Happy Holliday

The trip mostly began and almost ended with me sitting in a bus wondering as my knees pushed into the seat in front of how I could sleep and how I managed to be sick at exactly this moment. But don’t let that paint anywhere near a picture that the journey wasn’t amazing beyond belief. The goodness of it all started when I learned I didn’t actually have malaria, just some random infection that we treated with medicine and I hoped would wear off as the bus tore down the road. Somewhere into the 36 hour trip from Kampala to Dar es Salaam, I guess it did—or at least I stopped paying attention to it. And even those hours weren’t horrible. We rode in relative comfort compared to the people we passed walking to their destination or those crammed into matatus or even shabbier busses. Each time the bus lurched I tried to look sidewise and if everyone else seemed unconcerned and peacefully trying to sleep in the limited space, not concerned that the only thing available to eat in the past day and a half was biscuits (cookies), chips (fries), and hard boiled eggs, then I tried to hold the similar lack of concern and enjoyed switching between reading, talking to my friends, sleeping, and staring out the window as the scenery grew more and more amazing as we passed through Kenya and Tanzania to the coast.

Somewhere in the chaos of arriving in Dar at two in the morning and scrambling around for some local money so we could buy anything (somehow Uganda had tricked me out of the idea of traveling with mainly American money, a useful trick traveling anywhere except the country I live in) I left the Lonely Planet in the cab. So, we didn’t really have a plan, except that we wanted to get to Zanzibar, spend some time on some beaches, and make it back to Arusha at some point to hit up a safari. We could have had the whole trip planned out easy, clean, and comfortable, but somehow Kevin and I convinced Kerri and Tiffany that it would be more fun taking the bus. That, combined with the notion that neither Kevin nor I could afford the flight and package deal options, we embarked and ended up on the coast without a guide book. As you might guess, everything turned out fine—better than fine, silly books.

At some point in time there will be pictures attached to this so that everyone can understand the brilliance of this place. Stowntown in Zanzibar presents a beautiful city on the coast that somehow even managed to awake in the recesses of my struggling mind the stories of Portuguese imperialism that stretched out from a few random classes. Whitewashed buildings crammed in close with alleys barely allowing walking passengers to pass by the ornate and imposing doors fill the streets. We set about enjoying the grand coffee, fresh seafood, and everything that the town offered for a short while before renting some motorcycles and heading off to the east coast, where we heard there were less tourists crowding the hotels and beaches. Being Christmas Eve, we followed the traditions of Kevin’s family and enjoyed a nice Italian meal at this place that held a wonderful collection of African art setting the background against Christmas Tree. Filled with pasta, we found a nice lapping beach and stuck our feet in salt water for the first time since months ago in San Diego and listened to lapping waves and sang carols as our feet squished in sand, laughing about how mostly anyone only knows the first verse of almost any carol and trying to figure out which is the best one. (“O, Holy Night” by most peoples’ reckoning, just to inform everyone, just that it gets to high and I can’t really sing it, but Lordie, the beauty of it is severe, “Fall on your knees, Hear the Angels’ voices, oh night divine)

The next day (Christmas Day) we tried to finish organizing and begin the vacation proper. On some points, we were not well informed, and after cruising across the island and pulling up on the east coast just as the sun went down behind us, we found all the guest houses were full, and most of them were so expensive we couldn’t afford them anyway. Somehow, we stumbled, as we often did throughout the trip, on some helpful friends who directed us towards a restaurant. We met our new friend, Aziz, there whose favorite pastime was helping tourists. He set us up in what I’m pretty sure was his room, led us to a Christmas feast filled with fresh caught marlin, vast quantities of fruit and sides and everything delicious while traditional dancers performed in front us and Aziz managed the whole thing for us for half price and basically we ate our full and danced a little bit, then retired for a quick night swim in the ridiculous water, off for “one-one” at a nice local spot with very few mzungus, and then to bed.

Morning showed us how dramatically beautiful the beach could be, with the finest white sand you could ever imagine coating your feet in beautiful powder on the beach and providing squishy, almost gooey cushioning as we walked out into the water, where you could swim at high tide, or walk out almost a mile with water up to barely your knees past seaweed farms and moored boats and other things stretching out to the horizon at low tide. It was amazing to stand several hundred feet off the shore and look back and around, out to the waves crashing on reef in the distance and back to the beach and to the water to either side occasionally dotted with people standing almost out of the water, the bright colors of the local clothing making almost miraculous imaged of women walking on water in the low tide. One of the most beautiful things I have ever seen, and all of that with warm sun and cool breezes. Just a short distance down the beach from Paje, we found a smaller town of Jambiani almost neglected by the crowds and a great guest house right on the ocean where put up for a while with another new friend, Mumba, who seemed to only know Kevin’s name, but at least he sang it out with the most enthusiasm each time he came close to us.

We spent a couple of days on the beach before heading back to Stonetown for a boat ride, snorkeling through the coral reef with the brilliantly colored fish, up to the island with a hundred giant turtles, more scenic beaches, history spreading everywhere, and beauty beyond understanding. Sadly, thought we had to leave, although it was almost too easy to console ourselves with the idea that we were heading to Arusha. Once more past Kilimanjaro, and the bus ride made me think of a couple of months from now when I will try to organize a force of my friends to attempt the summit.
We were picked up in Arusha by Halidi, our guide, found a great place to sleep and in the mourning set off for Ngorongoro Crater our chef, Booga. Through broken communication, we tried to learn as much as we could about the animals, but more often than not just stood in awe. The combination of the joy of standing with your body perched outside of a Land Rover much like you must have always wanted to do as a child and then coming across patches of wildebeest, flamingoes, water buffalo, gazelles, elephant, lions, hippos, and all sorts of birds and other creatures while you are nestled inside a huge crater that once blew forth from a volcano but now filled with stretches of green and salt water lakes offered just about everything we could ask for in a safari. Once we moved on the Serengeti, I sometimes allowed myself to be lulled into the regularity of everything. Of course, there are hundreds of zebras and wildebeest migrating just to my left and right, of course there are patches of giraffe, and once barely a leopard’s head poking out from the tall grass. I’ve seen this all before in zoos, just never to this extent, all concentrated and free. But that human tendancy, to minimize and rationalize, comes crushing down in some moments, like when we rounded the corner and found a small pride of lions feasting upon the fresh kill of a hippo. This is certainly something the San Diego Zoological Society would not coordinate or even condone. This is reality happening just outside the brief confines of the vehicle, and I traveled through it only, bringing my society and preconceptions with me, not this other way around which I am used to. We are visitors in life and the world, here to observe and hopefully learn a little, but more so just to see and experience joy, to taste and see that God has created something good and shows us that He is somehow Good Himself, better than we could hope.

New Years came in a campsite on the savannah. For some reason, the different camps couldn’t break through social barriers to come together until just before midnight, when, thankfully, the discussion of the correct time brought everyone together. (With some small pride, I can say that it was our party that convinced people to bring their lanterns near ours for at least the simulation of a campfire in the center of our small gathering.) Most people had come somewhat equipped with beer and wine, so we all gathered together, guides and participants, raising bottles, cans, and glasses together and toasting the celebration of newness and life in the middle of one of the prime examples of both that we could hope to find on the planet. Then we went to bed, because everyone wanted to get up early with the sun and with the animals around us to catch them as they caught their breakfast and as the world woke to stretch and show us what it could of how it has lived since the beginning.

Sadly though, every adventure, even if it is just a small subset of a larger adventure seems to come to an end, and while we had probably spent too much money and nowhere near enough time in these wonderful places, we had to set home. Of course, this is Africa and nothing is easy. The bus we were told would be there was not only not there, but was also full beyond capacity (two things that I think can only simultaneously happen in Africa). Not having any idea how we would get home, we scrambled about, found a cheep place to stay, heard about a shuttle to Nairobi and that we might have better chances there to we went to sleep and then Kenya. I have heard all kinds of stories about Nairobi, so I knew to walk around always with enough of my mind conscious so that I could feel my pockets and the backpack to notice the slight change of weight caused by thieves and all these other horrible things. In the face of this, I have this to say. Nairobi was fantastic. There were great bookshops and coffee, a wonderful place, Uhuru Park, in the middle of town, some of the most interesting architecture I’ve seen, helpful people, and almost anything one could hope for, including decent food that isn’t too terribly expensive. Kevin and I became quite happy the bus mishap caused the delay so that we could enjoy the town for at least six hours instead of whipping through it as we would have originally done. But soon, even that time was finished, and we had to make it home.

It still seems odd to call Uganda home, to feel comfortable once I saw the buildings and banana trees and black red and yellow flags, once my phone started working again. Stranger still to breath easy in Kampala. I’m excited to feel Gulu again, the comfortable small town, but for now I am in the capital, waiting and working a little, enjoying, of course, coffee and wireless and trying to think of all of the small parts of the holiday that would make for interesting reading. I’m sure I’ve missed some pieces that would have been fun to read, or at least to write. While it’s sad to have missed some of the parties, all of the family gatherings with overstuffed tables, floors littered with torn paper, sleepy-eyed children, and all of those hallmark examples of holidays, this was a great one. I miss of course beyond description my family and friends, but still, the world is wide, and this is one more stretch of it I’ve seen. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.