Safari- Part II
On our way to Marigat, we stopped off and picked up a few of the locals from the smaller village right near the river. Some of them had been involved in the investigation, others may have been involved in the theft. Eldard was explaining to us that they had tried to stay with the vehicle, but were persuaded that they should get out for their own safety as the water was rising. They made it out with the clothes on their back and perhaps one tent, but left everything else behind and tried to sleep a bit on the river bank.
At some point during the night, obscured by darkness and the sounds of the rushing water, someone had gotten into the truck and taken the bags, including the staff’s. Plausible enough, and hard to blame the crew for fearing for their safety, but also hopelessly naive on all counts in retrospect.
We turned into the town of Marigat and proceeded to the police station, where we found our first truck parked in the lot, alongside a second truck of similar size that had apparently been sent to extricate the first truck. Both were now under repair, as the train of the process had done damage to their engines. It was now abundantly clear that this trip was not going to be making Gametrackers any money.
Eldard told us that the police had recovered a few bags, and with the help of the men we had brought along in the truck they had hopes of recovering everything, but they would need to go back across the river, and they would need our truck to do it. The exercise was supposed to take maybe two hours, and to get all of our things back, two hours seemed worth the wait.
In two hours, it was around 12, and nothing was being reported. We had sat in the shade of the truck for a while, but at noon there is not much shade to be had, so we began to get a bit cranky and started asking questions, which were of course met with evasive answers. No one had let Germana and Marlene see their bags, and we wondered where the rest of the crew was. We had not spoken directly to the police at all, only to Eldard.
So we ate our lunch, sitting on stools in the dust. And we waited. Periodically, we would get updates, but mostly what we got were requests for patience, and that was in short supply. Finally, perhaps around 3, a truck pulled in and unloaded 7 bags, which was a welcome sight, except there were 8 of us. It will probably surprise no one that my bag was the one that was missing, although Laura’s had been essentially emptied as well- she was left with 2 towels and a pair of jeans.
Then began the process of compiling police statements for insurance purposes. We really wanted to get going, but we also really wanted something to prove this had happened. The Marigat police were not exactly well-equipped for the challenge. I was interviewed by a younger officer (none of them wore uniforms), and he took all sorts of irrelevant biographical information from me (Married? Occupation?) and obscure details (what was the registration of Moses’ car?). Then he began handwriting a statement for me to sign- I believe it is safe to say we have some stylistic differences.
Looking to move things along, I signed what he had written out, as it was mostly correct and not incriminating to me, then asked if perhaps I could have a copy of it and we could be on our way. Laura was in a similar process with an older but no more competent officer in another room. All kinds of people were filtering in and out to watch the spectacle. I imagine it was the best show going in Marigat. And it was only about to get better.
The request for a report we could take along was, in retrospect, ill-advised, especially now that I have discovered I have no insurance coverage for any of what I lost. Computers, photocopiers, and fast typists were not the order of the day. The older officer, perhaps the chief, pulled out a decrepit type writer and set about the task of retyping our statements using his index fingers. Not far into that process, another man showed up and demanded attention.
This fellow was also older, and wearing a beret and a vaguely military uniform. He had not been around all afternoon and seemed to know nothing about the events of the day, but it did not prevent him from taking charge. He wondered first why all 8 bags had not been recovered. Then he wondered why the others had been allowed to take their bags, as they were “evidence.” Then he told us we would be needed to testify in court tomorrow. When we objected, he suggested we wait a few hours and we could speak to the magistrate right away.
Further objections led him to suggest that all of their good police work would be for naught if we were to leave. I pointed out that they had our written statements, that we had not been present when the bags were abandoned, that the chain of custody of the evidence was already hopelessly lost, and that the only things we knew were hearsay from our guides, who could surely be more useful witnesses than we could. I was somewhat proud of my evidentiary arguments, but they only served to turn attention on our crew.
The next tactic was to accuse our guides of “failure to prevent a crime,” and by now I knew things had become absurd. This man’s only goal was to obstruct us from leaving the station, and I had no idea how to placate him. It emerged several days later that one of the boys in trouble was the younger brother of a well-placed military man, and it was likely someone had been dispatched to foul up the investigation enough that the boy would escape trial. But that was just one of several conspiracy theories surrounding the events of Marigat.
At this point Eldard was close to tears, Laura, who had been incredibly tough, was in tears, and I was fuming and wondering how far I could go with this guy without getting myself thrown in jail. We got on the vehicle with our bags, if only to protect them from the clutches of the police, and everyone walked away to clear the air. Military man came back and told us that they thought they could get my bag now, and they would be gone for half an hour, so sit tight. Argh.
The tourists were all of a mind to drive away, but the crew insisted that we stay, likely concerned about being arrested themselves. The local chief was back to typing away, while the rest of the squad was out beating the bushes for my gear. Eldard got the Kenyan Tourist Federation involved now, calling on his cell phone and asking them to talk some sense to the Marigat cops. They finally succeeded in persuading them to release us, or else we just got bold and left on our own. We left behind our original driver, Wanjumi, to collect the police statements and anything else that might come in, and set out for Masai Mara at 6 pm, some 9 hours later than planned.
Our new driver was Kanyua, and he was also a mechanic, which was both reassuring and troubling- why would we need a mechanic? Of course, we were about find out.
The drive was supposed to be about 2 hours to Nakuru, where we were supposed to camp on Day 2 and where we were to pick up another two people. Our new truck had a much smaller capacity than the original, so the other 7 who were going to join us were already in a different vehicle with a different crew. From Nakuru, we were told it was about 2 hours to Narok, the gateway town to Masai Mara, and then another 2 hours or so to our campsite. It meant that if everything went well, we could expect to arrive around 12 or 1, and there were canins available for us there, so we could just collapse into bed on our arrival.
Our first hour away from Marigat was fine, the roads were good, we were making good time, and the sun was setting. Shortly after we crossed back into the Southern Hemisphere, Marlene saw a roadside sign indicating 37 km to Nakuru and said something about making good time. Within in minutes, Kanyua lost a struggle with the clutch and could not bring the truck beyond first gear. It was completely dark and there was no place to stop, so were left to crawl along to Nakuru where he would be able to look at it.
Around 8:30, we made it into Nakuru and pulled over in a reasonably well lit spot. The rest of us walked over to a hotel where we managed to find Dan and Mel, a nice couple, also from London, who had apparently just begun their preparations for bed, assuming that there would be no truck coming to pick them up that night. They had been on their own in Nakuru all day, receiving repeated assurances that someone was on their way, but not unreasonably they had given up on those assurance.
Apparently, they were scheduled for a balloon ride taking off before dawn in Masai Mara on Tuesday morning, approximately 8 hours from then. Some consideration was given to spending the night in Nakuru, but Eldard and the crew insisted that we forge on, the truck would be fine, and we needed to get Dan and Mel to their balloon ride, which are both expensive and spectacular by all accounts.
While we were waiting, Wamjumi caught up with us, and somehow had my bag, albeit largely empty, but somehow containing my shaving kit which had been repacked with my Ipod, my camera, and my new binocular. So I had no clothing, but I had the expensive stuff. My camera had been erased, but I had saved almost all of the pictures on it to my laptop already. I bought a toothbrush and prepared to make it another three days without a change of clothing.
The repairs took us until close to 10, so now it would be a very late arrival indeed, but Eldard insisted that our route was safe, that he was in touch with the tourist police and our route was protected. Without any better options, we took off into the night, in a truck with a tarp for a roof and plastic flaps for windows, over rocky roads with no street lights. There was no chance of sleeping for me, though it seemed possible for people who could lean on each other like Ben and Laura.
I had no watch or clock to track the proceedings, but things seemed to be taking a long time, and I definitely became worried when Kanyua pulled up alongside a truck driver and asked a question, and the reply included a laugh and the words “a long way” repeated several times. At some point Eldard pointed out that we were driving through Kericho, home to the largest tea plantations in the world. I didn’t remember that being on the way either, but I no longer had a map or any light to read by.
Others in the truck began to have similar panicky thoughts, and maps and flashlights were taken out. The truck began to have transmission problems again. We saw it was after 3 am, and the map showed us still a long way from Narok, as we had taken a very indirect route rather than the straight shot that appeared on the map. We also realized that our driver had been up since 6 am, and that he had not gone to sleep until after midnight the night before. Mel claimed to notice him weaving, but that was less of a concern for me, as that is actually the way you have to drive to avoid potholes.
Kanyua pulled over at a police checkpoint shortly thereafter and began to work on the transmission again. The rest of began to bombard Eldard, who was still working the phones (now using my hone with his SIM card- his own was out of battery). He told Dan and Mel that they were not going to make the balloon ride, a fact that was abundantly clear already. Everybody was upset, nobody felt safe, and I began thinking of the most dramatic possible language to use if I ever got to speak to the management at Gametrackers, but that seemed unlikely.
We would have demanded to stop there to sleep, but there was nowhere to do that either. Eldard begged our patience, to get to Narok where Kanyua could get a cup of coffee, a bit of a rest, and then make our way to the campsite. We had no choice but to follow that plan. We did arrive in Narok around 5, found some coffee, rested a bit, then left for our destination.
As we left town, the sun began to come up, and the area around us looked like the classic savannah of a thousand nature programs. We began to see an abundance of zebras and various types of antelope, along with children making their way to school. Then, suddenly, Kanyua pulled over. Another repair? No, a cheetah. Very well camouflaged, and in the half-light of dawn, but somehow the man who had been up for 23 hours driving picked it out. Strong coffee in Kenya, apparently.
No the rest of the truck was awake, and getting a bit excited. Kanyua was flying along the road when I saw a blur of yellow fur on my left and yelled out “Lion!” The truck stopped, and backed up, and sure enough a lioness was crouching in the tall grass by the roadside. I was pretty proud of my spotting ability, and now totally ready to experience the Mara.
No comments:
Post a Comment