Life and Death on the Wasanuri River

In 2007, my mother and I flew to Africa to join a “land tour,” which turned out to consist of 20 participants and 3 guides of mixed competency riding on a converted refuse hauler and rattling their way around Kenya. But once the shock wore off, we forgot about the “rustic” accommodations and the lack of flushable toilets (or any toilets) and surrendered ourselves to the adventure that lay ahead.

Because quite an adventure lay ahead!

After 8 hours of driving from Nairobi and in the general direction of Mount Kenya, our first stop was the Wasanuri River. I say in the general direction because our guides provided very little usable information and the information they did provide was suspiciously vague.

In fact, upon my return home, I couldn’t find anything on the Internet about the Wasanuri River, though we camped there for two days (maybe).

But I’ll back up. So the truck shuddered and rumbled its way into the “camp,” which was actually a fairly small clearing next to a narrow, muddy river. The camp boasted the ultimate luxury, a pipe dangling inside a crude wooden structure that had ice-cold cold water dribbling from it. That’s right, a shower!

Unfortunately, we would not be treated to a flushing toilet, but then we hadn’t seen one of those since we left the hotel in Nairobi. Not having access to a toilet had already become, frankly, a way of life.

As the truck limped its way over the last hundred yards, one of the guides, Charles, yelled, “Duck!” Well, in the space of about one second we had to figure out why he was yelling at us to duck. The truck/bus was lined with windows on both sides and they were all open because, well, it’s hot in Africa.

What we hadn’t noticed until that moment were the tall thorny bushes growing on both sides of the “road.” As the bus passed, the branches, covered with 4-inch spikes, scraped their way through the open windows and missed us by inches! We learned that this would be more or less a daily exercise and that we had to be ready to lurch away from the windows almost without any warning at all (or be severely injured).

But at last, the truck stuttered and stopped and we had arrived at camp. We would stay in this camp for two days. The first task at hand was erecting our tents. Now, most of the “guests” were in their 20s or 30s. My mother and I were, well, older than that, and I am 5’3”. My mother is 4’11”. Still, we were expected to drag our 120-pound tent from the truck to our designated spot and assemble it.

Well, it was agony just dragging the bulky and heavy bag to our spot. After more than one heavy sigh, I pulled the components of the tent out of the bag and spread them out on the dusty ground. My mother gazed dreamily somewhere in the distance.

After what seemed like an epic struggle, the tent was up, and ironically, it stood taller than both of us by at least a foot. But we did it. We would have to take it down and put it back up at least five more times on this trip.

The sun sets in Kenya at exactly 6:40 p.m. No kidding. The sun will be shining as it normally does, and then at 6:40, it’s completely dark. It was late afternoon and two of the three “guides” were making “dinner.”

Now, food, or the lack thereof, quickly became a central theme for the week. At suppertime, around 8:00 at night (!) we could reasonably expect an adequate meal. Not so much at breakfast or lunch. But that night the guides whipped up a hearty stew, and around 8:00 (though we hadn’t eaten since noon) dinner was served!

We guests balanced on our camp chairs around the fire, gazing lovingly at our plates, which were actually full. I sat next to a girl from Romania, Justine, who was there with her Canadian aunt. She only spoke Romanian and the two women chatted companionably in Romanian. I smiled at her encouragingly, which was all I could do. She just smiled back.

At that moment, the guide “in charge,” Charles, approached carrying two long sticks and deftly scooped up a furry white scorpion that was scampering by, four inches from my sandal-clad foot.

He grinned at me and walked away to dump the creature into the tall grass only about 10 feet from where we sat.

“Those are deadly! We can’t have that!” Charles laughed upon his return.

I stared at him. “What?”

He shook his head and shrugged apologetically. “One bite and it’s all over!”

I turned back to my meal. Well, I still had my meal.

After dinner, people started to yawn and stretch and make their way to their tents. I nodded obligingly to the Romanian girl (not really a girl; she was 30) and she nodded back.

I spotted my mother hurrying back from the “bathroom,” looking distraught. She reported in a trembling voice that she’d walked to the outhouse with her flashlight and got the shock of her life.

When she shined the weak light inside the outhouse she discovered that the floor and walls were covered by 5-inch-long dark brown cockroaches that had emerged from the pit under the “toilet.” I guess these cockroaches are nocturnal which is why we did not see them when we arrived.

My poor mother looked visibly shaken and worse, we had a dilemma on our hands. We were going to have to relieve ourselves somewhere. After all, they actually fed us! We held an impromptu meeting (in the dark) to discuss our options.

“What about the river?” I asked.

“Did you see that crocodile on the bank earlier??” My mother countered.

Ah, yes. We saw about a 12-foot crocodile sunning itself on the bank of the river when we pulled into “camp.” And keep in mind, the bank of the river lay about 100 feet from our tents. Charles warned us that even if we didn’t see a crocodile, one could leap out of the water and drag us under in seconds.

And now it was completely dark and the only light we had came from the dying campfire and one weak flashlight.

“Okay, Mom, it’s either the crocodile or the cockroaches.” Not something one ever expects to say to one’s mother but our only other option was the dense brush and God only knew what lurked there (one furry white scorpion for sure).

My mother looked around helplessly and then sighed. “The crocodile.”

So we walked to the riverbank in almost complete darkness, she ducked behind a bush while I watched for the crocodile and then we switched places and repeated the maneuver. Giddy with relief because we’d survived for the moment, we made our way back to our tent.

Although it felt as though we’d just sunk into an exhausted sleep, suddenly Charles was walking by ringing what sounded like a cowbell! It was 5:30 in the morning and we were going on our first game drive! Hurray.

Bleary eyed and disoriented, I grabbed my toiletries and headed for the outhouse. The cockroaches should all be snugly back where they came from by now. I followed the rough path to where I thought I might find the outhouse and then stopped abruptly because right in front of me (no kidding; I could touch them, but I didn’t) marched a long line of baboons, cutting off my route.

Clearly they weren’t stopping, so I did. They walked on all fours in one long line and yet even bent over, they were large enough to reach my waist! Baboons are enormous! As each one passed, he (or she) would turn its head and sneer at me! One had a baby perched on her back and even the baby gave me a dirty look.

But I made it to the outhouse and back in time to enjoy a rushed breakfast. I’d noticed smaller, black-faced monkeys up in the trees above our heads but didn’t think much about them until “the big grab.”

Charles and his cohorts didn’t think it was worth mentioning (I guess) that if you even turn your head to say something to the person next to you, one of these monkeys will swoop down from a tree limb, rush by in a blur, and steal the food off your plate! Oh, yes!

I turned my head to nod helplessly at the Romanian girl and my toast disappeared, which was no small thing because our hosts rarely fed us on this land tour! I gaped at my emptier plate and watched the culprit leap back up into a tree, where he watched me and chewed my toast in a leisurely manner.

At least I wasn’t the only victim; every guest lost part of his or her breakfast and then we were herded onto the truck to embark on our 5-hour game drive. We were so excited! We had our cameras at hand as Charles pointed out wildebeest, giraffes, water buffalo, Thompson’s gazelles, warthogs, and on and on.

When we were about two hours into the game drive, and in the absolute middle of nowhere, the truck lurched one last time and then went completely still. We adventurers looked from one to another as it dawned on us that we were now stranded in the African bush, about two days from Nairobi (the nearest services of any kind) and surrounded by cheetahs.

And each of us brought a small bottle of water and a granola bar.

Well, our three “leaders” whispered to each other tersely and took turns looking under the truck’s enormous hood. Then they reconvened, whispered for a while, and tinkered around some more.

A few of us women needed to powder our noses (we had to go to the bathroom) and tentatively left the bus and walked around to the back where we would have an ounce of privacy (and I do mean an ounce). As I started to unzip my safari pants, I looked up and caught my breath.

Keeping an eye on us was a herd of wildebeest, about 20 feet from where we stood. Now in the real world, a person would turn and bolt, but we had nowhere to go and we needed to use the bathroom! So with a herd of wildebeest for an audience, we took care of business and re-boarded the bus.

And by some miracle, the engine coughed and re-ignited and we were able to resume our game drive.

Late in the afternoon, we reached our camp once more and I was so hot and dusty that I resolved to try out the “shower.” I grabbed a towel and walked to the rickety wood structure. Inside I found a toilet (which was never really a toilet) and a pipe hanging from the ceiling.

I turned the metal “knob” and sure enough, a narrow stream of cold water spilled from the pipe. Hurray! After a glorious showering experience, I turned to the toilet and watched as one of those horrible cockroaches made its way lazily out from wherever it lived.

I opened the door and fled and ran right into Charles. He saw the look on my face and asked what was wrong and I told him.

“Well, they have to eat too.” He was so philosophical.

As I approached the camp I noticed that my group, my mother included, was walking away in a different direction. I learned that they were hiking to a nearby lodge to enjoy a beer at the bar.

I decided to let them go and take the time to relax and write in my journal. John, one of our three guides, also chose to stay behind.

I made myself “comfortable” on a camp chair and scribbled furiously in my journal. I was so absorbed that I did not notice until I glanced up that a very angry bull elephant was glaring at me.

I swallowed slowly and tried to look around for John without actually turning my head. The elephant was obviously agitated and stood about 20 feet in front of me, wagging his mammoth head and stomping his gargantuan feet. He made a lot of indignant snorting noises and seemed to dare me to challenge him.

Well, challenging him was not on the agenda that afternoon. I heard John speak softly behind me.

“Stand up slowly and back away.”

And so I did, until John and I were safely behind the truck. Within a few minutes, the bull elephant lost interest and lumbered away.

And when the group came back, the Romanian girl said to me, in clear and perfect English, that I must have been terrified to have something like that happen!

So, life on the Wasanuri River (or wherever we were) could be both hazardous and… Well, just hazardous.

As we drove out of camp the next day, I noticed a lone tree on a vast plain. I wondered how that one tree had survived when clearly no other had.

I knew that Africa was no place for people who want any control whatsoever over what happens to them over the course of a day. We had only been in the country three days and we had already adopted an attitude of semi-heroic, stoical fatalism.

It was a relief in a way. We just let this great Earth spin.