Our spontaneous trip to Oldonyo Lengai was one of the most intense adventures that I have ever been on. It began in the Patisserie, the little Internet cafe in downtown Arusha: Liza received word from a friend that Lengai, an active volcano several hours from Arusha, was erupting, and that the site was awe-inspiring. We had to go see it! Liza turned to me and we instantly agreed to make a quick trip: leaving Saturday at noon, returning Sunday night, camping overnight at a campsite by a river. It sounded gorgeous, perfect, exactly the rustic bush experience I'd been wanting. How long would the trip take? Four and a half hours, maybe.
We set out on the road after our outreach teaching, as prepared as we could be: a full tank of diesel plus a big container of extra; lots of food and drinking water; lantern, flashlight, matches, sunblock, bug spray, first aid, knife (for cutting food and ... any unwanted visitors). After about an hour on paved roads, we checked in with a local police station to confirm where the turnoff was for Lengai. We entered the bush.
It was tremendously exciting to be out there: hardly a soul around, the occasional sighting of a rare bird or a Thomson's gazelle. It's difficult to describe the beauty and peace that comes with being out there, although as Liza pointed out (and as I'd later learn firsthand), there's really no such thing as wilderness in this country. Even the most remote, dry, seemingly desolate landscape probably contains a Maasai boma (compound) or two. Just when you think you're alone, a tribesman or woman will appear at the side of your car, seemingly from nowhere. It's difficult to imagine sustaining life in a climate such as this, but the Maasai have been doing it forever.
After a couple hours of bush driving, though, we were in trouble: though Liza had traveled to Lengai before, we really didn't know which way to go. It's difficult to describe just how unfriendly these roads are to an unskilled traveler: not a single man-made thing ANYWHERE, let alone a sign ... and an unvarying landscape of dry grass, scrubby brush, and the occasional acacia tree.
Several men in the first Maasai village we stopped in gave us some unhelpful directions. As we turned around to try again, we met with two men about our age, traveling uphill on this crazy road with their bicycles. After a brief exchange with Liza, they discovered we were headed to Lengai, and told us their village was on the way. They piled into the car (after a struggle to fit their bicycles inside) and were our guides for a few more hours of bush driving. They told us that they were biking from Bible school. That is a HUGE bike ride, just to get to Bible school. It had taken us several hours to drive it. This kind of commuting time is fairly typical in Tanzania. We know people who commute two or three hours a day on a bicycle just to get to work, or kids who walk two hours uphill to get to school. We shared hard-boiled eggs, cookies, and water with them on the way.
We dropped our guides off in their village (and met their mother! they also were Maasai and she was an old woman, quite excited to see us), and began a race with the setting sun. We were still quite far away from our campsite destination, and still hadn't even SEEN Lengai, the erupting volcano we'd come to see. This began a quite stressful mood in the car, with long silences and straining eyes, trying to spot Lengai on the horizon, to give us the hope we needed to continue the journey. The sun was beginning to set, and the glare made it difficult to see.
We drove for at least an hour, both of us quite concerned that we hadn't yet spotted the mountain. (You'd think an erupting volcano would be a pretty conspicuous feature!) Finally, Liza said, "OH!" No wonder we couldn't see Lengai ... the mountain was being obscured almost entirely by the intense, blazing sun! We could see the faint outline, though, if we stared straight into the sun. As the sun began to dip below the peak, we could see more and more of the mountain, and could make out the plume of smoke rising from the peak. It was truly spectacular. We yelled for joy and high-fived each other: we needed a moment like that badly! We took beautiful photos of the blazing sun and the dark, smoky volcano:
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We also took this opportunity to photograph ourselves. We had become unbelievably dirty -- more dirty than I've been in my entire life -- because waves of dust from the "roads" (term used loosely) poured into our car regularly, and filtered onto our skin for the entire trip.
After the thrill of finally catching sight of Lengai, unpleasant reality started to set in. The sun was going down, and we still had a ways til the Riverside campsite. We drove in increasing anxiety, and began to talk about possible campsites in the bush along the way. Finally, when it had gotten dark enough that the road was difficult to find, we decided to stop. It was a tense moment. We could hear the voices of Maasai children playing nearby, and the tinkling of someone's herd of cattle. We might be in the deep bush, but we wouldn't be alone tonight.
Our spirits were low, initially, and when two Maasai men approached us, we hoped for the best. They came by, said a brief hello, asked us where our men were, and said goodbye. During the night, two other men would stop by, ask us where our men were, and leave.
We pitched the tent easily, rolled our sleeping bags, lit our lantern, and ended up having one of those awesome, low-light, rustic dinners (of lentil soup, red wine, eggs and cookies) that make camping so much fun. We stayed up for awhile talking and enjoying the stillness and beauty of our camp. We slept well, and the transparent screen of the tent let me watch the movements of the moon across the sky each time that I awoke. In the night, we heard hyenas yowling in the distance, and an enormous herd of livestock passed right by our tent.
When we awoke to beautiful morning light, we met two Maasai women, who had come from their nearby boma to find out what we were up to. One looked younger than I am, but she had a big, healthy-sized baby strapped to her back, papoose-style. Her mother, an old, old woman, also came over to say hello, and they sold us bangle bracelets and gave us great directions to Oldonyo Lengai.
Finally getting to see the mountain up close was amazing:
We got home safely. Whew. Longest story ever. Gold star if you got all the way through.
