Driving on Edge

I was in charge of one of the vans in our caravan today. Fulfilling an important role, I confidently answered the group’s questions, pointed out places of interest and directed our driver towards our destination. We were five kilometers away when my boss called me. “Where are you?!” My ego deflated as rapidly as the air in my stomach as I realized my mistake: I had directed the group 30 minutes in the wrong direction on terrible roads. To make matters worse, we were running low on fuel.

We had no choice but to turn around. I felt terrible the whole way back, my embarrassment feasting on the carcass of my confidence, and the pit in my stomach sinking exponentially with the gas needle. Thanks to amazing providence, we managed to reach a small town and, despite the denizens’ ambiguous directions, finally found a "gas station": Yes, that’s the attendant hand-cranking the pump.


We spent the rest of the afternoon with a Maasai community (see next day’s entry), 45 km from the main road. By the time we had reached the main road, it was dark and we were low on fuel again. Thankfully, we now knew where the gas station was located. The funny thing was, they were out of fuel. With no other option, we drove down the road to the next unknown fuel stop, the empty fuel light glaring from the dashboard. At the edge of one small town I spotted a gas station, and a bunch of younth appeared from nowhere to crank our gas.

Back on the road once more, I thought I could catch a few winks before it got too late, as we had a three hour drive ahead of us. No sooner had I shut my eyelids when CRACK! BANG! Jolting up, I shot a glance at our driver. He was looking out his window, shaking his head. Apparently a matatu driver had come too close to our car and knocked off our side-view mirror. Needless to say, I stayed awake the rest of the night until we got to our hotel… only to find out our rooms on the sixth floor were “flooded.” We could only assume they were flooded with people from the UN conference being held, and not water. We were rebooked in a guesthouse. A blasting-hot shower never felt so blessed, massaging my cramps from the day’s heat and stress.

Oh, and did I mention our driver was recovering from malaria?