It's a jungle out there

This weekend I decided to make the journey into the big city of Kisumu to visit a few of my friends that stay there. We had decided to do a day trip on Saturday to Kakamega Forest, a little sliver that remains from the rainforest that used to cover most of central and eastern Africa. We wanted to get an early start on Saturday so we decided it was best for me to go into town on Friday night. I was really concerned about getting to Kisumu, because everybody I asked was always very vague about the most efficient way to get to town. I did understand that I would have to take a motorbike from Ukwala to Ugunja, a town about 45 minutes from where I live, then from Ugunja I could get a matatu to Kisumu. Lucy warned me to excuse myself from the clinic early because she didn't want me traveling after dark, even though this part of Kenya is far safer than Nairobi. Luckily for me, a few guys from the clinic happened to be going into town anyway, so I got a free ride. They even dropped me off right at the supermarket where my friend was planning to meet me. I made a quick stop in the grocery store to stock up on supplies, since dietary staples like peanut butter and chocolate can't be bought in Ukwala, then met up with Marta, the lovely lady kind enough to share her home with me for the evening, as well as the "other Emily" on the trip and our friend Joe. The for of us squeezed into a tuktuk to get to the part of town where Marta and Joe live. For those of you not familiar with tuktuks, they are (supposed to be) three- passenger taxis that are sort of like enclosed motorized tricycles. Since that description probably wasn't satisfactory, I've included a picture.



This is a tuktuk. They're probably in my top three favorite forms of transportation these days, although if the roads are bumpy, which they all are, it can be a pretty unsettling ride.





We went to a swanky restaurant called Kiboko Bay, which was a definite mzungu hotspot, to watch the sun set over Lake Victoria. Oh, and we also got to watch a few locals bathing in the lake, which is a very common occurrence. As soon as it started getting dark, Marta and I went to her house to drop my stuff off and have dinner and watch Tormenta en el Paraiso with her family. As it turns out, all Kenyans outside of Nairobi are wild about that show. Marta joked that the best way to end the ethnic tensions and bring Kenya together would be to elect a Mexican president in 2o12. But I'm coming to realize that as much as everybody watches that show, very few people recognize that it's originally a Spanish-language soap opera. My mom, for example, firmly believes that it is set in Norway. You know, because there are so many tropical beaches in Norway. As a side note, most people here think I'm from either Germany or Swaziland. Anyway, after Storm Over Paradise, we went back to Joe's house to have tea because his mom got really offended that we only stopped by to say hello before, so we felt we owed her a nice long visit. Then we went back to Kiboko Bay to hang out in a group for a while. From this point on, my weekend got too wild to simply describe the succession of events that transpired, and I've always felt like I might have a hidden knack for creative writing, so I'm going to relate the rest of my weekend adventures to some popular films.

The Jumangi Experience: We got to Kiboko Bay and were just sitting down at a table when a security guard approached us. "You want to see a hippo?" he asked. Well, since I don't live right on the lake in Ukwala, I figured he was perhaps mildly crazy, but everybody else followed him. Sure enough, a hippo had wandered out of the lake and was casually munching on the grass by the guest houses behind the restaurant. Fun fact: the hippo is actually Africa's most deadly animal. They squash a lot of tourists every year, and they have huge teeth, so if they feel threatened they just snap the spine of whatever's bothering them. Needless to stay, we kept our distance. A few other mzungus were clustered around watching the hippo lumber around. Since it's pretty rare to see a hippo at a restaurant in the US, this was entertaining for well over a half hour. At one point it started running. You would not believe how fast hippos can run if they want to. The mzungus all scattered but came right back when the danger had passed. Eventually the hippo got bored and splashed back into the lake, so we chatted for a bit with some friendly Germans we had met, then turned in for an early night. Marta and I took another tuktuk back to her house, which was great until the driver got sassy and charged us 50 shillings above the price we had agreed upon when we got in.

The Fern Gully Experience: The next morning we got up really early and hired a fleet of motorbikes to take five of us into town. I was on the back of a motorbike that was carrying me, Marta, and the driver, and I felt a little wobbly as we zoomed down the bumpy streets, but we all arrived safely. We made a quick stop to get picnic lunch provisions, then found a matatu that would take us to a town near the entrance to Kakamega Forest, about a 45 minute drive for Ksh 150 ($2) per person. From that point we found more motorbikes to take us the rest of the way to the entrance. Once we got to the park, we tried to use our alien resident ID cards to get a lower rate for the entrance fee, but as usual, we failed. We're supposed to get the price Kenyans pay for museums, theaters, parks, etc with these cards but so far all they're good for is laughing at how terrible our pictures are on them. Oh, and I guess they make a pretty great souvenir. According to our guidebook, there was supposed to be a really scenic 7 km hike that lead to a waterfall, but apparently the Lonely Planet people don't check with the places they write about very often, because Park Ranger Moses told us that trail has been "impassable" since 1995. So instead we spent the morning hiking independently through the non-marked trails of the rainforest (Kenyans do not believe in maps), and I'll say that we saw some pretty great sights. We were wandering aimlessly, however, and decided to head back to the main office around lunch time to eat our picnic and start out on a new trail.

There are supposed to be about 400 species of butterflies in Kakamega Forest, but we didn't see nearly that many. This one is pretty, though.

In the afternoon we decided not to be such cheap students and hire a guide to walk around with us. Moses took us out for another hike. As it turns out, Moses is highly skilled at various bird calls, so he had the whole forest singing for us. He showed us a lot of different plants that are being exploited for medicinal use, and which plants would cause rashes and such if you touched them. We also so a TON of monkeys. It was so cool seeing the monkeys swinging around on vines and jumping between the trees. They were acting like monkeys are supposed too; it was way cooler seeing them in the wild than at any zoo or sanctuary.


There are seven species of primates in the forest, but no chimps. This is one of many, many monkeys I saw in the jungle. They're very playful. Also in the rainforest were a number of nice tropical flowers.

One of the trees Moses showed us was the strangler fig, which I also saw a lot of in the Everglades when I went there last spring. They attach themselves to other trees, then slowly grow around the host tree until it dies from lack of nutrients. What's left is usually a big hollow strangler fig tree that will act as a reservoir for water or a habitat for a variety of different animals. We climbed right in to one of the strangler fig trees to pose for a picture

The Motorcycle Diaries Experience: At about 3:3o our tour of the rainforest had come to an end. The rest of the group was heading back to Kisumu, but I needed to return to Ukwala. I was very nervous about the journey home, since nobody had any idea how to get from Kakamega to Ukwala. This seems like a good point to mention that in rural Kenya, geographical proximity has very little effect on how you get from Point A to Point B. I found a motorbike man that was willing to get me from the forest to the town of Kakamega, about a 30 minute ride. From there he helped me find a matatu that would get me a little bit closer to home, and set me off on my own. For those of you that know me at all, you realize that this was difficult for me because I like to know exactly what's going to happen, at exactly what time. So here I was, in one unfamiliar area, boarding a matatu bound for another unfamiliar area. I had no idea what to do after I got off the matatu, but I guess I accepted the fact that I'd have to piece my journey home together bit by bit, one stop at a time. Here's how my day finally concluded:

• Piki piki (the local word for a motorbike) from Kakmega forest to Kakmega town, a 30 minute ride
• Matatu from Kakamega to Mumias, another 45 minutes. The matatu conductor looked at me when I got on, asked me to marry him, and told me "I love you too much". The locals all thought this was very funny, but at this point I was still really anxious about navigating my way through rural Kenya and getting home before dark, so the humor was lost on me. Oh, and he didn't love me enough to charge me the same rate as all the Kenyans. I'm getting really sick of paying "mzungu price" for everything, even if the price I pay would still be considered low in the US. I guess everything's relative
• From Mumias, a kind gentleman that had been on the matatu with me told me it would probably be best to get a piki piki to Mungatsi. At this point, I still had no idea what I'd do once I got there, but I was learning to relax a little bit. I took his advice, thanked him profusely, and found another piki piki, this ride lasting about 40 minutes. From Mungatsi I found more motorbikes and explained that I was trying to get to Ukwala. Nobody was willing to drive me that far, but one man said he'd take me to Ugunja. Ugunja!! I know that city! Now I was really happy and able to just enjoy riding on the back of a motorcycle through the most rural and scenic parts of Kenya, because I knew I was close to home and I knew what to do from Ugunja. During that leg of the journey, which took another half hour or so, we drove through agricultural lands where people would be out ploughing their fields, harvesting sugarcane, cutting up wood to make charcoal, or washing their laundry in small streams. We went through a lot of hills and valleys on an extremely bumpy road. The driver asked me at one point if I'd like to drive the bike, but I politely declined. I'm not that adventurous yet. This particular driver had little concern for our lives though, because every time he'd see a fellow piki piki driver, he'd challenge them to a race. We were going 80 kph on a motorcycle that sounded like it was about to fall apart anyway, on a rocky dirt road. A few times we were completely airborne and I had the sort of "life flashing before your eyes" moment you always hear about.
• When we got to Ugunja, I found a final piki piki to take me to Ukwala and watched the sun begin to set as we zoomed through familiar territory toward home. I walked in the door a little before 7, covered in dirt and my whole face was red from windburn. Lucy took one look at me and said "So you've been on a piki piki now"

So, three hours, 700 shillings, and four marriage proposals later I was home safe with my wonderful family in Ukwala. Lucy said it looked like Marta's family didn't feed me enough and made me have extra food at dinner and extra tea before bed. I was exhausted from a long day but I think I learned a lot. For example, the back of a motorbike might just be the best way to see rural Kenya. Travel in this part of the world can be tricky, but it's best to take everything one piki piki ride at a time and you should make it home fine in the end.