One thing we learned throughout or travels in E. Africa was that getting from point A to point B can be fraught with unexpected delays. Today was one of those days. We were to rendezvous with our trucks that we had left in Jinja who had driven the long way around Lake Victoria to avoid the potential problems in Kenya, which we were looking forward to. While the temporary trucks we were using were fine, the seats were oriented towards the front, and we missed our middle facing buses. However, about 30 minutes from the place we were to meet, Mto Wa Mbu, our truck broke down. Something to do with gaskets or something. So while the crew tried to fix it, the other truck went to the town and then came back to get us. While we were waiting, we tried to hitch another ride, but nobody wanted to take 24 people anywhere.
From Mto Wa Mbu, we proceeded to drive to Waterfalls Camp near Lake Natron, an soda lake. The roads were all dirt, very bumpy, and difficult to navigate. There were also beds we had to navigate, and we managed to get our trucks stuck a couple of times. What was really neat was how close we passed to Ol Donya Lengai, and the times we got stuck, we were able to get out of the truck and watch the volcano. We decided the gods in the volcano were upset we got stuck, because everytime we were stuck (or so it seemed), the volcano would start spewing out ash and white lava.
The Maasai believe there is a god in the mountain who moves the smoke and lava, so if they climb the volcano, the god will bestow the gift of large cattle to the Maasai, which is important as the Maasai use cattle as a form of capital.
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