Canals, Bikes, Lions, a Leopard, and 5 Days of Living Dangerously

(The Netherlands, Tanzania and Kenya)

We just crossed over the north coast of Egypt on the way to Tanzania. JC and I took 3 months off this summer/fall. We spent 3 weeks renting a cabin on Quadra Island (one of the Northern Gulf Islands btw Vancouver island and the mainland)- great swimming, cycling, kayaking and light hiking- not to mention very relaxing- I must admit it was a welcome change from the hectic pace and hassles of international travel, and won’t be a last. We then did some local travel- a week around central Van isl., and later another in the Cascades and eastern Washington state. Highlights there included our first hiking close encounter with a mountain goat, and seeing the massive Dry Falls, which once was several-fold the size and flow of Niagara (a huge Great Lake-sized Glacial lake called Missoula lake was repeatedly formed by an ice dam during the last ice age, and repeatedly failed, draining completely in 2-3days, sending a 1km-high wall of water racing over E. Wash and Oregon- thought to be the planet’s greatest floods ever! [sorry, Noah!]), and swimming in nearby alkaline Soap Lake.

We headed overseas to Amsterdam Sept 12th. The Netherlands get mixed reviews. Were very impressed with the modern architecture of Rotterdam- (the Dutch traditional variety there was all bombed by the Nazis in the 5d before surrender) with just about every building trying to make some statement, tho some were quite ugly. Also very impressed by the cycling infrastructure- especially outside major cities. We rented bikes for day rides quite a few times including around the canals and dykes of Waterland minutes north of Amsterdam, the windmills of Kinderdijk in a heritage area near Rotterdam, and in Hoge Veluwe National Park, where you cycle to the Helen Kroller-Mueller Museum, her personal collection of mostly late 19th century paintings, truly as impressive as a national gallery, including more Van Goghs than anywhere else. (for anyone who doesn’t recall Vincent’s descendant, filmmaker Theo, was murdered by a Dutch-born muslim extremist in 2004. Theo’s collaborator, Somali-born, former Dutch parliamentarian Ayaan Hirsi Ali has recently had books on the bestseller lists which I highly recommend. There certainly is a noticeable Islamification going on, especially in urban suburbs and among children given differential birth rates, however it did not appear to me to have reached Mark Steyn’s “America Alone” proportions, tho the trend will likely continue (lonely planet states 5.8% of the popn is muslim). Altho 99% of Dutch cyclists don’t wear helmets, it is clear that the serious ones do. While not using them may be passable in the quiet countryside [tho I will never forget Dr. Creatchman’s successful retort to my teenage comment that I only don’t wear a helmet around Hampstead: “Oh? Is the pavement softer there?”), it is downright crazy in very busy Amsterdam where speeding cyclists, crazy drivers, trams, and clueless tourist pedestrians all must go thru the same intersections.

The cycling is mostly out of pragmatism as it is usually the fastest way to get around, esp in the cities, where driving and parking are (in part intentionally) major hassles. Nevertheless car use is up 50% in the last generation, and was great for getting around the countryside when we rented the last 5 days- even found 2 stretches with 130km/h speed limits- fun, but not safe given the high traffic on them.

Not surprisingly, smoking, at 32%, topped our aggravation list. Along with much of the EU, it was restricted inside restaurants and hotels in 2008, however no buffer rule was made for entranceways (the Dutch tourism and health ministers should expect an email…), and in both settings smokers stand right under an open door frame thinking the smoke magically knows which way to go. Hotel rooms (in addition to often smelling of tobacco of legal or illegal origin), are very cramped and overpriced (tho breakfast buffets were good). The Dutch, despite being the world’s tallest, somehow sleep in the smallest beds and use the smallest bathrooms.

Other highlights included lots of pretty towns, staying at the Marjorie 2 boat B+B in Antwerp (where by chance we were moored next to the Sea Sheperd Society’s Brigitte Bardot- apparently the world record holder for an 86d globe circumnavigation (?)- got a tour aboard) during a 2d side trip to Belgium (Andy-Kriek cherry beer is as good as I remembered)- Brussels has a long line of red-light windows easily viewed as your train slows to pull into the station (most cities seem to have them- only in Amsterdam is it a “tourist attraction”)! , several excellent dinners including an Indonesian “Rijstaffel” (rice table) feast, although our 1st Surinamese (also a former colony) experience was disappointing- essentially simplistic Chinese food. Also canoeing the canals of Weeribben Natl Park, the 1482 Monty Python-esque witch-weighing scales in Oudewater, and the quiet (weekday&out-of-season), cycle-path filled, dune- lined pastoral island of Texel (Errol- the large car ferry taking us there was 100% indoor/outdoor smoke-free!), where our hotel room had its own sauna! Also visited Amsterdam (our least favorite due to crowds and smoke), Monnikadam, Haarlem, The Hague and its beach suburb of Schevingenen, Delft, Gouda, Deventer and Zwolle.

Well, it is now 4wks later and we are by chance seated in KLM’s roomier “economy comfort” class at no extra cost on the way back to Toronto where I will attend the CDA before we head home. We spent most of the first week doing the standard Tanzanian northern safari circuit (Tarangire, Serengeti, and Ngorogoro Crater NPs) and also spent an afternoon in Moshi where we luckily got an excellent late afternoon view of Kilimanjaro when the clouds dissipated, followed by 2 wks on Zanzibar, and the last wk split btw Dar Es Salaam and Nairobi, Kenya (country #80 for me!).

The safari itself surpassed my jaded (having already done one unguided [essentially not permitted here] in South Africa) expectations. In large part this was due to the eye and knowledge of our driver/guide, Tito. Highlights included seeing many lions (including 2 matings- very brief and business-like; I’d be handed divorce papers!), a leopard with a kill in a tree right at the roadside allowing repeated up-close viewings over 2 days, a cheetah in a stand-off with a gazelle at a distance (didn’t see any actual hunts), a buffalo grazing 10ft below our above-the-crater lodge’s window one night, and several small herds of wildebeest crossing the roads right in front of us, each in sudden full flight as if it were a dangerous river (wrong time/place for the famous Serengeti migration that we have all seen on national geographic). Also lots of zebras, elephants, giraffes, hippos, buffaloes, hyenas and jackals, many types of antelopes, warthogs, mongoose, hyrax, ostriches, baboons and monkeys, and, later in an afternoon taxi-driven safari in the uniquely skyscraper-backed Nairobi National Park, 3 rhinos and many elands. We were also surprisingly impressed by the many colourful birds (made noteworthy by Tito’s identifications- everyone other than Marshal should probably skip the rest of this paragraph: yellow-billed, grey and ground hornbills, lilac-breasted rollers, buffalo weavers, blacksmith and crowned plovers, superb starlings [much more colouful than their NA cousins], spur fowl, guinea fowl, francolins, white- bellied and kori bustards [the largest flying African bird], Egyptian geese, Marabou storks, shrikes, Verrault’s eagle-owl, tawny eagles, sacred and hadada ibises, bare-faced go-away birds (thought to warn-off prey), coucals, grey-crowned cranes [really gold-crowned], and the large and odd-looking secretary birds).

We were much less happy with the poor quality of the extremely overpriced ($80 value for $350/night) lodges, and park and transit fees ($100. for the “privilege” of passing thru the worst-maintained section). No doubt the readily acknowledged corruption (endemic to both countries) helps prevent market competition from easily and drastically changing the above.

We were also immediately impressed with both the architecture and ambiance of Zanzibar’s Stone Town, where one readily feels the confluence of African, Arabic and Indian cultures resulting from its trade-route history. Strangely, at 4am our first night there, we were woken up by a banging on our roof- it almost sounded like Queen’s “We Will Rock You”!? I climbed up on to the roof, where I was shocked to find Freddie Mercury’s ghost, who informed me that we were staying in the house of his birth! (born Faroukh Bulsara to Parsee parents, attended boarding school in India, indeed there was a plaque outside that I had earlier missed seeing). When he started with “We are the Champions”, I told him to stop as we hadn’t been since 1993, and he’d have to wait like the rest of us.

Equally fantastic was meeting a still-living someone who was 78 years old when my grandfather, who died in 1986 at age 82, was born- needless to say he isn’t human, but an Aldabra tortoise, who was brought to Zanzibar from the Seychelles at the beginning of last century, and now at an estimated 185 may be the world’s oldest living animal (other than a 405yr old clam and cousins per google- however they have limited conversational skills).

By chance our hotel also gave us front-row seats to the daily not-so-funny comedy of the ferry loading (we flew). The ferry would just pull up to the beach shore without even a primitive connecting ramp and the cars and trucks would each try to get on, but invariably spent 10-15min each stuck in the sand, or the at times several foot water-crossing, with the drivers spinning their wheels with gas pedals to the floor while porters would walk right by/ in front with heavy loads on their heads. Amazingly this spectacle is continuing unsupervised despite the overcrowded sinking <2 months ago which killed hundreds, and promises to punish those responsible. We also stayed at a couple of beach towns elsewhere on the island, but although there were some picture-perfect moments, such as a couple of grilled calamari dinners at an isolated post-sunset table in the sand, I can’t say we found paradise, including at our stay at the fantasy-Zanzibar Hilton (with considerable poverty just outside its gates).

Our few days in Dar Es Salaam exceeded expectations. We stayed in an upper class/ ex-pat suburb on a peninsula north of town, however even our day in the city center was less hectic than expected. We also spent an afternoon at the University where I met with a local anti-tobacco activist to discuss our respective situations (the smoking rate among locals is low, but, like in much of the 3rd world, is rising, and education/restrictions are poor or ignored). In many ways however, the experience was “Africa-lite” compared to Gambia/Senegal- our taxi drivers, and their vehicles were all quite reasonable, and the touts were much less persistent. Poverty, although profound and widespread seemed more liveable with no begging. The coast is mostly Islamic (tho mostly colourfully moderate in dress with a significant all-black minority), mainland majority Christian, however founding father “teacher” Julius Nyerere seems to have largely succeeded in promoting a “Tanzanians-first” mindset.

As Tanzania is really not set up for our preferred style of mid-range independent traveling, we decided to change our connection homeward in Nairobi to a short stopover, rather than venture to more remote areas of Tanzania, or languish longer on Zanzibar. We were not bored. Nairobi comes with a reputation best summed up by it’s nickname: Nairobbery. It is considered Africa’s most dangerous city, beating out Johannesburg (its slum of Kibera with 1 million inhabitants, is second only to Soweto), and Lagos (per Lonely Planet, tho I think Mogadishu should rank ahead of them all). But as it, and its surroundings have their charms we decided to go.

What we did not count on was Kenya invading the lawless southern Somalia (with support of the current pseudo-govt there), territory of Al-Qaeda off-shoot Al-Shabab a week before our arrival, their largest military maneouver since 1963 independence. Ostensibly this was in response to the recent kidnappings and killings of Western tourists and aid workers from the Kenyan coastal islands and border area camps respectively, however may have been already in the works. Three days before our flight Al-Jazeera broadcasts a threat from al-shababi that in response they would level Nairobi’s skyscrapers (The reasonably-priced Hilton, where we were considering staying, being among its best known- we later learned that they indeed had named it specifically) and destroy Kenya’s tourist industry (just now recovering from the 1998 Al-qaeda US embassy bombing and 2007 post-election violence that killed 1-2000). Shababi had kept good on its threats against Uganda in 2009 killing 76 watching world cup soccer at a bar in response to Ugandan participation in a peace-keeping force, and had also fired a land to air missile at a departing El Al jet (missed), in addition to its less noteworthy exploits. The US State Dept followed this by stating that a “possible terrorist attack on Kenya was imminent (A definite maybe?!). Altho this upped our anxiety levels a further notch, we decided to stick with our plans tho avoiding obvious targets as much as possible, in part rationalizing that we would only be there a few days and anything big would take time planning.

We ended up really liking Nairobi- the Central Business District is vibrant, and in part because of security guards in front of every 2nd store even at night, we felt fairly safe walking the streets after dark despite LP advising against (these guards are longstanding vs petty crime, however the hotels and other targets have added metal detectors and vehicle perimeters the past 2weeks, and apparently per reception clerk some [discriminatory] accommodation refusals based on ethnicity and nationality). On the other hand there clearly was a much harsher street poverty even downtown (the slums are several km away) with much begging, a large part from well-trained children (we routinely gave away our dinner leftovers, but no money). Trying to switch hotels inadvertently let us to the unsafe human and vehicle jam of the minibus terminal (we knew to avoid the bus terminal itself but didn’t realize how far the minibus portion had metastasized). Our valiant taxi driver kept his cool despite being swarmed and hit by many either trying to get by or direct traffic to unlock the jam, and then escorted us to the hotel we were searching (which ended up being just right price and quality- but in the very wrong place- we didn’t stay). The next day we heard that a grenade was thrown into a bar in that area wounding 14! Later, after a conversation with a security guard alone at the helipad atop the Kenya Conference Center skyscraper at sunset, JC decided she wanted hair extensions. By chance the stylist which the beauty shop called, led us the 2 blocks to her salon –right back to the minibus area! No problem, with JC now looking like a local, she afterward escorted us back to the CBD. After a nice dinner we returned to our hotel to pack for today’s early am flight- turned on the TV- Breaking News!- 2nd grenade attack in under 24hrs- again on the streets near the minibus terminal- 1 dead, 18 wounded. We have started tipping our security guards.

Fortunately our part of the story ends there. However I wouldn’t be surprised to hear of more spectacular bad news in the weeks and months ahead. Somalia has been a government-less disaster area since 1993’s Black Hawk Down and is only getting worse, with the dogma of religion and its little brother of cross-tribal hatreds playing their usual parts in a culture-gone-wrong, long combined with greed and corruption. This toxic stew is the root cause of the famine (the drought would have been manageable with a proper political system), and Al-Shabab’s actions have now dragged Kenya deeper into Somalia’s morass. This is very unfortunate for Kenya- a country full of many optimistic, confident, and well-intentioned individuals whom we have come to like. BBC and Al-Jazeera analysts are not very hopeful regarding Kenya’s ability to destroy the shababis, and given the failures of much more sophisticated American and Israeli forces in fighting similar terrorist organizations elsewhere, I must agree. It is even less fortunate for Somalia itself- Kenya’s problems- which affect Western tourists- will overshadow Somalia’s famine (which we barely heard mentioned while in East Africa) in the news, and the Somali disaster will continue.

Sorry to end on such a negative note,

(tho KLM just gave us ice cream!)

Until Next Time,

Stu