Mother Trucker

Our final day in Ethiopia had been fairly eventful. Tom had run out of petrol 25km before the border, we had arrived at the border two days earlier but unfortunately we had run out of money and with no ATM in the town it made getting petrol and indeed getting to him a somewhat difficult task. Thankfully we managed to find a local who understood our predicament and was willing to lend us the required amount so that we could get Tom to the border and with a bit of luck into Kenya. Once we had eventually got Tom and Frank into Moyale and over the Ethiopian side of the border the official told us that the Kenyan side of the border was closed which meant that we would be stuck in no man’s land for the evening. Fortunately we managed to negotiate and plead with the official who finally obliged and stamped us through. By this stage it was getting dark and after all the effort of getting Frank over the border, he once again decided that we wasn’t ready to take on another country and stubbornly refused to start. This meant that Tom had to push him all the way up the battered dirt road that led into town whilst the rest of us went ahead and attempted to locate a viable place to spend the night.

Anyway as the saying goes, all’s well that ends well and a couple hours later we had left our bikes and luggage in a little hotel room, had a bite to eat and were enjoying our first cold tusker beer in a bar that we had been directed to by an officer in true military fashion, “go straight and at the end of the road deploy a right.”

The following morning we were up early to arrange a truck to get us from Moyale down south to Isiolo. We had been warned that the roads were in horrendous condition which would make them hugely challenging on a bicycle and simply impassible for Frank-who at this stage would have struggled to get going on a race track. Furthermore that particular stretch of road was notorious for bandits otherwise known as ‘shifters’ who weren’t exactly the type of people we wanted to come across as we had heard stories that they weren’t shy of opening fire on passing trucks.

To our surprise we found that some of the border town locals (known as fixers) who had helped us with our negotiations the previous day and whom we had conveyed our intentions to, had once again come to the fore and managed to arrange a truck for us which was waiting outside our hotel on that gloomy, rainy Saturday morning. The driver wasted no time in getting our bags and bikes into the back of his truck that was already laden with massive bags of kidney beans. It was then time to get Frank on board which was no easy feat. It took all the man power available to hoist the massive old Czech Slovakian motorbike up above our heads and hand it over (like a baton in a relay race) to the guys standing on the trucks tail gate. They then had to reposition themselves whilst at the same time maneuvering the hefty mass of metal through a tight gap and eventually plonking it on top of the bags of beans.

Finally we were all set for our trip. Thanks to our early start we had been the first to occupy the truck and managed to make ourselves as comfortable as possible for the six hundred kilometer trip which we had been told would take roughly ten hours. Just before we set off we were surprised to see more people piling into the back. By the time we departed we had an extra eight people in the back with us, another five or so sitting on the roof of the truck and who knows how many packed into the front. This meant that the spaces that we had previously chosen to occupy for the journey had declined considerably but spirits were still high and I was happy to have momentum that was not a result of peddling for the first time on the trip.

The trip turned out to be quite an experience. Within the first hour we hit a section of the road that came dangerously near to toppling over the entire truck. Frank became airborne, defying gravity and very nearly landing on top of Tom and Matt whilst the bicycles also made a leap forward despite the ropes holding them down and landed within inches of my head. The four of us all looked a bit shaken and shocked but judging from the unruffled look of the locals it would be something we would have to get used to. Not long after we ploughed into another section of road that sent us off our bean bags and forced the truck to come to a shuddering halt. Not surprisingly the suspension had given way which got the driver and his team hustling and hammering away and after about an hour’s delay we were once again making slow but steady progress along the bumpy excuse of a road.

After another couple hours of bouncing about we came to a halt and to our relief found out that it was time for lunch. We were given enough time to stretch our legs and grab some food before it was time to set off again. Not long after our little lay off we heard an explosion that sounded a bit like a twelve bore shot gun round. Thankfully for us it wasn’t shifters opening fire on us but the back right tyre which had blown. Once again the driver and his crew were forced into action. The sun was pretty much at its hottest and the team had their work cut out for them. Not only did they have to get the blown tyre off the truck, but they had to get the old tyre off the rim, place a new tyre onto the rim, put a new tube inside the new tyre and get the compressor to inflate the new tube. Anyway once this process was finally complete they realized that the new tube was in fact not so new and had a puncture of its own which meant that the entire process had to be repeated. It was a solid three hours later before we were once again on the road heading south.

The road deteriorated further but we managed to reposition ourselves from the back that was getting ridiculously dusty and found a seat on the roof where we could enjoy the scenery and serenity of the Kenyan bush veld in the late afternoon. As the sun slowly set and the light faded away we were treated to an awesome electrical storm in the horizon. Whilst we enjoyed the display of lightning bolts in the distance, our truck was having a torrid time negotiating the massive boulders that scattered the road surface. It was surely just a matter of time before something gave way and inevitably it did. Our third breakdown, a mechanical fault, occurred at about ten o’clock that evening. Once again the crew assembled and miraculously managed to get the truck back into operation. At about two that morning, after roughly sixteen hours on the road we had finally reached Masabit which was roughly our half way mark as well as the town where the driver decided that he needed to take a break. So whilst he secretly went off to find himself a hotel for the night, we were left to tuck ourselves into our sleeping bags in a struggle for comfort and warmth upon the bags of beans. On the bright side though, we hadn’t expected our R300 fare to include a night’s accommodation on the truck, so I guess that was a bit of a bonus…

Anyway at seven o’clock the following morning we were once again on the move.  Just as we had done the previous day we decided to take up our positions on the roof which allowed us the opportunity to witness a wonderful sun rise, a variety of birds, a lot of camels and the odd elephant. After three hours on the roof the trip surpassed the 24 hour mark and although the four of us were filthy, deprived of sleep, fairly peckish and still a good few hundred kilometers from our destination we remained in high spirits-enjoying our excursion which had transformed into quite an adventure. A further three hours later the driver decided that a lunch break was on the cards and to our surprise and relief we noticed that we only had another 500 or so meters of gravel before the road converted to tarmac-which was a glorious sight.

So after enjoying a lunch of chapatti and mixed vegetables (which was a welcomed change to injera which we had lived off for the previous six weeks in Ethiopia) we were once again atop the truck and motoring along the newly constructed road. We were struck with a similar sensation that one feels just after getting their braces removed, a wonderful feeling of smoothness and comfort. It was a really pleasant change, no longer bouncing around and we naively assumed that the remainder of the trip would be plain sailing and that we would be arriving at our destination in no time at all…

Unfortunately that was not to be the case. After roughly an hour we had once again come to a halt on the road side with the crew hammering away at something below the truck. It turned out that something had gone horribly wrong with the drive shaft which meant another delay of over an hour. When we eventually got going again we were down to three gears and a top speed of what we on the back assumed was no faster than 50km an hour. This was not exactly ideal considering that we still had about 250 kilometers to go.

Anyway at least the rattling that we had come accustomed to on the gravel roads had subsided substantially which meant that we were able to converse with some of our fellow passengers. After struggling a bit with the language barrier in Ethiopia it was also hugely satisfying to find that most Kenyans have a solid grasp of English, a notable consequence of their colonial error. It allowed us to have some interesting conversations about the reasons that we found ourselves on the back of the truck as well as finding out a little bit more about the country in which we would be spending the next month of our lives. As a result time past by fairly quickly and we soon found ourselves getting a bit chilly as the sun set and darkness fell for the second time on this extraordinary journey. We all shared what little food we had left and made ourselves as cozy as possible using our jackets, sleeping bags and even tarpaulins.

At about half past nine that evening, after just less than 36 hours on the back of the truck we finally reached the town of Nanyuki which marked the end of the trip for me and Buster. Tom had no option but to carry on to Nairobi where he could get a mechanic to work on Frank and Chen had kindly offered to accompany him for the rest of the journey. After offloading our bikes, bags and battered bodies we found ourselves wondering the dark streets in search of some shelter. Thankfully we stumbled across a decent looking hotel that turned out to be reasonably priced. It was a pleasant surprise to find that we had booked into a place that possessed hot showers, cold beers, good food, comfortable beds and even dstv. So after our eventful trip we managed to clean ourselves off, replenish our stomachs, laugh about the experience over a cold beer whilst catching up on the weekend’s super 15 highlights and after all that retire to a comfy night’s sleep… What more could we have hoped for?