Chris Harvie - Do Not Take this Road to El-Karama

Published by Umuzi
an imprint of Random House Struik (Pty) Ltd
Company Reg No 1966/003153/07
80 McKenzie Street, Cape Town 8001, South Africa
PO Box 1144, Cape Town 8000, South Africa
www.randomstruik.co.za

Copyright Chris Harvey 2008
Chris Harvie hereby asserts his right to be
identified as the author of this work.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical or electronic, including photocopying and recording, or be stored in any information storage or retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher.

The passages from The Flame Trees of Thika by Elspeth Huxley (p. 272),
published by Chatto & Windus. Reprinted by permission of
The Random House Group Ltd.
The passage from Wizard of the Crow by Ngg wa Thiongo (p. 296),
published by Harvill Secker. Reprinted by permission of
The Random House Group Ltd.

ISBN 978-1-4152-0064-3 (Print)
ISBN 978-1-4152-0242-5 (ePub)
ISBN 978-1-4152-0243-2 ( PDF )

Cover design by mr design
Main cover photograph by Justin Fox
Maps by Bronwen Lusted
Design and layout by William Dicey

For my extended British and African family
especially my three-year-old foster grandson JJ,
who did his damnedest to stop me writing this book,
and my fellow-travellers Anton du Toit and Jane McFeely,
without whom the journey would not have been possible.

Reprinted by permission of Simon & Schuster UK Ltd

Rissington Johannesburg Groblersbrug Palapye

Palapye Francistown Nata Gweta Maun

Etsha 6 Tsodilo Hills Shakawe

Ngepi Caprivi Katima Mulilo

Katima Mulilo Livingstone Victoria Falls Zimba Mazabuka

Lusaka Kafue

Kafue Lusaka Fringilla Shiwa Ngandu

Shiwa Ngandu Mbala Mpulungu Lake Tanganyika

Kasesha Sumbawanga Mbeya Iringa

Iringa Dodoma Morogoro Pangani River

Marangu Kilimanjaro

Marangu Arusha Tarangire

Tarangire Arusha Marangu Lushoto Soni

Marangu Lake Challa Lake Manyara Karatu Ngorongoro

Ngorongoro Serengeti Seronera Speke Bay Mwanza

Mwanza Bukoba Lake Mburo Entebbe Kampala The Nile

The Nile Murchison Falls Kampala Jinja Kitale

Kitale Mount Elgon Lake Baringo Nanyuki Mount Kenya El-Karama Nairobi

Nairobi Naivasha Amboseli Mtito Andei

Mtito Andei Mombasa Diani Beach Watamu

Dar es Salaam Zanzibar

Dar es Salaam Iringa Ruaha Mbeya Lake Malawi Luangwa

Luangwa Bridge Katima Mulilo Etosha Swakopmund Keetmanshoop Springbok

I was born on 1 February 1964, in the heart of the leafy North Downs of Surrey, well beyond Londons horrible suburban sprawl. My mother, in my first photographs, had long hair, wore hot pants and Dr Scholl sandals. It was 91 years since David Livingstone died, shortly after Mau Mau in Kenya and the year that Malawi and Zambia gained their independence from Britain. Winston Churchill was still alive at 89 and Chairman Mao was about to publish his Little Red Book. Hendrik Verwoerd, architect of apartheid, was Prime Minister of South Africa, which had become a republic three years earlier.

I was schooled at one of Englands great bastions of privilege, where my father, grandfather and my grandfathers nine brothers and their countless sons had already led the way. The closest we came to Africa was a walk through the South African cloisters built to commemorate old boys who had fallen in the Anglo-Boer War.

A few weeks after I left school in 1982, I was despatched to the colonies for my year off. The plan had originally been to spend six months working for J&B Whisky in Buenos Aires, but the Falklands conflict put paid to that, although, given my fathers rumour that 600 cases of J&B had gone down with the sinking of the Belgrano, maybe business would have been quite brisk at the end of the war. Either way, I headed instead for South Africa, which, with delightful English logic and grasp of geography, fell under the same division of J&B as South America. I fell under South Africas spell immediately, despite its appalling politics, and knew I would spend the rest of my life there.

I was working in a small country hotel, of which I would eventually become general manager once my brief university career was behind me, when I was bitten by Africa and incurable wanderlust. My first chaotic brush with broken-down vehicles and chronic diarrhoea was on a jaunt to Botswana in 1984, but Ive been slowly improving on the organisational front and working up to this Big One. On founding my own hotel in 1995, I kept sane by promising myself a sabbatical as soon as I was divorced and could therefore afford it. The moment eventually arrived.

All of the countries we visited on this recent epic journey Botswana, Namibia, Zambia, Tanzanias mainland, Uganda, Kenya, Zanzibar and Malawi were former British colonies, protectorates or major spheres of influence. Independence came to the majority in the early 1960s. Like members of any family, every country has its own personality, and all countries with a similar colonial background share characteristics with their siblings.

This expedition was a labour of lust. Anyone who lives in or knows Africa understands that travel here goes beyond the journey into a lascivious desire to do places.

This book is a travelogue with some dubious comment, a little history and the occasional bit of pretentious philosophy. It is not structured by country, as might seem logical. Instead it is guided by the meandering roads of our journey and the rambling trails in my mind. In places it is as random as the border-drawing of the colonial powers whose legacy we were exploring.

I am, like most of us, a superficial traveller and I make no apology for ignoring the bad news, laughing off misery and providing a positive spin for much of what we saw. Everyone I know who travels does so to enjoy themseves, and my friends and I set out on this mission to do just that.

Suffice to say that, far from having done all these countries, I would do the whole trip all over again, changing nothing. And Id start tomorrow. You dont need to be African or European to enjoy it. In fact you dont need to know who you are, but be aware that you might find out along the way.

Never mind Dark Stars, hunger, politics and Broken Hearts. Here comes a journey of joy and laughter in eight African countries admittedly with a little sombreness and even a smidgeon of anger thrown in from time to time.

I hate the sea. Always have. I know it is not a support-winning stance but, for me, the sea is right up there with tank-tops and cucumbers in the list of things I just dont like. My dislike of it is not rational. Most dislikes arent. I dont mind being on it and I am very happy to look at pictures of it, but I dont like being beside it. It smells, it makes unpredictable noises with no fixed rhythm and causes bad weather.