big car, and then load all our stuff into its back, tow the two cars together and set off. the mud is overwhelming. the big car has trouble in some spots to get enough grip in the mud and as a result the wheels spin which sends showers of mud backwards and straight onto my windscreen to the point where I literally can't see anything anymore. the screen is brown. the first bit is fairly ok - muddy but fine. the challenge starts as we get to the steep, rocky, and now also muddy, descent which involves hairpin turns and many possibilities to fall over the edge. all passengers get out and walk whilst we try to somehow make it down the road. at one point both cars are so tilted I'm beginning to wonder how much more slant they can take before they topple over and roll down the hill. and when two cars are towed together it only takes one to tip and you're both gone. it didn't happen. but I did feel like I was kitesurfing in a car at points as the front car had to pull there had to be a certain speed and my car was being bumped around in the back as a result. add to that the kind of mud which is like soap, i.e. no matter which way you turn the wheels they don't really respond, it's so soapy that even though your wheels are turned all the way to the left you still go straight and the wheels simply slide through the mud. anyway - after we got through the worst part another mutzig moment presented itself; but there was no mutzig left. we did however have amazing sandwiches which had been prepared in the morning. and it's true what they say about food - when you're in a difficult situation there's nothing to lift your mood like good food.
mudshower (NB: the fuzzy dice... )
never change a winning team!
(in fact over half of the team is not in the picture)
another winning team - one could not have done without the other
the last part is at least no longer strewn with rocks, but it's still muddy as a swamp and also tse tse territory. we have one window closed, the other one veiled and mud keeps splashing up on the windscreen from the car in front; vision becomes less and less and I just keep praying that there will remain enough free space in the vision for me not to have to get out of the car... my wish is granted. by the time we get to the reception the front of my car is CAKED in mud; in fact it looks like a chocolate car.
don't you just want to take a bite?
at the reception one of the guards walks up to me, looks at the car and concludes: 'cette voiture n'a pas de chance' - he had been there the time we had to get a refund and return without entering the park :-) some guy washes off the worst of the dirt and we continue our journey towards kayonza - another at least 70kms but at least on a paved road. interestingly it's more exhausting than the offroad part. you can't see anything, people drive like idiots and I feel thoroughly hypnotised after hours of staring at the towing cable making sure it remains straight but without using the brakes too much (as they had started smoking earlier).
we finally make it to kayonza and leave it at the petrol station for the ninja to go and have a look at it. it's still there. I hope. and the last thing that dies in africa is hope!
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