Animals and Alternators

Boniface told us to be ready to leave at 4:30. AM.

We were ready at 4:30.

Our ride didn’t pull in until 5:30. It was an appropriate start to our day.

The ride to Lake Nakuru National Park is an hour and a half with no traffic. But it’s Kenya, so expect an overturned truck or a police stop with spike strips. Things just take longer here. And traffic laws are more like traffic suggestions. We got there in good time, though. Just as we were pulling into Nakuru, our driver Davies realized that his alternator belt had broken.

Uh-oh.

It was still only 7:30, so our options were limited. He said we could drive around looking for a mechanic, or we could risk it and try to make it through the entire day without an alternator charging the battery. He exchanged a few words in Swahili with the first mechanic that we stopped at. After promptly backing out of the mechanic’s driveway, he explained to us that he considered himself “street smart.” We asked him what he meant. He explained that the man might be able to help us, but was drunk, so he didn’t want to risk it. Oh, well that’s great.

The second mechanic we pulled into seemed like a better bet. They popped the front seats off and got to work. To get the new belt on, they had to jack the alternator up to give them slack to work it on. After getting the belt on, Davies paid the mechanic and we headed out. We pulled into a gas station where Davies realized that while jacking up the alternator, the starter had broken off. Great. Now he had to have a rolling start to pop the clutch and start the engine.

Through all of this, Davies had the best attitude. This guy is a professional, and even though we had a horrible start to our trip, he didn’t even appear fazed.

As we pull into the park, Davies is aware enough to back into a slope so he can roll out of it to get the van started. After paying, we enter the park and immediately see four ostriches running down a mountain. I’ve seen ostriches before, but never running down a mountain. The best part about having Davies as our driver and safari tour guide is his encyclopedic knowledge of everything. Seriously. Point at a plant and he’ll tell you what it is and what it can be used for. Point at an animal and he can describe every detail that you care to know. Not only that, but he has an eagle eye. He spots things I couldn’t have seen if you gave me five minutes and binoculars. He'd dominate Where's Waldo.

When we stopped at Baboon Point, a lookout with a view of the entire park, Davies took off his shoelaces and used them to secure the dangling starter to the engine. Talk about MacGyver. He just shrugged it off like it was just a part of driving a safari van.

Baboon Point

A while into our tour, Brittany asks Davies the odds of seeing a lion. He just tells us to cross our fingers. (It’s pretty rare to get to see them.) Just a few minutes later we come around a corner and see a few vans that have stopped. Davies asks “Are your fingers still crossed?” We pull up, and not 75 yards away are two lions shading themselves under a small tree. Pretty awesome. But Davies, out of habit, killed the engine when we stopped. So guess who got to get out and push start a van while two apex predators were 75 yards away? This guy! And Gary.

It’s at this point that Davies decides that if we want to see lions, he’s going to find us some closer lions. He pulls onto a side road that doesn’t look quite as used as the main road, then he pulls onto a smaller, much less defined set of tracks. This was the definition of “off the beaten path.” We drive through brush and over small bushes and trees. It’s at this point that we see giraffes. Not just a couple. A flock, a school, a herd, whatever you call them, a lot of giraffes. Easily fifteen giraffes are up ahead. We drive through the giraffe herd. I kid you not we are less than twenty feet from some of these giraffes. I’ve seen giraffes. But to see them this close in the wild was a pretty cool experience. After we pull back onto the actual road, Davies got out to make sure his starter hadn’t fallen off. This would become important later.

It’s getting close to 1:00 by this point. We’re getting hungry, so we get on the road that leads to the lodge where we’ll eat lunch. As we stop to look at some rhinos in the distance, Davies realizes that he can’t find his phone. He has another driver call it, but there’s not enough signal in the park. He looks everywhere in the van for his phone. We suggest that maybe it fell out somewhere. We help him mentally retrace his steps and decide that it could have fallen out when he stopped to check the starter. We head all the way back to the spot that he stopped and get out to look around. We get probably fifty yards from the van when Davies starts calling for us to get back in the van. Apparently, you aren’t supposed to get out of the van on an African safari. We obliged. As we pulled away, all of our eyes were trained on the side of the road that Davies got out. Just as he had given up and started to accelerate, we all simultaneously yelled, “STOP!” His phone was lying on the side of the road, exactly where he had gotten out. Finally something good happened to Davies. It was a relief for everyone that we had found his phone. He called ahead to the restaurant to let them know we were coming.

As we reached the spot we stopped to look at rhinos, we saw a disabled van with the driver underneath. Davies got out to ask what was wrong. Apparently the pin that connected the gear selector to the transmission had fallen out and he didn’t have another. Cue the Americans. Gary explained that the cotter pin was missing, I asked if anyone had a bobby pin, Lindsay had a bobby pin which was exactly what the driver needed to secure the gear selector. A bobby pin. We all felt like MacGyver then.

Coincidentally, the exact same thing happened to our van as we were leaving the park. Luckily, Lindsay had another bobby pin.

One of the many times we did this.

Davies felt terrible about the day. We assured him that we had the most memorable safari anyone could have.

Davies being a boss

Everything that happened could be traced directly to that belt breaking. If the belt hadn’t broken, the starter wouldn’t have come off. If the starter hadn’t come off, Davies wouldn’t have gotten out and dropped his phone. If we hadn’t gone back for the phone, we wouldn’t have been there to save the day with a bobby pin. God is sovereign and has authority over everything. I’m not 100% why the alternator belt broke, but it certainly led to a memorable day.

Davies being an awesome guide