Last weekend was a long weekend thanks for the formal president of Kenya’s birthday, I decided a while back that we SHOULD visit Kisumu – supposedly the 3rd largest city in Kenya and it is right at the shore of Lake Victoria – the biggest lake in Africa (and the largest tropical lake in the world and the 2nd largest fresh water lake by surface size in the world if you are a bit of statistic fanatic too) territorially belonging to 3 East African countries and the source of the mighty Nile. To add on to this long list of reasons, the only rain forest in Kenya – Kakamega forest reserve is just around the corner. So let’s go.
My excitement of the trip was firstly put off a bit by the delayed flight with Fly540 (the Germanwings/AirAsia/Easyjet in Kenya ) and then when we reached the New Victoria Hotel which should be a good mid-range hotel according to lonely planet, we were told that the room I reserved a few days back was taken already by someone announcing him/herself of the same name of mine (this made me really wonder)! So we were forced to look for another place. Luckily it was just down the street. Let’s just say it was dark enough to not notice how shabby the room was and too late of the day to mind.
Kisumu is much safer than Nairobi as we felt mostly safe wandering around even after dark just by ourselves (being one of the only two aliens in town). There were of course the usual “taxi taxi” touts but the annoyance was minor. The day after we spent a good half day to explore the city – and that is pretty much quite enough to walk about town! It is nothing of the scale of Nairobi but it was tropical heat to walk so we had to make many water-supply stops a.k.a sitting down in the handful of cafes for a soda. The town is sleepy compared to Nairobi but I really enjoyed the calmness (who needs the craziness of Nairobi anyway?!), the pave ways were more or less even though climbing up and down, and they were mostly shaded which strangely reminded me of Penang. Forget about taxi, to go around you have the options of bodaboda (bicycle taxi), pikipiki (motorbike) or tuk tuk(3-wheel motorbike); we even took a tuk tuk to the airport when we departed and the whole journey costs less than 3 euro with breezy air free of charge. 
We walked towards the lake then along the train track – for we really wanted to figure out whether the train from Kisumu to Nairobi was still running. We were told by a friend that it is wonderful to see rift valley with the slow train journey but when we consulted the officers in Nairobi train station we were told the train was suspended. Along the road we spotted many signs signaling “mind the crossing” etc – it is all very necessary since we did not see any single running train for the whole day! We finally arrived and the officers there nicely confirmed the fact of the suspension but said “it will reassume next Thursday”. Damn it, of course only just couple of days after we would have left Kisumu! The funny thing is – although it seems no trains were running on any schedule, but there were at least 4 full time personnel there, doing nothing. So we wandered back to town and decided to try the fish stands along the lake. Definitely highlight of the trip! Tilapia are ample and fresh from the lake – we had one fish which weighted more than 1kg just for ourselves! It was all and all a finger-licking-tasty experience, for one thing the fish’s very fresh and tenderly fried, for another it is quite usual that fork & knife are not served in Kenya. I enjoy thoroughly eating with hand only we do need some practices for our poor fingers as they are not really used to grabbing hot flesh while my stomach can’t wait any second longer.
After our feast on fish and the million time saying “hapana asante” (no thanks) to the many sellers of all kinds of goods, we decided it was time to head for Kakamega forest. It was altogether another journey in itself. Firstly a matatu towards Kakamega and we shall get off at Khayega just before Kakamega which took us almost two hours, then a 30 mins ride at the back of a piki piki (mind you: 2 of us with a huge backpack all on one motorbike) on a really bumpy dirt road. Just before I thought we would never make it in one piece, we arrived finally to the heaven on earth for our weekend trip – Rondo Retreat. It was homey, cozy and completely integrated with the surrounding ancient rain forest. I don’t know how to describe that is why you can look at some pictures instead. It was nothing luxury but it was just the effortless effort they spent on putting up the place – many nice sofas to crawl in and armchairs by the magnificent garden, not to mention the lovely collected library with many interesting reads.
I slept like a babe that evening with the sound of nature and woke up renew to our exciting walking trip in the forest. Briefly discussed with our guide, we decided that we would take the longest half-day trail along the yana river. I was too optimistic about the hike and slid and fell hard on my bottom 5 mins after we began the walk. The good things were – I knew how slippery the wooden paths on top of the stream were under daily rain soak and now that my pants were all dirty I did not mind falling in mud again. One of the wonders of the forest was tree murdering. One tree will literally entangle another till the poor one dry out and die away. We also saw the blue monkey (which looks exactly like the wise monkey in Lion King, remember?) and the red-tailed monkey (which is more orange than red, looking like someone has lit up the poor thing’s tail). Another highlight was seeing giant army of safari ants – they were moving in a stream, and a few much bigger fighter ants were solders at the outskirt guarding the march and they will bite hard if you appear threatening! The ancient forest is also famous for its huge variety of butterflies – I had never seen so many butterflies in my entire life.
I was all wrecked after the long walk and glad that we finally made it back to Rondo. We had another lovely well cooked meal and not matter how unwillingly we had to start the whole motorbike+matatu hike back to Kisumu before it was too late. We would love to stay in Rondo for another night…only if we had enough cash on us! (they do not take credit card, see Visa or Master can’t buy everything) The motorbike ride was easier as the mid-day sun dried out the mud road a bit, but the matatu drive was a nightmare of nightmares for me. First of all, at one point of time there were 22 adults and 2 kids on board for a small tiny Nissen which was allow max 14 passengers, plus a small chicken held by one of the kids. Well people know me know that I have phobia for chicken since young (I know that is irrational but isn’t that just what phobia supposed to mean?!), so I was all worried and panic a little while comforting myself by thinking “oh this is just a small chick even without grown feather yet…and she will probably drop off in the next town… ” well she did drop off after 15 mins or so but here it came – a man with like 10 grown cocks and hens got on! In China people will transport these domestic animals in cages but here they were simply tied up by their feet and put underneath one’s seat. So these ten seemly harmless animals were just laying 15 cm away from me right next to Achim’s feet. I was dreadfully scared and being completely honest even a few drops of tear were shed out of fear. This guy with many chicken only got off before we arrived in Kisumu and hence the whole journey turned into a small personal disaster for me.
The last day in town – we went visit the very price-worthy Kisumu Museum. The ticket officers must be a bit disappointed that after all two muzungu were only paying the tiny resident rate of entrance fee so they actually sent a guard to double check our resident status after we entered : ) We paid 1 euro and saw a whole display of culture/history of the western region of Kenya, a well-planned simulated village of the Luo people (local tribal group around Lake Victoria), as well as a small but interesting aquarium, a few tortoises, crocodiles and a informative corridor exhibition of snakes ABC. Well, what can you ask more except a bit of explanation of why the above combination. We enjoyed the visit a lot anyway.
Our trip ended with a late lunch again by the lake in the shanty fish restaurant, watching locals driving cars or school buses into the lake so that they can wash their vehicles in a most convenient way; street kids lingering around with a bottle of glue at hand staring at food on tables waiting for their share of the left-over and many street sellers coming and going with their beyond imagination variety of craps. Oh, what a weekend.
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