Truck Africa: From Kenya to South Africa by Truck

TRUCK AFRICA. By truck for two months from Kenya to South Africa

After doing the Delta Pass in the USA (see the other trip), flying 42 times in 21 days, Nicola and I then decided to do another trip together, given the rapport we'd built. We set off from Pisa for London with British Airways, and had a little wander round the capital since the connection to Nairobi was the next day. Nicola was happy, as it was his first time in London. I, on the other hand, had already spent six months of my life there. Having finished my military service in the paratroopers, in fact, under the pretext of learning English, I worked in a couple of restaurants, precisely to learn the language, which didn't then happen because both restaurants were Italian and the effort wasn't the greatest. Towards evening we went back to Heathrow at terminal 3, where we slept on the carpets (cheap price: free).

Nicola the next day struck up a conversation with a pretty blonde girl, playing the logical part of the little male; she too was coming to Kenya on our flight. Just after the 747 took off, the girl deliberately went to sit next to Nicola's empty seat, to the great joy of both, and so the wooing continued for the whole flight, ending at Nairobi without even a little kiss. But Nicola claims he came very close. I was on the window side, though, and the old lady next to me was anything but friendly. In Nairobi at the Europcar office we spend an hour picking up the car; the black guy really didn't feel like working, it was evening and maybe we were the last customers of the day and he was tired.

Well anyway, in the end he hands us the Fiat Uno, and driving on the left we reach the outskirts of Nairobi where we park in front of a bank, and after giving a packet of biscuits to the guard to let us stay, with the seats down, we slept, or tried to. Nairobi isn't much, so we diverted to the nearby Nairobi National Park. Nicola had never seen African animals: impalas, zebras, wildebeest, baboons, a snake, giraffes, but not the big cats. We liked it a lot. Nicola took photos with the reflex camera he'd brought, armed with a telephoto. The hostel we found gave us, finally after two almost sleepless nights, the chance to sleep on a normal bed. We then returned the car to Europcar in the city rather than at the airport, then the guy kindly gave us a lift to the hotel where we had our meeting with the Truck Africa people.

There we have breakfast and gradually meet the other participants of the trip. All of us in turn hand over the remaining money to the guide and driver of the truck. There were 22 of us; the truck, an English Leyland with English plates, was blue and called The Pig. The seats were back-to-back, set lengthwise, military-style to be clear. There were the two of us Italians, plus Irish, Australians, New Zealanders and English, almost all young, half of them women. Around 11.00 we depart, with all our backpacks piled up in front of us under our feet; we'd put them later in their assigned spot the next day. Leaving Nairobi we see a township or bidonville, an endless expanse of corrugated iron with shacks beneath housing Nairobi's survivors, while President Moi has his billions in Switzerland. Whatever! We stop to eat and to fill up; in Kenya petrol costs less than in Tanzania.

Nicola and I are happy and enjoy Africa at 30 degrees with its landscapes, and start talking to our travel companions, me especially, as Nicola still didn't speak English well. Later we stopped at the first campsite. The driver puts up one of the tents provided once and for all and explains that all of us, in two-day shifts, will be in charge of washing the dishes, gathering firewood and cooking. A warthog grazed among our tents while Nicola and I assembled our two bicycles that we'd brought from Italy; everyone was amazed. And rightly so, who's the madman who does a thing like that? Later on they proved very useful. That first night I didn't sleep well; around 3 my nose was blocked from a cold and I couldn't sleep. The Vick Sinex was in the backpack on the truck. Damn. Old Truck Africa trucks of other companies were parked next to ours.

Whoever's turn it was to cook prepared hot water on the grill and embers for tea. The deal with Nicola was that I put the tent up every evening and he put it up again the next morning, and so it went for the whole trip. I'd brought a little sponge mattress lined with a British Airways cushion, while Nicola had a mini camp bed with iron slats and a cloth, so he slept a little higher than me; better, a minimum of distance was advisable, you never know if, dreaming of a girl, he might have felt like kissing me. Finally we set off for the first real day by truck. The Kenyan roads are asphalted, yes, but riddled with gigantic holes, so we were forced to reduced speeds. Towards lunchtime we reach the border with Tanzania. We hadn't understood from the guide that we wouldn't stop to eat, and that it was advisable to buy a few snacks there at the border.

In fact, once our passports with the earlier visa were stamped, we go into Tanzania to the right of Kilimanjaro and wondered when he'd stop for the meal. Well, both Nicola and I really suffered hunger on that occasion. Steven the New Zealander decides to stop in a field right beside the highest mountain in Africa; the place was very beautiful even if there were few trees. Some warnings about the animals, snakes, scorpions etc, and explanations of how to go to the toilet, that is, take one of the three iron shovels and, after making a small hole, cover it all up, males and females. That night I pitched the tent in the free camp away from the others, since some of them made noise till late, especially Canna (nicknamed for the joints he smoked together with Linzy). The truck never went over 80 km/h.

The air was warm and we could even sit on the edges of it with our heads out, even sit on the sponge with our legs overboard. Now and then Nicola did it and I filmed him. That day too, the third, we spent the whole day travelling, like 8, 10 hours; I wasn't starting to like it much. But since we were at the beginning of the long journey, we chatted among ourselves and with our travel companions. A negative thing was the radio, which at full blast blared into my ears the whole time, on top of the noise of the truck. My only solution to relieve the annoying noise were my precious earplugs (after a few weeks I even tried to sabotage it). Arusha was the stop where, over four days, we went, aboard four Land Rovers, to the Ngorongoro Crater and the Serengeti. The road was terrible and endless, we slept in a tent in the middle of the unfenced park; the hyenas and lions were two steps away.

I slept little that night, even though the park was very beautiful and full of animals, especially the crater. Having arrived at Dar es Salaam, we camped for a week, 20 km north of the capital.