46 Lioness of Masai Mara
Rick Bein
It was June-early July, 1976 and I was on vacation in Kenya from the University of Khartoum in Sudan. I was traveling alone as Mary; my wife had chosen to take the twins and go back to the States for our biannual home leave. The university had given us just enough money for two adults to fly. We found that the two three-year olds could fly for the price of one adult.
Traveled from Sudan, southern Sudan to Kenya on African Vegetation Map. Perry Castaneda 1986 Public Domain map.
I chose to stay in Africa and complete some field work. After a tearful goodbye at the Khartoum airport, we got on separate planes; the family going to the States and me to Juba in South Sudan.
I spent two weeks in Equatoria Province in Southern Sudan (It was part of Sudan then) where I met with my southern Sudanese students. They escorted me to their villages where we interviewed farmers.
When the field work was completed, I traveled by group taxi to Nimule on the border with Uganda. I had intended to travel by land to Kenya via Uganda, but after crossing into Uganda and traveling a few miles I heard some frightening news.
A man on the bus informed me, “There is a failed coup attempt and Idi Amin is blaming America and the CIA. He is screaming about Americans being evil and wants to rid Uganda of them.” I confirmed this with the driver and several other passengers.
Hearing that, I realized that I would probably be detained when the Ugandan police saw my passport at the next check point. I immediately stopped the bus and got off and hitch hiked back twenty miles back to Sudan. Any American was at risk and I did not want to be one of them.
Once I arrived in Juba, I inquired at the airport about flights to Nairobi, Kenya. Ticket salesman, said “Yes there is a plane in the morning to Nairobi, but it stops in Entebbe, Uganda Airport for a couple of hours.”
“When is there a direct flight to Nairobi?” I asked.
“There are none, all flights have stop over’s in Entebbe”
“Would I be a risk in the airport?” I asked.
“You would be much safer there than traveling by land. You will only be there a short time and since you will be in transit and won’t be leaving the airport.”
I did want to get to Kenya and I decided to risk it. The flight to Entebbe was uneventful and the airport was surprisingly immaculate and clean. It looked new.
“Yes, The Israelis finished building this airport last year” I heard someone say.
The plane to Nairobi was full of multicultural passengers, dozens of different nationalities who also found themselves transiting through Entebbe. In the seat next to me were some Italians and we began trying to communicate. I knew no Italian and they spoke very little English but we found that we could get by in Spanish.
As the Italians and I got off the plane and went through customs, we started talking about things to do together. They agreed that I could join them. As it turned out they had done very little planning with regard to an itinera