From illegal alien to Mafia exorcism

It's Monday the 23rd of January and tomorrow will mark the 3 week deadline for my passport to arrive. Being British, one of course expects that 'maximum three weeks' means exactly that and by now we are definitely ready to leave Kenya. Leaving nothing to chance I decide to pay a visit to our chums at the British High Commission (BHC), to enquire about progress. I cheerily greet the first security guard in his booth but he just wearily looks up and taps the glass behind a notice just above me. This explains, to my surprise, that the passport desk has been closed with immediate effect and all enquiries must be made in writing. The desk will only open from 10-11 on Tuesday and Thursday for collection of documents.

This is not good news. I try to call my contact, Gladys, but I am told that calls are not put through to the passport department. I email and get an automatic reply repeating the message from the notice and informing me that my email will be immediately deleted! So, imagine, you're stranded in a foreign country and your High Commission - your supposed oasis and comfort blanket at times of stress - puts up the shutters, leaving you entirely in the dark and at their mercy. Indeed, the standard email reply states that passport applications will take 12 weeks. Not 3.

My last hope of gaining any information is to email the passport office back home. Their automatic reply informs me that a response may take up to 10 days and I am now feeling quite abandoned as a loyal subject of HM. Miraculously though, a reply pops up the next day informing me that my passport will arrive in 1 week. Hope springs eternal and washes away my previous doubts. On the spur of the moment we decide to pass the remaining days on the island of Lamu, to which the FCO (Foreign and Commonwealth Office) are not recommending travel following recent kidnappings. But, really, what else could go wrong?!

Lamu is a mostly Muslim island and Lamu Town has changed little over the centuries. The pint-size town is a labyrinth of very narrow streets where the only vehicles are donkeys. These sad looking, pot-bellied beasts are employed as labour and transport and are a constant feature as you walk around. Sightseeing as you walk is a dangerous occupation however as there are a few obstacles that require your attention. First, the town still has open drains waiting to trap your foot in the flowing effluent. Second, there are droppings of donkey poo liberally scattered around. Third, and this is the one that catches you out whilst staring down at your feet, is the ever-present risk of being run down by a speeding donkey. Some of the locals zip around on these animals like medieval boy racers. I didn't notice any go-faster stripes but these donkeys have a turn of speed that belies their less than aerodynamic shape.

We're staying at the Jambo House run by a friendly German called Arnold. We spent the first few days calling him Arthur which did seem quite un-Teutonic in retrospect. There are very few tourists in Lamu due to the perceived threat from pirates and terrorists but actually we feel entirely safe (except from the donkeys). The African Nations Cup is in full swing and showing each evening on the TV in the only bar in town (alcohol isn't served in many places). In one restaurant the waiter takes the trouble to teach us a rudimentary version of the local board game, Bao. Essentially you move 64 'beans' around 32 'holes' anti-clockwise whilst trying to win beans from your opponent. We played the kindergarten version which was complicated enough. As in any Muslim town one is awakened each morning by the haunting sounds of the Imams/Muezzins calling the faithful to prayer at 5am. This seemed to also stir the cockerels into action and their cries neatly filled the brief gaps while the Muezzins drew breath. An unlikely but strangely complementary duet.

The highlight of our time on Lamu was a lovely, peaceful trip on a dhow, a traditional sailing vessel. We had a brief snorkel while one of the crew went to catch some fish which the captain then expertly cooked on board. Even the vegetarian version of lunch was quite delicious, enhanced by the tranquil scenario around us. My day got even better when one of our fellow passengers said that her favourite bands were Throwing Muses and the Pixies! That took care of the conversation for the slow sail home.

Our joyful little break at an end we fly back to Nairobi to see what progress there may have been with my, by now, semi-mythical travel documents. I have been passportless for over a month and it really is quite an uncomfortable feeling. So, on the last day of January I head down to the BHC at 10am prompt to take full advantage of this brief window of human contact. After a short wait I give my name to the expressionless lady behind the desk and almost miss her mumbled reply 'yes, I think that came in today'. Well, the clouds parted, the angels blew out a fanfare and I gave silent thanks to those excellent folk in the passport office back home. New document in hand I managed to extricate from my mono-syllabic server that I would need to visit the Kenyan immigration office before my passport would be entirely kosher. Little did I know that the fun had barely begun.

I find the right office in the right building at about the third attempt after being directed to the 'aliens' entrance by an unsmiling soldier. I'm expecting a small office with a few friendly foreigners chatting away to pass the short wait for their visa stamps. Instead I find a scene of classic post-colonial African bureaucracy gone badly wrong; about 100 stressed punters, 13 windows to choose from and absolutely no information to guide me. Window 7 looks promising but he directs me to window 6 where a rude lady barks at me to go and see her boss 'round there'. I sheepishly enter the room I find to be treated like an errant 8 year old visiting the headmaster and sent outside to wait until I'm called. This guy should apply for a post in Guantanamo Bay such were his interrogation techniques. Upshot is that I need $50 to buy a visa and they won't accept local currency.

Having advised Jo of my predicament and sourced the $50 I return to the Hades-like environs of the Kenyan immigration office. Over the next 3-4 hours I am treated like an unwanted refugee and in turn ignored, barked at, sent to sit down, sent to a random window to be abused further and completely left in the dark. Worse, they took my passport and form and now no one knows where they are and suspect me of making the whole thing up! I am quite distraught at this point as I'm not sure I will ever see again the passport that I've just waited 4 weeks to apprehend! I'm sitting in a waiting area with 15 or so other desperate souls when an armed soldier is brought over by one of the besuited Beelzebubs masquerading as immigration officers. He waves his gun at a guy and demands his receipt. Now, they don't give receipts here as I already found out. In the absence of a receipt this guy is marched outside. This is repeated until they reach me. Maybe because I was the only white guy, maybe because I was looking so pathetically lost or maybe because I stood my ground, I was allowed to stay; after being sent to another window to receive my regular dose of abuse from a Kenyan Nurse Ratchett.

Then, out of the blue a bloke snaps his fingers at me and waves me to a wee room. There, a lady interrogates me with unanswerable questions so I decide to show her copies of my old documents that were stolen. 'Ah', she says, 'why didn't you show these to someone at the start. You could have saved us all this time!'. I just managed to stop myself from assaulting her as she was now brandishing the visa stamp that made me a legal alien for the first time in a month. I fish in my pocket for the $50 but she's saying that we're done. So, on top of everything else, the first guy was full of s**t - no money was required. It's now 4pm and I haven't had any sustainance since brekkie so dazed, confused and beleagured, I grip onto my hard won documents and devour a late, but celebratory, lunch.

That evening we book flights to Zanzibar and like freed fugitives we flee Nairobi the next morning, arriving at our lovely island destination by 9:30am, leaving behind our adventure-filled, much extended stay in Kenya. We now have less than 7 weeks to enjoy Tanzania, Rwanda and Uganda. Enough time to do all that we plan but only just so our remaining days in Africa should be thoroughly fun-packed!

Stone Town, the capital, is quite lovely - labyrinthian streets without the open drains and donkey poo. It's a very pleasant place to wander round with plenty shops and many very good restaurants, some of which even sell alcohol! There are also a few bars by the water-front where you can relax and watch the sunset before dinner. During our time here we sample 4 of the 5 best restaurants on Trip Advisor and generally have a very pleasant time.

We split our time between Stone Town and Matemwe on the other side of the island where we hear there are long beaches and decent snorkeling. Having been bumped around in taxi-brousses in Madagascar and matatus in Kenya, we are now introduced to the Tanzanian version, the Dala-Dala. These are designed like small cattle trucks and we are indeed squashed in like the afore-mentioned beasts. The name may change but these forms of transport, while being of great practical value, are nonetheless instruments of exquisite slow torture. We are already so tight-packed that, at least, I am insulated from the bumps in the road but, defying the laws of Physics, yet more bodies are somehow levered in.

The beach at Matemwe has sand the consistency of finely sifted flour. A delight for the tootsies. We spend lazy days around the beach, also enjoying a short but fruitful snorkeling trip. We notice that at low tide the shallow waters are peppered with local ladies, sitting down and harvesting what appears to be farmed seaweed. Then, as if prompted by some silent call, they start to make their way back to the beach, carrying bunches of seaweed that they have sown together. These are carried over and around their bodies giving them a look of sea-born sasquatches, emerging from their watery lair.

On the Dala-Dala back to Stone Town I muse on our travel ethos. On one hand we definitely use budget accommodation and often ultra-cheap local transport. But mixed with this we will treat ourselves to flights, nice restaurants and, when available, a decent bottle of plonk. What may appear at first to be an inconsistent approach to the backpacking life is actually a balanced and symbiotic set of travel tactics. For instance, taking Dala-Dalas instead of taxis saved us $84, booking our snorkel trip with a local saved $30 and taking a budget room with shared ablutions saved another $30. Other than occasional discomfort and a short walk for nocturnal bladder management, this approach not only funds our more luxurious choices but also usually yields some of our best experiences. Win, win, win!

The next morning we're up early for our flight to Selous Game Reserve on the mainland. Now, our previous journey to a safari park (Masai Mara) involved two 5 hour, frustrating, cramped journeys on local 'buses', sandwiching an unscheduled stay in a shabby, litter-strewn town. Contrast and compare dear readers. This time we are greeted by our friendly and professional pilot as we seat ourselves right behind the cockpit of the Cessna. Thirty minutes later he is escorting us across the apron of Dar airport where we are greeted by another friendly, professional (lady) pilot who whisks us to Selous airstrip. There we are met by representatives of Selous River Camp and jeeped to our destination. Chalk and cheese.

The camp is beautifully set and we're pretty much the only guests. The highlight of our stay is a 9 hour game drive through the excellent reserve. Now, we'd pretty much ticked every box on our 'must-see' list while in Kenya but this was still special. We saw dozens of dignified, imperial-looking giraffes, staring at us with a haughty look on their long faces so that you could almost imagine they were wearing pince-nez. Hundreds of hippos, watching us with their heads just out of the water before popping under if we got too close. Minutes later they'd pop back up, noisily blow out through their nostrils and endearingly waggle their Martian-like ears through 720 degrees to shake off the excess water. We saw our first wildebeests running around looking like some kind of fantastical designer horses and marvelled again at the hilarious warthogs staring stiffly at us before trotting off, tails up like radio antennae.

Selous is known for its excellent birdlife and this was indeed a treat. They boast many stork species including the comical yellow-billed and my favourite Maribou. We saw a black heron who hoods his wings around him like Dracula's cape to shade the water from the sunlight, thereby helping him see the fish. So many colourful birds; like the common bee-eater, delicate and slender, pink and crystal blue with gossamer thin wings; and the lilac-breasted roller with an array of colours that you would think fantastical were they not real. The highlight though was watching at very close quarters about 100 vultures devouring what was left of a poor impala. I can't look at these birds hopping around without thinking of the comical Liverpudlian group of vultures from the Jungle Book movie. These ones were however both vicious and efficient in their feeding, sometimes spreading their wings aggressively at each other when things got nasty. Meanwhile hordes circled above like a scene from a Western then a few would swoop down, undercarriage lowered, pitching unsteadily from side to side as they stretched out their feathery finger-tipped wings in preparation for landing at the feast.

Feeling in top form after a rare victory over Jo at scrabble and a stunning comeback at backgammon, we set off for the airstrip the next day ahead of our flight via Dar to the small, unspoiled island of Mafia. The name has nothing to do with horses heads, coming instead from long lost Arabic origins. Our plane arrives and we are welcomed by the pilot to find that we are the sole passengers on the aircraft. This is as close as we will ever come to having a private plane and we relish every moment of the 45 minute journey. Soon after arriving at Dar we're off again on the 30 minute hop to Mafia. There, we are greeted by our host, Carlos, who drives us the short distance to Whale Shark Lodge.

One of the main reasons for coming to Mafia is to swim with the whale sharks, the biggest fish in the world. Normally they are present in the waters just off the coast from where we're staying. However, like everything else in Africa, they're apparently not where they should be at the time they were expected. Each day we check for news from Carlos but are met with a shrug and a smile. Unperturbed, we spend a lovely day in the Marine Park that engulfs most of the island and its surrounding waters. We snorkel off a small local boat and are treated to beautiful coral gardens and a cornucopia of colourful fish. After a snacky lunch of samosas and chapatis we chill on Chole Island, enjoying the view, a beer and the company of our fellow snorkelers.

Despite being almost empty the staff at Whale Shark Lodge seem incapable of even the most simple tasks and go about their duties in a manner reminiscent of Fawlty Towers. 'Can we have some milk for our coffee?'. 'No, you should have requested it yesterday'. 'Why is our breakfast taking so long?' 'Because we're making their lunch'. We asked if they had a bottle of red wine. Despite boasting a significant wine list their answer was 'no'. I guided them to the bottle of Merlot that I'd earlier seen in the fridge and asked the price. I did this three evenings on the trot just for sport and got three different prices viz $20, $25 and $30. We considered them all to be poor value and ordered beer instead.

During our last night on Mafia I am awakened by demonic shouting and chanting that has an intensity that chills me to the bone. It's coming from no more than 20m away and I wonder who or what is the target of their hysteria. Eventually sleep finds me again, assisted by the significant quantities of local beer and SA wine we consumed the evening before in celebration of St Valentine's Day. The next morning I am reliably informed that the cacophony I heard came from a nocturnal exorcism, taking place in the neighbouring property. Spooky. Later that day we rock up for our flight to Dar with our chums from Coastal Aviation. There are 4 passengers including us and we squeeze, together with the pilot, into a wee 5 seater. Anticipating his question, my hand shoots up when he asks who wants to join him in the co-pilot seat. The 45 minute flight is an experience and a treat and I can cross off one more box on my TTDBID list.

So, the whale sharks stayed away and after a brief exploration of Dar es Salaam we must depart Tanzania with Rwandair Express to Kigali from whence we shall set off in search of the mountain gorillas and golden monkeys. Tanzania has been short but very sweet and I think we shall one day return to explore it further. For now, it's time to dig out my French phrase books again to help us through our short stay in tiny Rwanda. A bientot, mes amis. Merci pour votre attention.