MOTORCYCLING among zebras!!

A motorbike weekend with the Dustbusters is definitely one of the highlights during my three years in East Africa!! Danish Per, the founder and leader of the motorbike safari company in Arusha in Tanzania, gave Marianne, her sister-in-law, and myself two hours of training on Thursday, the day before we set out in the bush . And since none of us had ever tried motorcycling before, it was absolutely worth the money! We did not impress very much the first 30 minutes; there was bumping and jerking and stalling of the engine not only once...But on Friday, we were ready for the real tracks! At 7 in the morning we were picked up at Scripture Mission and brought by the support vehicle an hour´s drive away, north of Arusha, to a trail at the side of Mt Meru. Helmet, googles, gloves and knee protectors were put on, and then we were ready to go!
Per was in front with his motorbike, stopping now and then to tell us how to drive to cross the challenging parts of the trail. The four unexperienced of us followed, each on a Honda XLR 250 trail bike, and the support vehicle was at the back to help if we had some problems of some kind... Don´t ask what happened here .. Lunch was great, and it was nice to stretch our legs and relax a little before moving on. Hmmrf, don´t know exactly what happened here either... And I had been so happy that my clothes had dried up during the lunch break...


Despite that I kept entertaining the rest of the group with my unfortunate pothole acrobatics, I had great fun the whole day!
Luckily we had several breaks, and Per´s wife had prepared very good food for us!
Beautiful scenery, partly very good roads, partly mud or rocks - plenty enough of challenges for me! But I am pretty proud that I rode about 95 km all by myself the first day!! And in the late afternoon it was good to get to the camp and relax in a comfortable camping chair with a cold drink and some snacks as the tents were being put up and dinner prepared for us! On Saturday I was sore, I say no more... The support vehicle turned out to be our salvation, as one fell and got badly hurt, another one was sick and had to give in after a while, and myself I got tired and lost concentration after some time, and then I became scared of every little bump. My motorbike was put on the trailer, and I was offered to ride on Per´s back, which was great fun! He had completely control, and then I got the speed I did not dare to have when driving by myself! Full speed into flocks of zebras and wilderbeasts, making them dustbusters as well - an extraordinary game experience! After a while I wanted to ride my own motorbike again, but when I got tired the second time I got to sit on Per´s back the rest of the trip, which was a lot more relaxing. The few sandy parts I tried had been both fun and challenging, and since I was happy about all I had done myself it did not feal like a loss at all to make use of the back-up it was to sit at Per´s back. That was just an extra bonus! I was just happy to be out motorbiking without having to defeat the sandy trails myself! Dustbusters (www.dustbusters-tz.com) is hereby recommended!!

...even though you might be sore and hate stairs for some days afterwards...

Fishing in Aberdare

I keep ticking off my to-do-before-I-leave list... Another camping trip last weekend, together with Bodil and three of our students this time. We entered at Naivasha gate on Saturday, at the west side of the national park, and from there we crossed the Aberdare moorland plateau. Beautiful landscape, and amazing waterfalls. We stopped several times to go fishing, and one of the boys got a couple of mountain trouts. Some parts of the roads were muddy and extremely slippery at this side of the park, and the mud was crammed into the treads of the tyres, making them lose the grip. But I was happy both to have a 4wd Landcruicer and an experienced advisor at the age of 15. After having tried a couple of times to get up a very steep hill, where one side of the road was black mud where the wheels only slided or dug down, and the other side had big rocks, I was about to give up. But my student jumped out of the window of the car, started to move some of the rocks, and confidently gave me instructions on where and how to drive. I gave it a last chance, since it was getting late and we were only a few kilometres from the campsite if we could make it. Otherwise we would have to turn around and go back several kilometres, and the road was not very good from where we had come either. But what a relief when we made it!
Nice campsite, a little rain in the evening, but luckily dry weather the rest of the night, and also the following day! The bush bucks came for a visit when we were about to go to bed, and they kept grazing right outside of the tents most of the night. Fascinating! On Sunday we drove to the east side of the park for a game drive. A little scary, maybe, to have lunch just a few metres from a buffalo. If you use a magnifying glass, you might see him under the bush in the background of the last picture...

Kili and I

I hate to say that time is running out, but I am planning to make a plan for the coming weekends; there are still so many things I would like to experience or repeat before leaving Kenya in the summer... Since it had been a while since I last camped, and even longer since I had been to Amboseli, a combination was good! Heavy rain as we left Nairobi on Saturday morning made us laugh self-ironicly, not having too high expectations about the tent part of the trip. It kept raining as we were driving and Marianne kept encouraging Daylan and myself, saying that the weather forecast promised sunshine after 3 p.m. And the forecast was pretty right! We only had a few drops as we had our coffee break on top of the Observation Hill. The camp site was not too far from the Observation Hill and our plan was to go there and put up the tent, and then have an evening game drive before dinner. But pitching the tent was quite a challenge. The tent was borrowed from the Norwegian school, and we had not checked it before leaving. In addition to the tent poles being much used, broken and taped together again, the tent turned out to lack tent pegs completely. Luckily there was a Maasai who was very willing to whittle us some sticks that we could use. So, after some struggle we managed to put up the tent well enough. But then we had a fight against the wind... It was pretty obvious that we could not have another game drive and leave the tent behind, so instead we looked for the most windless spot we could find and moved the tent. It was easier to put up this time... After all the work the barbeque and relaxing in comfortable chairs around the bonfire was well deserved. We were lucky that it did not rain at all during the night, since it is likely that water would have leaked into the old tent. The morning was cloudy, so we were happy that we had got a glimpse of Kilimanjaro the day before. But during our morning game drive, all of a sudden it cleared up. I have never ever seen the mountain like that before! A mighty sight!! (Hard to catch in a picture, though.)After having enjoyed the stunning sight of the highest mountain in Africa, game was only extra bonus. And we had lots of bonus, too.... Back at the camp Marianne did a good job by the fire, making us eggs and bacon. Meanwhile Daylan did a good job cleaning up the mess after the velvet monkeys that had been visiting our tent when we had been out on the game drive. Impressing how they had been able to unzip layers to get into the tent, and even open a backpack and find the food that was in there! (You wonder what I was doing? Taking pictures, of course :o)I can´t think of a better way of ending a camping trip than having a looong breakfast in the sunshine, by the base of Mount Kilimanjaro!

Cycling among zebras

"Good idea," said Marianne as we exited the park. I think Bodil agreed. "The idea was old," I answered, not understanding why I haven´t done this until today!! I´ve been talking and thinking about renting bicyles in Hell´s Gate National Park for almost three years now, so it really was about time! No fuss at all, it is just to pack your lunch and set off! Zebras, wilderbeasts, gazelles, giraffes, and baboons - not exactly what I´m used to see when I´m cycling on a beautiful summer day in Norway...

Spring Break

Just some pictures from Mombasa, where I spent a week together with Marianne, her sister, and a friend of her sister. The hotel was nice, but the rocky beach was a bit disappointing, as I had believed the sand on Diani beach was all like icing sugar...



But our snorkeling trip to Shimoni came up to my expectations.

Lake Magadi

A couple of hours` drive from Nairobi is a beautiful soda lake, Lake Magadi, a popular place among flamingoes. You don´t need to worry about being cold here, that´s for sure!

Maasai women were waiting in the shade not far from the hot springs*, and they came out as soon as they saw our car coming, eager to sell their Maasai beaded jewellery.
A self-appointed guide was also very available.
Lunch in the shade of an acacia tree is compulsory on an excursion like this. Audience is hard to avoid, though, even though we went to a different place than where our guide had told us to go, but we were happy to share some water with the young boys in the heat.
*Hei Oddvar og Elin: Vi var bare et par hundre meter ifra i fjor, men bare slapp av - det var ikke store greiene vi gikk glipp av. Var ikke engang verdt et bilde :o)

Safari in the Nairobi National Park

A little more scary it was when a young rhino came running full speed out from the bush, stopping in the middle of the road, facing the car, and looking as if it was going to run right into it! Luckily it chose to set off into the bush again.