Day 13, Wednesday 20 May 2009
The night was extremely hot. I woke up at about midnight thinking it was time to get up. When I looked at my watch I was pleasantly surprised to see I had a few more hours to sleep. But then I kept waking up every hour on the hour. Ugh.
Roundabout 05:00 I awoke for the last time. The strangest sound woke me up. At first it sounded like a sheep, speaking if you will, over a megaphone…it took me while to realize that that would be quite ridiculous, so I listened more carefully. I soon heard that what I took to be a sheep was in fact the sounds of the Muslim’s morning prayer. After a while it became quite enchanting. Silence surrounds you, not even the birds sing their songs. Just the echoes of the man praying for the whole town to hear.
I finally got up at about 06:30. Richard, the manager, arranged for us to use the bathroom and shower of one of the rooms in the lodge. We were in no rush today either, so I showered, got dressed and even had time for a little GHD action. I am still a girl. We drank coffee with honey while we watched the clouds move slowly away from the mountain. Glonnency 88 charged us barely a third of the going rate for camping. This place was indeed a pure blessing and is highly recommended. After breakfast at the lodge we were once again on the way.
As we drove through Kabuku I saw the most beautiful tree. I’m not particularly fond of trees or plants, but this one tree was fascinating. It had a yellowish, long, straight trunk and the leaves came together to make a neat clean cut circular top. Against the blue sky and the vast green fields it was spectacular.
In Segera we stopped for lunch. Between the three of us we had a variety of fried rice and vegetables in coconut curry sauces. Amazing. While we ate it rained for a little while. When we were back on the road the landscape became, if possible, even more tropical. It was just palm trees left and right. The rain came down every now and then, but never hard. Because we were still off schedule we were looking for a place to spend the night. We saw a place a while after we left Segera. It is called Green Hill. Green Hill is situated at the foot of a small mountain (more mountain than hill). We were the only guests. After we made sleeping arrangements, we drove back a short distance to a nearby school. The headmaster gave us permission to take photographs. Some children ran from us the moment they saw the cameras and others insisted we take photos of them. We were there for quite some time and then returned to Green Hill. We drank some Kili’s and enjoyed the sunset between the palm trees. Just as we were about to pitch our tents, it started raining. The clouds covered the mountain and we could see more dark clouds in the distance.
We decided to stay put in the restaurant area of Green Hill. It is a circular room with tables all around on a deck. In the middle is a bar that goes all round as well. We plugged in our laptops and downloaded some photos of the past few days. As I mentioned before, we were the only guests. The only other people there was a waitress, the security guy and some guy that’s looks like a Muslim version of Anton Goosen. The place was dark, everything was empty and quite. Everyone was looking out the windows at the coming rain. It felt, and looked, like the perfect setting for the beginning of a horror story. A few strangers trapped in a deserted motel in a tropical paradise. It gave me the chills. We ordered some red wine. At first Anja thought it was port….I guess that’s what old, cold wine starts to taste like after a while. It was only when we were basically finished with the barely 50ml of cold, old red wine that the lady (who does not speak a word of English btw) announced that it was 3000 shillings. Per glass!!!!! I don’t think anyone had the energy to argue for a better price. So Lodie paid the lady, while saying (in Afrikaans) how insane the price is.
When the rain stopped we pitched our tents. Later that night it started raining heavily again and a strong wind pounded against my tent for a long long while. Luckily it was extremely hot and the wind and rain was very welcoming.
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