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Sunday, 17 June 2012

Monday, 11 June 2012

Our mental 36 hour truck trip down from Moyale had left us 10 kilometers north of the Equator in the small town of Nanyuki. After arriving at half past nine the previous evening we had managed to find a place to stay and had enjoyed a comfortable nights rest. We thus woke up the following morning reenergized, ready to take on the day and make our way to a little retreat in the foot hills of Mount Kenya that had very kindly been made available to us through a contact of a contact whom we had met in Addis Ababa. After stocking up on food and funds in the quaint, quiet and colourful little town we decided to set off. I soon found myself south of the equator for the first time since I had left home and after a wonderful morning’s cycle with amazing views of the hugely impressive, snowcapped Mount Kenya we found ourselves entering the gates of Karichota where we would be staying for the following week.

We had been invited to make ourselves feel at home and that week we certainly did. After the intensity of Ethiopia and our epic journey down from Moyale, Karichota was exactly what our fatigued bodies required. We caught up on sleep, were cooked amazing meals by Robi (a student staying at the retreat and studying the plants in the area) and were allowed ample time to read and relax. I also took the opportunity to do a bit of drawing for the first time since school and managed to do some incredible bird watching with the neighbour who had lived in the area for some 30 years and had an astounding knowledge of the flora and fauna within the region. We also got treated to an awesome guided walk in the Mount Kenya National Park which not only plays host to the second highest mountain in Africa but also a magnificent forest which is apparently home to some 600 elephant. Unfortunately we didn’t come across any on that particular day but we did get to see Dik-dik, the Black and White Colobus Monkey and a huge variety of birds including two great sightings of Narina Trogon which I was rather excited about. It was a wonderful week which inevitably had to come to an end and it was then time to mount our noble steeds and progress towards our next destination.

We had three days of truly special cycling as we headed for Nakuru. It quickly became evident that the rainy season had arrived in Kenya as we made our way through a magnitude of contrasting but equally magnificent lush green terrains. The mornings often comprised of clear blue skies and as the days progressed the clouds would build up to eventually culminate in incredible formations. These formations would often let through beams of sunlight and when coupled with the blue skies and lush green environment it made for some exquisite settings. In addition to this we were welcomed by the friendly smiles, waves and chants of the locals who seemed more than happy that we were travelling through their beautiful country. The third day’s cycle stood out as one of my favorites of the trip so far. That morning we decided to stop off and picnic at the awesome Thompsons Falls which were particularly impressive at this time of the year. After cooking up a delicious breakfast feast of chapatti, eggs, onions, tomatoes and avo we got going again and found ourselves heading down into the Great Rift Valley. We had spectacular views from the top and a fantastic descent which seemed to continue all the way into Nakuru. We had arranged to stay with one of Busters old school friends and her family and once we arrived we were shown the homely cottage that we had been allocated and were once again told to make ourselves feel at home. We were more than happy accept the offer and settled right in. After unpacking our things we joined the Robinsons up at their beautiful home for a braai and a few cold beers and after hearing that there could potentially be some fishing on the cards the following day we decided that another night was most definitely in order.

Two days and a somewhat unsuccessful fishing trip later we decided that we were going to abandon the bikes and head into Nairobi using public transport. Not only would this allow us to forgo the horrendous roads and shocking drivers that we were bound to encounter upon entering the city but it would also save us having to back track and do the same route twice as we planned to go back via Nakuru on our way out. We hadn’t planned on spending much time in Nairobi as we had arrived with the sole intention to secure Ugandan visas. However, once we were welcomed into the beautiful home of the hugely hospitable Blake family (who had kindly offered to host us without ever having met any of us) we found it increasingly difficult to uproot ourselves. In no time at all we had surpassed the two days that we had initially intended staying. It was only on day six, after enjoying several delicious three course meals, good South African wine, a day talking to scholars at Peponi Junior Primary, experiencing a raucous party at the over landers camp and finally a hangover from hell that we decided to make our way out of the Kenyan capital.

From Nairobi we had arranged another stop over at the beautiful Fisherman’s Camp on Lake Naivasha. We had struck lucky once again as the camp was run by cousins of some of our good family friends. Nigel and Sarah were incredibly kind to offer us substantially discounted rates to stay in a bungalow overlooking the magnificent lake. The following day we decided to take full advantage of the bikes they had for hire (I guess it’s a bit ironic that we had to hire bikes whilst on a cycle trip through Africa but ours were still in Nakuru) and cycle through the nature reserve that runs alongside the lake. We were fortunate to see a variety of game including Eland, Zebra, Giraffe, Impala, Hartebeest, Warthog and Gazelle but nothing could have prepared us for what we encountered after about 15km of cycling. As the road forked down toward the lake we noticed a tremendous amount of pink contrasting against the dark water and blue skies. As we continued we noticed the extraordinary mass of flamingos which had congregated on the lake side. We cycled down to within twenty meters of the quarter million flamingos and with no one else in sight decided to lay down the tarp and settle in for an afternoon picnic. Whilst enjoying the idyllic setting a couple cheeky monkeys caught us by surprise and made off with one of our prize pineapples and half a sandwich that Chen had just taken pride in making. I have no idea how the bloody thing scurried up the tree so quickly with a piece of fruit bigger than itself but it was quite a sight and it definitely added to a day of vast entertainment.

After two nights at Naivasha we thought it prudent to make our way back to Nakuru as Tom and Matt only had three weeks until they were due to start their volunteering in Rwanda. We made it back without any hassles and managed to get our things ready for the road the following day. After getting some food in our stomachs we once again mounted our steeds and made our way towards the Aldama Ravine. It was awesome to be back on the bike, the roads were quiet, the people were pleasant and the scenery was simply spectacular. We had a bit of gradual climbing but nothing hectic and after crossing an equator sign for the umpteenth time we came across a bunch of locals and decided to stop and find out whether we were still heading in the desired direction. Thankfully we were and it was rather coincidental that one of them had just returned to Kenya after a 15 year farming stint in South Africa. He offered us a place to stay for the evening which we unfortunately had to decline because it was still early in the day but was more than willing to share advice for the trip that lay ahead and finally after wishing us well on our journey we said our goodbyes. We continued up through the ravine and managed to find a fantastic little restaurant that overlooked the valley below. We satisfied our appetites with a decent burger and chips and replenished our water supplies before subjecting ourselves to the heat of the day and contending with some fairly challenging climbs. By four that afternoon we had decided to call it a day and with no towns in sight decided to take refuge in a police compound. With the weather looking ominous we asked the sergeant in charge whether it would be possible to pitch our tents under some sort of shelter and in no time at all we were escorted to a building containing old jail cells and told that it was ours for the night. It wasn’t exactly our coziest barracks but it was perfectly adequate and the kindness and constant flow of officers who came for a friendly chat further enhanced our positive attitudes towards the Kenyan people and made for a really enjoyable evening.

The following morning we were up early and reaching Kapsabet was the day’s goal. Some of the officers came to say good bye and a bit of small talk prompted one particularly chatty officer to give us his recollection of being targeted as a government official during the previous elections which had ended in conflict. It was a fascinating story told in a manner you’d expect to hear around a fire in a small Kenyan village-with vigor and enthusiasm that would be difficult for anyone to replicate. Anyway we eventually set off and after reaching a town that was appropriately named Hilltop we stopped off for a refreshing cup of tea. Not long after we got going again we found ourselves experiencing conflicting emotions of frustration and awe as we were forced to traverse appalling roads that made their way through magnificent tea plantations glistening in the sun. It turned out to be a day that required us to concentrate on the traffic, the roads and the scenery a bit more than usual but we reached our destination, sat down to enjoy a tusker and hoped that the following day into Mumsia would be a little less demanding.

Our hopes were founded as we awoke to a beautiful Sunday morning and headed out onto the deserted roads. We passed through a few fantastic little villages and after about 20 kilometers we arrived at the turn off that we had been advised to take. For the first time on the trip we made our way off the tar and onto the gravel to travel through the Kakamega forests, one of the only tropical rainforests remaining in Kenya. It turned out to be a magical 20km of gravel road tunneled by dense rain forest on the left and the right and towering trees that formed a canopy above. We thoroughly enjoyed the shade, sounds and sights that this extraordinary forest presented and found ourselves a little disappointed that it couldn’t have gone on for a bit longer. We pushed on though and after a further 45km we reached th little town of Mumsia moments before the heavens opened. That night we managed to watch what will most probably go down in history as one of the most enthralling climaxes to a Premiership season. I’ll never know quite how City managed to clench the title in those dying seconds but I’ll never really care because to be honest I (like everyone else in Mumsia other than my fellow cyclists) was just super stoked that it hadn’t gone to United.

The next day marked our last day in Kenya. We had a beautiful flat cycle through the country side which was now covered in fields of soaring sugar cane and we were able to coast into the border town of Busia. There we found a really cool little restaurant to enjoy our final Kenyan meal. As I sat there I reflected on the month we had been in the country and couldn’t help but feel that it had been a bit of a holiday. We hadn’t done a huge amount of cycling and the cycling we had done had been a breeze compared to the previous two countries. The weather had been kind, the scenery had been magnificent, the roads and terrain weren’t hugely challenging and the people had been phenomenal. Initially I found myself thinking that another two weeks would have been wonderful because perhaps that would have given us time to get down to the coast and up to lake Turkana but I quickly realized that it wasn’t a huge problem because I will most definitely be treating myself to another holiday in Kenya, hopefully in the not too distant future…

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?