It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, World - Redux

We spent July 20, 21 and 22 (Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday) driving around Kigali. The roads were good, and even though we were up and down the mountains, we were still clearly in a city. On Friday, July 23, we left Kigali to drive east to the Akagera Lodge for two days. I hate being a passenger in any motorized vehicle that I am not driving, and that includes cars, TTC buses, trains, airplanes and tour buses.

I especially hate being a passenger when the roads are clinging to the sides of mountains. Our driver, Olivier, skillfully guided us up and down the roads, whether they were paved or just dirt tracks. I began to be seized with the horror that our bus would careen right over the edge of the mountain. It didn’t help that one of the women on our trip had been in a very bad bus accident in Guatemala: her bus had gone off a mountain road, so my fears actually were rooted in some semblance of probability.  If it happened to her bus, it could happen to my bus!

Suddenly the memory of It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, World flew, unbidden, into my head. All I could think of was the scene when Jimmy Durante’s car flies off the cliff, and everyone keeps repeating “It just flew right out there!” while making a motion of one hand slapping the other and imitating a car flying off a cliff. I believe I started to laugh. Linda asked me what was so funny and I told her, and then she was laughing as well. I could barely speak for laughing so hard. I texted Leslie because I couldn’t remember the exact words about going over the cliff. She texted back saying she really didn’t want to know why I was wondering about flying off a cliff. She knew Rwanda was mountainous.

We made it to Akagera in one piece, thanks to Olivier. And he safely conveyed us to all of our other locations as well. I was thinking about Olivier the other day. I miss him and his quiet good humour.