My Travel Adventures

Roughly a four-hour drive from Nairobi, spreading out at the foot of Mount Kenya, Ol Pejeta is a conservancy that specializes in taking care of rhinos and chimpanzees. The site is home to over 165 black rhinoceroses, and its major attraction are its two northern white rhinos, the last exemplars of their entire species. The two females were brought over as part of a four-member family unit, but the males died a few years ago without helping them produce any progeny. Attempts have been made to crossbreed the northern white rhinos with their southern counterparts, but these have failed, so it appears that surrogacy – using frozen sperm from the males and eggs from the living but aging females – is the only remaining option to keep the species alive.

I have just about reached that age when some of my friends are getting married, and when the fingers on one hand no longer suffice to count the years many others have spent in committed relationships. Unfortunately for me, two among my closest friends decided to have their weddings during my year in Kenya, which spelled two long journeys across the Atlantic: first to Toronto, then to Philadelphia (with a quick personal detour to Washington DC), both within the space of a month. At the time I booked my tickets, I did not know I could ask for flexible working arrangements (one of the many secrets at my workplace), so I ended up making four journeys that each took almost twenty-four hours.

On the eve of my return from Kilwa, the manager at my hotel asked whether I had booked a bus ticket. I said I had not, as the website I had been recommended refused to accept my European debit cards and my Kenyan MPesa account. The manager made a consternated face. “I am not sure there will be space,” he said. As I waited at the reception with a sudden knot in my stomach, the manager started making phone calls. Buti La Zungu – the company with which I had come to Kilwa the previous day – confirmed that there were no seats on their bus. The manager gave me two options: I could either take another bus at the same time, with the caveat that it is “a worse bus,” or I could take a cab to one of the bigger towns in the neighbourhood to take a “better bus.”

Dating to the 9 th century CE, Kilwa Kisiwani is one of the most historically significant settlements in East Africa. It flourished between the 13 th and 15 th centuries as the seat of the Kilwa Sultanate, a political entity that controlled much of the Swahili Coast and with it, much of the trade that went on between Africa and other civilisations across the Indian Ocean: The Arabian Peninsula, India, and even China. Ibn Battuta, who visited the island city in 1331, described it as one of the most beautiful in the world. It was destroyed by the Portuguese in 1505, who built a fort and stayed until they, in turn, were forced out by the Omanis. 

The journey to Kilwa is arduous. In fact, it takes so long that I had to wait until a three-day weekend to undertake it. While Kilwa Masoko has a small airport, it only receives charter flights, which means that any visitor to Kilwa Masoko must either hire a car or catch the bus from Dar Es Salaam. As far as I know, this bus only leaves at noon and the bus back leaves at six in the morning, which effectively means there is no way to make this trip in less than three days – unless, I suppose, one were to put inordinate trust in the notoriously dangerous and irregular daladalas.

On my last day in Rwanda, I woke up at a more sensible time: half past five. Despite getting over seven hours of sleep, I could not convince my body that it was not tired from yesterday’s gorilla trek, nor could I persuade my legs to stop hurting every time I went up or down an incline. At half past six, the driver picked me up and drove me once again to the Volcanoes National Park visitor centre. The sky was much clearer that morning. Only a few clouds hung above the five volcanoes, which I now saw stretching from my left hand to my right and towering above the fields hoed by colourfully clad women.