On to the Serengeti

After our Beach Resort stop we made for the Tanzanian bo rder at Isebania.

We made our way through horrendous traffic in the markets in Kisumu and continued down the eastern side of Lake Victoria. Obama's father came from this region of Kenya and there were posters everywhere of the new president. People we spoke to were all thrilled with his election and many seem to think that it will mean they will all gain automatic entry to the States! We passsed natural wetlands being turned into rice paddies, villages where the local business was making floor mats out of reeds from the lake, a car wash called "Machine Car Wash" with the work being done by hand, people making gravel out of blocks of basalt by the side of the road and many, many police checkpoints where matatus were being pulled over and examined carefully for overloading. There were still herds of animals adding to the road hazards and we did jump a bit when a rather large bull charged the car.

At the border town of Isebania, we all filled up with diesel - when we could find a station that actually had some. However, at the first, it was decided to abandon it and find another when smoke started to come out of the bowser when it was being used! At the second, we watched as a station wagon taxi filled up the entire back of the car with about 15 or 16 25 litre plastic drums of petrol, and most of them were leaking as well.

And so into Tanzania, our 7th country of the trip.

Immediately the roads were better with not a pothole in sight, and the countryside opened up to long vistas of rolling hills and farmland, quite unlike what we had just left behind. The land became progressively drier, and we saw more and more herds of cattle and goats. The gentle mountains were topped with granite boulders which had villages of mud-walled and thatch-roofed houses nestled under them. We crossed the Mara River with its quaint old fashhioned bridge and drove past hectares of papyrus wetland. And at last our destination - the Serengeti plain to our right and the first hint of the huge herds of animals we hoped to encounter shortly.