Car Trouble

We had to go to Nairobi for a full day of meetings which means driving about 6 hours one way on the "very pleasant roads" from the Masai Mara to Narok and then finally to Nairobi. Every time we do this trip I swear I lose six months off my life. We've been driving one of the camp cars which is a modified Land Cruiser - completely open in the back and canvas tops. For the past three weeks we've been telling our country director that the car needed new tires and his only comment is always "No, you don't need new tires, you're just "green"." Hmmmmm.

Along the way, we decided that we needed to change one of the tires since the actual tread was coming off, but then realized the camp staff had taken the high jack out of the truck. All we had was a puny jack that would have worked on my old Honda Accord, but not a massive Land Cruiser. We decided we could make it to Narok and get the tire changed at one of the petrol stations. One kilometer outside of Narok our tire blew out! Luckily it was a back tire. We were on sloped ground and the tire tread completely came off and almost wrapped itself around the axel. Luckily in Africa you aren’t by yourself for more than one minute if you break down and we soon had a big audience of adults and kids all discussing the best way to fix the situation. Within twenty minutes the car was lifted up using rocks and the jack, spare tire installed, and we were on our way to Narok with a happy group of new passengers that needed a lift to town.

The arduous car journey always involves flying ants, bees, dirt, gravel, dust, and various other flying objects coming through the opening above the windshield and the canvas roof, all of which ends up embedded in your hair and scalp. The other joyful thing about having a canvas roof is the constant flapping noise. At one point the canvas started ripping and we had to make a pit stop and use a “McGuiver” move of tying the canvas down with a belt. My favorite is when it starts raining and everything you have with you gets sopping wet. We actually always keep our rain jackets with us because it quite literally “rains” inside the car.

On our return journey, it had been raining for a few days which is not good for traveling in the Mara. There’s a shortcut home that shaves off about 40 minutes of the trip, but it is pretty treacherous. This time was no different. There was so much water on the “roads” they were more like rivers. The black cotton soil is like quicksand with deep ravines on either side, and soon we were covered in mud as we slowly made our way. Along the way we ran into a tiny white station wagon that was so stuck in the mud and filled with Maasai. Did you know you can fit twelve Maasai in a station wagon? We stopped to give them a hand. We were able to tow them out and then we proceeded as a caravan. The next river crossing, they of course got stuck again – so we pulled them out a second time. They were so thankful, as several of the warriors were getting married the next day. We exchanged numbers, were invited to the wedding and took several of the passengers with us to the next boma. We could not believe our fortune that we didn’t get completely stuck – there were some pretty hectic moments! As we pulled up to the cottage the afternoon Mara rains started again.