The wake-up call came in at 05:30. Rolf, my room mate, asked me a question the evening before: Do you wake up easy in the morning? Yes, I do, was my answer. -Good, because I don't. You may have to reawaken me several times...
So, when the room telephone rings, at 05:30, it is pitch dark in the room. I can not see anything. The phone is somewhere to my right and the tone sounds more and more angry for every second I tries to localize it. Fumbling for any button on the wall as well, it might be a light switch for any of the lamps in the room, but to no avail. Nothing lights up, the phone keeps ringing, and I am getting desperate. Am I getting any help from my room mate? No, he's awake but hardly alive.
After an eternity of searching with my hands, like 30 seconds or so, I finally locates the phone. -Good morning, Sir, is all I can hear. In a rather negative tone.
While I get up to pack my stuff, Rolf goes back to sleep. Most of it was all ready packed of course, but I wanted to choose what to wear during this long road trip through the rift valley, so I fiddled with my gear for a while. Wake up Rolf! Goes to the WC and splashes some water in my face among other necessary duty's. Wake up Rolf! Getting dressed, packing everything and are ready to go. Wake up Rolf!
Arrangements where made the evening before so we could have a simple breakfast, because of the early hour, the kitchen was closed. Everybody in our team, including Rolf gathers in the dining room. Enters a lady who explains that we have to choose from the meny what to have for breakfast. Nothing is prepared and ready and we understand that this will slow us down considerably. So we rise from the table and says, no thank you, we will skip breakfast and load up everything into the cars and leave. While we are occupied with this loading, which takes a 10-15 minutes the kitchen has prepared breakfast boxes to us that we can eat in the car. Thanks for that!
Loading the cars
After a short drive we arrive at the entrypoint to the rift valley. The view is magnificent.
A series of distinct rift basins, the East African Rift System extends over thousands of kilometers. The EAR transects through Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Zambia, Tanzania, Malawi and Mozambique. We will transverse it the greater part of the day. We have a 10 to 12 hour drive ahead of us.
In the lead car, driven by Joseph, and with Rolf and Boine as well as Hasse, they have come up with a slight change of plans. We will stop by at Lake Naivasha National Park, have breakfast and then make a boat trip out to the island. At first, we think, why stop for a boat trip when we are on the way to the gold? But when we hear that this island is full of African animals, non predators at least as far as we know, and that you can walk with the animals close by. Some like the water buffalo is very dangerous, so it is advised that you follow a guide. They know how close you can get without upsetting them. The lake has a large population of birds and also several family's of hippos are present.
Breakfast. Kenyan Mixed Tea is excellent! Water,Milk,Tea and sugar.
Hippos! Like 10 meters away. A very dangerous animal. Kills many people every year.
Me and som Zebras. Me to the right.
This is the only place in Africa where you can walk freely with wild animals. You can of course walk with them in maasai mara as well, but then again you might be eaten alive.... your choice.
The rift valley is dry and hot. Not many people is seen there. After several hours of drive we see more and more people along the road.
A dust devil. A woman just barely gets away from it.
We pass small villages and towns.
The commerce is everywhere present where people are.
Dimman has arranged for a job intervju with Apple store in Stockholm, with Facetime. They are supposed to call exactly 14:00 and the closer we are to that time the more nervous we get. we have to stop the two cars and let Dimman talk to the person on the other end. At 14:00 o'clock there was no call. For us Swedes, that means that something went wrong. You call exactly on time! It did take 3 or 4 extra minutes before the call came in. we stopped the car and Dimman had the most unusual job intervju with Apple ever.
Locals came up to the car and we where very vigilant so noone could snatch a bag with stuff and run. But it went good. After the call we continued our trip.
We arrived at nightfall after a long day of driving. Packed everything into the rooms and went for a bite. The Safari Lodge Hotel could not serve us any food, so we had to manage with cola and kenyan tea.
Time for a long needed sleep. ZZZZZZzzzzzzz