By Day 8 the cash was out, Shannon and Deepak were (although I didn't know it) worried I was dead, and my parents, not updated since pre-safari times had probably assumed I'd been killed by a rhino and were busy turning my room into a scrapbooking studio. It was time to run some damn errands.
First, let me explain why I had no cash. It is because Africa is friggin' ridiculous. The village next to the camp at Lake Naivasha had 5 atms. I'm not even sure Martinez has 5 ATMs. 1 was out of cash, 2 were broken, and the others had lines that were 1-5 hours long as locals tried to get out their monthly paycheck from the local flower producers. It was the end of the month, and Scott wasn't going to get any money. The only thing I had going for me was Hell's Gate takes Visa. So I hop on the matatu (local bus, crammed with locals, dirt cheap, usually the only white guy being me) and headed to town. Finally I found an atm, and the one damn internet cafe anywhere near the lake.
I spent the rest of the day sitting by the lake, meeting other foreigners and waiting for hippos to wade ashore, on their side of the electric fence, as the sun went down. I met a european couple living in Kenya who were doing work at the campground, and who had once met the owners of Sonoma's Safari West African animal preserve.
I was supposed to bus from Lake Naivasha to Uganda's capital city, Kampala, the next day. But this being Africa, that's not how it worked, and I had to go back to Nairobi, somehow kill a day there, and then do an overnight, 12-13 hour bus ride. Son of a bitch.
Luckily, the European expat couple offered to give me a ride back to Nairobi and let me spend the day at their house, mooching food and internet. It'd save me a few shillings and a lot of inconvenience by skipping the matatus.
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