Thread by @mwarv

10 photographers, 2 cars, 16 days on the road, Nairobi to Bujumbura.

Pick a comfortable seat. This is a long thread.

Welcome onboard.

Images by @OneTouchMediaKe members.

#OnetouchLive #AfricanTravel

We originally wanted to do Nairobi - Namibia. Instead of cancelling the entire trip when finances refused to cooperate, we changed our destination to Bujumbura.

We even appeared on NTV’s The Trend with @LarryMadowo to share our vision.

We were @paulobuna @truthslinger @joemakeni @efi_m @AmungaTheGreat @iamnyingez @nkatetei Joe Were and Esmeralda DeSouza, aka Onetouch - a visual art collective documenting & showcasing the beauty and cultures of Africa to shift perceptions from the common narrative.

@SandstormKenya supported us financially. They also gave us bags and a blank creative brief. We responded by creating visual content for them throughout our journey.

On the morning of 1st September 2013, we met at Uhuru Park’s viewpoint for some early morning shots of Nairobi and farewells from family and friends.

It was very encouraging to see people who had been following our preparations on social media come to see us off. It gave us a great psychological boost and encouragement, not to mention, pressure to return with awesome stories.

During preparation, we did not get time to brand our vehicles, so we did it that morning, with the help of everyone present. It was great team work.

Cars branded, boots packed and with enough psyche for days, we departed Nairobi at around 10am. We had planned to spend our first night in Kisumu.

Our first stop was Suswa Conservancy. We cancelled our plans to visit the crater after we were told to expect arbitrary access fees from people living within the conservancy. We turned back and rescued tourists who had gotten stuck in the fesh fesh.

After an overnight in Kisumu, we had a brief stopover in Kakamega to top up supplies.

We had another stopover in Malaha, Webuye to visit family and indulge in the local delicacy, chiswa. What do you call this premium snack in your language?

At another stop we made to shoot the landscapes in Western Kenya, @truthslinger had an encounter with an open car door and Esme stepped in to patch him up.

We crossed into Uganda via Malaba and arrived in Jinja quite late. We struggled to find our campsite because Google Maps wasn’t as detailed as it is today, and the boda boda guys we spoke to didn’t have a good command of Kiswahili or English. But find it we did.

After breakfast the following morning, we took in the beauty of #Jinja. We were very excited to be in #Uganda a neighbour that we knew much of, but had hardly experienced for ourselves.

To get local SIM cards, we had to go into a studio to have our passport photos taken. The photographer flexed his Photoshop skills so hard and surface blurred our portraits we couldn’t identify ourselves 😂. Jinja snaps we called them. But we still got our SIM cards.

#Jinja is home to the source of the Nile and as we found out, the largest chapatis in Africa!

Does your chapati plug make them larger than these?

Bellies delighted to full tank, we set out to see and sail the Nile, the world’s longest river.

Cameras charged and memory cards on the ready, here is some of the beauty we got to capture.

Sailing the Nile was a very memorable experience. We loved that we were going to have another Nile experience a few days later at Kabalega Falls aka Murchison Falls.

We were welcomed back on the banks of the Nile by these children who were very happy to see their antics captured on camera.

You hardly notice time passing when you’re having fun. And that’s what happened. Darkness found us still in Jinja, 2+ hours away from our destination - Kampala.

A Top Gear Africa Special episode told us to expect nightmarish traffic in #Kampala . Yes there was traffic, but nothing different from what we had experienced in Nairobi. These are the perceptions and narratives we had set out to change on this trip.

#Kampala welcomed us with a warm hug that kept us there for four instead of the two days we had planned for. The favourable weather, friendly people and tasty food were a treat we will never forget.

We visited the National Theatre and had the opportunity to meet art creators with whom we share a vision of transforming the African narrative.

Later that day, we met @IsaiahKatumwa and @JamesGogosimo rehearsing for a show they were to have later that week. We got invited to attend but could not because we still had more of Uganda to experience.

We walked around Kampala and captured it’s spaces and those occupying them.

We also gave ourselves a 20-minute challenge to shoot a striking image for @sandstormkenya. I spoke to a Ugandan Service Man and captured this image.

On the outskirts of Kampala, we visited a youth centre that kept young Ugandans engaged in the evening with dance, martial arts and sports.

We had chosen to move around Kampala using boda bodas instead of our cars. So after the youth centre visit, we cut across Kampala on two wheels to the Backpackers we were staying at.

If there’s one thing that Uganda does much better than Kenya, it is street food. There was a delight in every bite that left our tummies and wallets happy.

Early the following morning, we reluctantly left Kampala headed north for Murchison Falls National Park. Along the way, we stopped at the 1,000kms mark of our trip and captured the moment.

Onwards, we stopped at Masindi for a top up on fuel and supplies before entering Murchison Falls National Park.

The fees for driving foreign-registered vehicles into the Park were so high we could only afford visiting for 24 hours, so we decided to make it worth the expense, and I believe we did.

Also known as #Kabalega, #MurchisonFalls are considered the most spectacular event on the Nile. Here, the 50-metre wide Nile squeezes through a 7-metre gap in the earth and plummets 43 metres.

With less than 15 minutes to spare from our 24-hour limit, we exited Murchison Falls National Park and got to Masaka at around 2am. The following morning, we did some minor service and were back on the road.

For us, road trips have always been about the journey, not the destination.

While enroute to Kabale, we picked a spot on the highway that was then under construction, took in the sights and some photos as well.

We chose to camp on Lake Bunyonyi’s Bushara Island. Google Maps and Garmin took us round in circles for two hours only for us to realise our destination was closer than we thought. We took an after hours boat ride and pitched our tents in the dark.

Lake Bunyonyi is one of Uganda’s most beautiful and you can clearly see why.

What’s the most beautiful lake you’ve been to?

Share pics please.

We found a rope with our names on it and decided to use it when to create big splashes in the lake. Some people fell short though. DM for the names.

Our second country in the bag, it was time to move into Rwanda via Gatuna.

I hit a cyclist less than 5kms into Rwanda. Luckily, we had a well kitted first aid kit and @efi_m attended to his minor bruises with a professionalism that impressed onlookers and the Police.

We took him to a nearby hospital, paid for his future hospital visits,medication and repair for his bicycle. We then hit the road and arrived in Kigali at around 10pm.

The following morning, we were told our dirty cars might attract fines so we had them cleaned and toured #Kigali . It was the first time here for many of us.

#Kigali was the cleanest and most organised city we visited. We were impressed by the efficiency of it’s public transport system. For example, their boda bodas - called motos - strictly carry one passenger unlike here in Kenya where up to 4 can ride one together.

If Rwanda is the land of a thousand hills, then Kigali must be the city of a thousand reasons to emulate.

We left Kigali headed towards Bujumbura, our final destination.
We spotted some rice paddies and decided to stop to take photos.

We attracted the curiosity of a farmer with whom we shared our story over some juice. Our conversation was mostly in French. Most of us just said Oui, Oui, while Esme did all the talking.

#Rwanda’s beauty begged to be captured around every hill and across every valley.

So we stopped many times and at each instance, we shared our story with those we spoke to, sometimes in charades and broken French to cross language barriers.

These champs showed us how photography breaks cultural, language and age barriers, allowing us to connect.

Further ahead, we found ourselves driving through #NyungweForest, one of the oldest rainforests in Africa.

Then God parted the rain clouds for the sun to shine through and wuuuuiiii!

Rwanda served us 5-star photos and 5-star treatment. We received a complimentary two nights stay at Nyungwe Forest Lodge.

This was the best treatment we received during our trip. Even our dreams switched from 5-season tents with aluminium poles to butlers, chauffeurs and caviar. 😂

After two nights of soft life, it was time to move back to reality. Destination : Bujumbura.

Our first day in Buj was quite eventful. We lost sight of each other while following each other in traffic and did not reconnect until much later.

With darkness falling, we checked into the nearest hotel only to find it was more of a brothel than hotel. We slept in our sleeping bags on the hotel beds. We couldn’t even take photos of what we saw. 😅

The following morning, we discovered Bora Bora on the shores of Lake Tanganyika.

It provided the perfect rest after being on the road for 13 days. We cancelled content gathering plans we had made and decided to chapa sherehe instead.

Bujumbura had been a dot on a map, a dream, a target, a goal… and now we were here. So we decided to reward ourselves with fun times on Africa’s best inland beaches.

Our cameras joined in and we had fun times at sunset.

Bujumbura might be a small in comparison to other cities in East Africa. But punches above many others on the beauty and energy it serves.

And to top it all off, the guys at Bora Bora said we could camp at the beach for free!

The following morning, we broke camp and started the 3-day journey back to Nairobi.

We had a small reception at Kuona Trust Arts Centre upon our return, and a photo exhibition of the finest images we took at MJ Centre at the end of 2013.

Thank you to all who supported us financially and emotionally on this and other photographic expeditions.

Today, the #OnetouchLive spirit lives on through storytellers and content creators who are reshaping the African narrative.