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Simon : 22 May 2007 : Mud but no music It is said there is a road that runs south from the Ethiopian border at Moyale to Isiolo in Northern Kenya. But this is no road. Think Glastonbury on the Monday after, only this is hundreds of kilometers of thick, sticky mud that leaves you feeling worse than any hangover after a music festival binge. There are no floating beer cans here to tell of sodden departures, just grooves through the mud three foot deep, carved by the enormous lorries that traverse this route, and which we vainly tried to follow on our bicycles. The route to Isiolo (from where the road to Nairobi is paved) is over 500km long and except for around Marsabit mostly flat, a welcome change after legs made sore by the endless steep hills in Ethiopia. But it is the rainy season and once again we found ourselves pushing for long stretches, sometimes stopping every 20 meters to scrape off the thick wedges of mud that form on our tyres, clogging mudguards and stopping wheels turning. At first we passed through thick, green bush on this muddy red road, although this later gave way to windy desert plains and scrub, the road little more than a sharp gravel pit no more rideable than the thick mud we had just pushed through. By now our tyres were worn and we punctured continuously, our tubes covered in the orange and black blisters that tell of exasperation and curses at the roadside. At one point I was so frustrated at falling yet again on the stones and with a road so bad that I started to pelt my own bike, stopping only when I saw the ridiculous side of the situation. On one particularly bad day we covered just 20km after a tyre blew, the sidewall ripped from the beading. This was our third blow-out and we were out of spares: the first ruined tyre I had thrown with a curse into an Ethiopian gorge, the second at a cow licking our jam pot as we stood with backs turned, contemplating how to fix our tyres still 150km from Marsabit and the nearest bike shop. With no option but to repair the tyre we had, we used a Two Brother's Glory Biscuits packet and surgical tape to hold it together, riding with one eye on the bulges threatening on our other tyres, and fingers crossed. On this same day Craig was seriously ill. Needing supplies, a doctor if we could find one and somewhere to rest properly, we stopped in a small village. But for its horrific past Turbi would not be a town worth mentioning, yet this place was the scene of a massacre in July 2005 that left more than 60 people dead, most - 22 of them children - under the blow of a machete. 9,000 people were displaced in the region as a result, the fighting over competition for scarce water and pasture land near the Somali border. Our hotel manager told me how Borana attacked the local Gabra people at dawn, and of how he and the other men of the village pursued lagging attackers into the bush, killing those they could find. Even as we traveled there were attacks on ethic grounds - reasons for the feuds long since lost - and in Moyale we met a group of women who had fled their village after attacks from neighbors. Other cyclists have been less lucky in the past, refused permission to cycle this route. Marsabit is a beautiful place, made more so by the contrast from the arid regions you must pass to reach it. Climbing up from the dry plains below, the landscape changes gradually until the hills are thick with trees still dripping with that morning's rain. Baboons sit by the roadside and an unseen bird rings like a telephone. Tall anthills rise up from the ochre earth like totems. Entering town we passed many cyclists - bikes laden with containers of water and bags of cabbages - and we felt confident about finding new tyres to replace the worst of ours. There were no tyres our size as the local bikes all use a bigger wheel, but the mechanic was skilled and cutting up a tyre removed a section, stitching the two pieces together to make a smaller tyre. Fine tyres that fitted perfectly! Stopping one evening outside Marsabit we began to set up camp someway down a small path. Here we had one of our stranger encounters when a party of four Rendille emerged from the bush, and for the first time I understood why people stare at us in our cycling gear. As if from a National Geographic centerfold, one man was dressed immaculately in a red cloak, hair plastered down with orange clay, ears thick with piercings, on his wrists and ankles beaded and copper bangles, in his hand a spear. The others were equally striking, although in an offbeat, modern twist one carried a plastic backpack and spray gun for treating cattle. After telling us about the herd of elephant in the area we were invited to their small hamlet (a few huts and thorn bush kraals of cattle and goats), following this intriguing group along a hidden path into the hills and night. Here we ate with Thakosi’s family and slept in the small, single room hut into which were crammed ten people on the cowhide and straw mattresses. What stands out most about Kenya are the colors. A road one minute bright red mud, the next yellow sand or pink rock, blue sky suddenly black with threatening clouds, green hills and bush made brighter by the past rain, and then the people: men and women wrapped in intense kakois, pink and green the most popular colors but later the distinctive red and purple check of the Masai. Often we see these kakois laid out on bushes to dry, where women have met to wash at the river. People we see are also heavily adorned with colored beads and pendants. Kenyans may be known as runners but this is really a nation of cyclists. Everywhere we see people on bicycles, all riding the same single-speed Chinese workhorses with their distinctive Phoenix crank sets that can equally carry goods to market or a whole family: father pedaling, mum sitting sideways on the pannier holding their daughter. Sitting under a tree in every town is a man with some basic tools to fix bicycles, and they are always busy. Cyclists here seem to have an affinity with what we are doing - our own bikes heavy with pannier bags, tent, water and a cooking pot - and almost all on the road to Nairobi greet us with a wave and broad smile, a ting-a-ling on their bell if they have one. And yet in the remoter areas, like Turbi, there is a slightly different attitude. Here a man tells me that he and his friends say among themselves that people like us come seeking trouble in Africa. They are also unable to comprehend why we would do this without monetary gain. I disagree with what he terms 'trouble' (‘challenge’?), but perhaps this attitude is understandable. Here is a man who is in many ways confined to his village, earning a meager living that will never afford an opportunity to travel like this, and who has experienced first hand what trouble exists. Wherever we stop we tend to ask people about the road ahead, but every person has a different interpretation of distance, what counts as flat or hilly, rough or smooth, while many others have no idea but would rather not admit it. Some take one look at our faces after we have ridden 120km - and unknown to us are still one hour and a few steep hills from the next town - and tell us what we want to hear. For that moment it is enough, we smile again and they feel good. But mainly there are the ‘pothole pessimists’ whom we have learned to ignore, the endless people who talk only of dangers ahead, wild animals we never did see and roads impassable by bicycle. At Isiolo we found salvation not just in a tarred road but our first hot shower since Addis Ababa. Our hotel stay coincided with a conference on reproductive health and Kenya clearly receives a decent proportion of NGO money. The parking lot soon filled with gleaming 4x4’s of every charitable, governmental and NGO denomination. Aid workers spilled out armed with expense accounts and it was obvious why we pay inflated prices for no extra service. We fare little better at our next hotel in Nanyuki, a place so primed for impending violence that trouble came as no surprise. Sturdy metal grills envelop reception, the bar and restrict access to rooms that, judging by some of the girls and punters we see, can be rented by the hour. After a dispute over our bill we find out that these bars can equally keep guests in their rooms, and we are refused exit while they threaten to call the police. Preferring our freedom we pay up and head for the equator 2km outside of town, where boys sit either side of the line with buckets and funnels to demonstrate that water really does swirl in opposite directions in the north and south. As is so common in African cities, first world progress and development is all the more obvious for the third world masses it excludes, perhaps for generations still to come. Nairobi is such a city, where informal traders on leafy sidewalks compete with air-conditioned malls that sell everything you didn’t realize you need, billboards advertise a pending IPO for a telecoms firm while down the road one of Africa’s biggest slums teems with unbridled poverty. Mwai Kibaki came to power in 2002 largely on the back of an anti-corruption ticket, and it shows. Posters everywhere tell you to just “resist corruption!”, or “it is your right to be served here, don’t give a bribe”. In Nairobi we stayed with the wonderfully kind and generous Sanghrajka family, who not only pampered and spoilt us after so long on the road, but – and so importantly to us – genuinely included us as a part of their family. And so it was with much gratitude that we resume our journey south to Tanzania, bodies recharged, but nursing a serious bout of homesickness after such a good taste of home life. A post-script to southern Ethiopia… Despite the sheer natural beauty of Ethiopia (and I will always remember standing atop mountain passes with a smile on my face) I was relieved to leave the southern part of this country, a place where I was jeered at, spat at and stoned on a regular basis. Occasionally, I had conversations that were not a masked prelude to a demand for money. Sometimes I heard a simple 'welcome' from the roadside followed by a smile, but mostly the people that lined those green roads persisted with aggressive shouts and demands for attention, as if my acknowledgement of them would somehow justify their existence. I may never ride such enchanting roads again, but I will certainly meet nicer people |
| Craig : 16 May 2007 : Leaving Nairobi...
With our Ortlieb pannier-bags bulging with our recent purchases (what excitement being in a "real" supermarket again!); sparkling clean clothes (We REALLY needed the "laundry-service" this time!); brand-new tyres on our wheels (let's hope this lot last a bit longer!); delicious indian snacks from our hosts stuffed into our pockets (those however WON"T be lasting long!); my "traveller's" beard trimmed to my more familiar look (aparently I look many years younger again!) and excitement of Tanzania being only two days away, we set out from Nairobi. Firstly we had to negotiate that terrible traffic of course...helmets firmly on! Unknowingly we missed our turn-off and were heading towards the coastal city of "Mombassa" instead of the border town of "Namanga"...to make matters worse, the umpteenth bad driver squeezed past us and this time connected with Simon's right-hand pannier!! He didn't stop...didn't even notice he'd hit someone...just drove on off to the coast...oblivious! At first it seemed the damage was minimal. After all, Simon (most importantly!) was fine and the only visible damage was our rather sad looking cooking-pot that had been crushed by the force of the impact! But after closer inspection it was clear that Simon's rear-wheel was in a bad way...having taken all the force of the impact it was "potato-chipped!" It took some forceful bending (over a rock!) and careful truing with my trusty "Spokey'...result? Wobbly, but rideable! (the first of many times I would try to ressurect this wheel!) Seeing a road-side bicycle-repair-guy we let him have a go..."what-a-mistake-a-to-make-a!" After wrecking the wheel, he disapeared down the road (realising his error?) leaving it in worse condition than when we arrived! I did what I could again and we limped off to an overnight stop in "Lemuya Lodge"...a welll organised and friendly hotel in "Isinya". |
| Craig : 14 May 2007 : Cairo2CapeTown vs Kenyan Post Office
Only one of our five expected parcels had made it through to our host's address, so we were forced to trawl the back-offices, reading through hand-written ledgers of received parcels, speaking with bored and disinterested postal workers, in the hope of locating the missing ones... In the end we were pretty successful, locating all but two; one of which I managed to get the following day (in a different office - all so confusing!), so we were only one short. Unfortunately it was the one with the "oil-change kit" that I desperately needed to service my Rohloff hub, now that it had started to give some troubles in a few of the lower gears! Making the whole experience somewhat harder, I spent almost the entire day feeling rotten! My stomach was acting up again and I felt horribly nausious...like that time back in "Turbi" (Little did I know at that stage of course that it was yet another wave of the nasty little Malaria-parasites multiplying in my body!) On the up side I did manage to get my rear-wheel trued up at a small shop after I'd been trying to keep it going for the past couple of months with my "Spokey". |
| Craig : 13 May 2007 : Nairobi here we come!
Both really looking forward to the rest and home-comforts waiting for us in Nairobi, we set off from our overnight stop in Karatina at high speed, helpd by good road ond downhill stretches. Unfortunately, as the day progressed, the road transformed into pot-holed uphills with nightmare traffic intent on killing us, or at least pushing us off the road! (Amazingly we actually saw some cyclists out training on the very same road, obviously immune to the traffic that had forced us to put on our helmets for the first time since southern Sudan! As usual we stopped at various points along the route to "refuel", myself especially needing excessive amounts of food on a regular basis! Our last stop was off the dual-carriagw way, at the edge of "Thika" where we pulled into a swanky looking lodge/restaurant/bar...with swanky-looking prics to match! We did get to enjoy a lovely view over the Thika-falls though, only briefly interupted by a large palm-branch landing on Simon s it fell some six metres from the tree above us! As we neared the house-of-the-parents-of-the-collegue-of-Simon's, we were reminded of South Africa. Everywhere you looked there were tall walls, topped with razor-wire and electric fences, security guards stood at each gateway and flood-lights stood ready to illuminate would-be intruders as they contemplated what may be within the "encampments". After riding just four roads since we crossed the border, we pulled into the driveway, sat down in the kitchen and hungrily tucked into the tea laid out before us...delicious! |
| Craig : 12 May 2007 : Nanyuki to Karatina...and crossing the Equator!
After a rediculous debacle last night involving: two tired cyclists fixing their bikes, an order of "Two pots of Milo", the resultant delivery (of enough Milo-powder for half-a-cup!), my complaining, a very disinterested manager and a well-meaning (but ultimately interfering) customer; and it's unsuccessful resolution, we got locked into our hotel! "Service" is not high on the agenda here and the only thing on the manager's mind was getting the last few shillings he believed we still owed him...by whatever means necessary! I had to just give in and pay in the end (as much as it irked me to do so!) And that was just the beginning of the morning...as we discovered Simon's tyre was on it's "last legs" (Failing at the bead in several places like the other three tyres before it!?). So we headed back into town and tried (unsuccessfully..) to find a replacement. (Once again everyone was selling 28" tyres...and no clever man like "Guyo" from Marsabit splicing them either. If only that second spare hadn't fallen off the back off Simon's bike...) After some searching I did however manage to find some duct-tape (the cure-all that all travellers should carry..!?) and so we swopped Simon's tyres around, front to back, taping the ailing bead on the ex-rear-tyre to try and squeeze some more life out of it! We finally rolled out of "Nanyuki" towards the equator on the edge of town at about 12h30... "Shaki Legi" (AKA "Josaphat", a local farmer who dressed in a pale blue tracksuit and seemed to be known almost all over town from the days when he danced up a storm...hence his nickname!) had hung around and helped us out, and now rode out with us on his "Black Mamba" (Look for it in the PHOTOS!) towards the mythical line between North & South. A Large signboard greeted us, (surrounded by various forms of advertising of course!) and as always there were plenty of market stalls and energetic salesman, including a guy cleverly demonstrating the existant of the invisible equator-line by showing that water swirled out of a funnel in two opposite directions on either side of the sign...amazing! But now for the real moment of truth...after more than 5000kms riding a touring-bicycle, loaded up with all his belongings, could Simon pop a wheelie? Bags off, camera poised...a few failed attempts...and...YES! ...and I was there to capture it for the website! |
| Craig : 10 May 2007 : Isiolo...and TARMAC!
Well, we; finally made it to Isiolo! TARMAC!! Yippee...!! The road never did improve as promised by various people we spoke to; not even in the last few km's! In fact we even managed to get two punctures in the short run into town! We headed straight for an ATM as we hadn't had access to one since Egypt (Apart from the debacle in Addis Abeba!) and were starting to run low on traveller's cheques and had no dollars left either. Unfortunately it was the same story as usual...the first two ATM's didn't take international cards...but we finally found one that did, phew! We decided totreat ourselves with three main requirements when looking for a hotel: hot water (that comes out of a shower-head and not a buckit!), a plug-socket (many things needing to be charged!) and a laundry service! (I feel really sorry for the poor person who opens my dirty laundry bag...afer all the mud, sweat and dirt of the Moyale Road!) We found it all, including breakfast, at "The Bomen Hotel". Some luxury for the weary travellers. As we'd arrivd so early we then had most of the day to wander around, explore and sort out some supplies... I even managed to get a pair of sandles custom made for me! (Favoured by the Masai and Rindele, these sandles are made from car/truck-tyres and are tough-as-nails! In my case the tyre in question was a FIRESTONE; "...we all deserve d'em stones!") We also located a small yogurt-bar and downed large quantities of strawberry drinking yogurt...delicious, but not so good for either of our stomachs and we both had to retire for a short while to recover! Never fear though as we got our appetities back in time for a good meal at the hotel's restaurant...including dessert & a Guinness! Ah...the feeling of luxury after "being out in the wild!" |
| Craig : 8 May 2007 : The Road to Isiolo...
We're nearly finished this damn road! It's going to e SO good to roll onto that tarmac... The truth be told, we've been riding much easier sections of road than we first struggled with in the early days from Moyale. In fact before we stopped to camp tonight we had a wonderfully smooth section, slightly downhill, even a tailwind! It was definitely deserved after the hard slog we'd had all day! Only a few problems today; a broken spoke (No punctures!) and one of my Ortliebs falling apart a bit (more screws rattling loose after that brake-failing experience I guess!?) We made our own lunch today to avoid the rediculous delay we had yesterday and stopped under a lovely tree and were only bothered by some determined little "bees". (Well, they looked like minature bees, only a few millimetres long, with little yellow & black stripey abdomens...?) They seemed to bother Simon a bit more than me...perhaps it's the same thing as with the mosquitos then? |
| Craig : 7 May 2007 : Laisamus, Kenya
The town of "Laisamus" sits on the edge of "Losai National Park" and appears to be another "Sh*tsville"...looking quite nice, even promising, as you approach...but then the people turn out to be a bunch o quat-heads! ("Quat", pronounced "chut"; is the local, totally legal, drug of choice. The leaves and sometimes stalks of an indigenous plant are chewed to give a mild high similar to amphetamines.) Then again we may just have run into the bad bunch...? All we had wanted was a good supply of water to carry us through the supper/breakfast cooking and the ride to the next town the following morning. A young man led us to the town's borehole, where he and his friends helped us fill our bottles and water-bags (spilling SO much water in the process, showing little care or concern for something that should be a respected resource in a place like this...in fact in ANY place!) and then almost as soon as we'd finished filling up he was asking us for a "gift". All the guys in his group were quite well dressed and I told them it was not very dignified to be begging...but with so many of them we pretty much legged it before my comments sunk in! It was a rather unpleasant end to a slog of a day with a few punctures, atrocious roads with heavy corrugations, rough stoney sections and some more pushing through sand in true Nubian-desert style! At least we found a nice campsite near a dried up stream... |
| Craig : 6 May 2007 : Just outside Marsabit, Kenya
Well, I don't normally record my maximum speed in my diary, but today I wrote it down...75.8km/h Now I know that doesn't sound sound too fast (after all they get up to 120km/h in the Tour de France don't they?!) but, considering it was when both my brakes had failed on a steep dirt road with a fully-loaded touring bicycle...it was noteable! Luckily it happened on a smoother section of road and I was able to keep the bike upright, finally using my feet to slow myself down when the hill lessened! Both my bags had come half-off, with bolts missing, I had a rear-wheel puncture and one broken spoke (what's new!)...but the damage was really minimal all things considered! It turned out to be quite a day really as we also passed through "Marsabit" itself, a fairly developed town at the centre of the reserve where we got a lovely meal and some much needed bicycle spares. We even found a man who cut and spliced two 28" tyres to fit our 27" wheels as spares of the right size were just not available (and having destroyed two of our tyres and the others being on borrowed time we really needed some spares!) I also found a one-eyed street taylor to fix my trousers (the hand-sewn seam I'd put into them to make them fit me better was starting to come undone) on an old treadle-driven "Singer" sewing-machine for the grand total of 25p! Being in a reserve the landscape was now wonderfully green as we followed the bright red road carving it's way through it...the road had improved...and I realised that this was what I came along on this trip for! THIS was AFRICA! |
| Craig : 3 May 2007 : Turbi, Kenya Noteable for being the site of a massacre some year's earlier (in relation to age-old cattle thievery between rival tribes), "Turbi" was somewhere we would've probably just passed through, but ended up staying the night as it would seem that something had disagreed with my body and wanted out! It started last night and worsened this morning, continuing in full force for the whole day until I finally saw a "doctor" in Turbi who gave me an injection to stop the vomitting..result? I went straight outside and threw up for the 9th time that day! (But I did feel alot better afterwards!) The shot however knocked me out and I pretty much staggered back to the hotel and slept! (Since this day, I've been unable to eat "chipati"...too much of a bad association!) |
| Craig : 2 May 2007 : Somewhere south of Sololo, Kenya The sky looked heavy as we ate our porridge this morning with Lalibela honey and the drizzle started just as we set off. Though to be honest, we've been so lucky with weather on this journey so far that I can't really complain! We've had the odd bit of drizzle and have sought shetler three times...but in two months of riding, that's not half bad! The road was firming up in places where it had dried up, but the stones were also quite viscious and in places tha mud was just too sticky! I was sliding all over the place, and will all the "tracks" that we followed being created by the rear double-wheels of the trucks, there was often an extra ridge down the centre (from between the two tyres)...losing your line had serious consequences! With ruts often two feet or more deep, losing control meant bouncing of the muddy sides, gathering large chunks of sticky grey gunk in the process...and stopping meant planting your shoe inches deep! Before long my silver PEARL IZUMI's were looking rather un-silver! (Sorry Juliet!) I managed to avoid falling over (which would have been VERY messy!) but that doesn't mean I avoided getting muddy either! Some sections were so sticky that we spent as much time cleaning the mud out as we did moving forwards...draging our average speed right down to 15km/h today. Then, just when things seemed to be easing off again...BANG! My rear tyre had blown where the bead had ripped away from the sidewall...again! (Now the third tyre that had failed in the same way, and this one had only been in use since just before Addis Abeba!) I used a "GLORY" biscuits' packet to "gator" the area and Simon even managed to patch the exploded tube! (We haven't really got the luxury of throwing them away..) Ready to go again and Simon discovered he had a rear flat too! (This time a big thorn, so easily patched.) Things brightened up with a great tea-break in a small village where a man specially mad up some "strong tea" for me (All Kenyan's seem to drink very milky tea that I just can't stomach!) We had chipati's (like small pancakes) spread with honey and filled our water-bags from a large tank of rain-water that came off a school's roof. |
| Craig : 1 May 2007 : On the Moyale road, Kenya A new month, a new notebook, a new country - Kenya! (and 4567km on the odometer) Though...with the 5am call to prayer this morning I'd be forgiven for thinking I was back in Egypt or Sudan! It really poured down last night (fortunately we'd brough in all our washing!) and didn't look like stopping this morning! We intended leaving after breakfast but (as we looked out a the rain) neirther of us made a move. In the end we left at 12-ish in the drizzle...though only got half way down the first hill before discovering that I had a puncture! Back on the road after a quick (but muddy tube-change) and I was struggling to adapt to the riding conditions. The compacted clay was wet from the heavy rains and made the bicycle unpredictable, especially on the downhills. At first it all seemed quite good...downhills combined with fairly compact mud meant that we made quite good progress. But then we started to see what everyone had warned us about! Deep ruts carved through the mud by the big trucks with the mud on either side sticky like glue and completely impassable! The only option was to follow the ruts, often two feet deep and of variying consistancy so that you never quite knew what to expect. I made the mistake of veering sideways, trying to avoid a deep puddle and got instantly boged down! The mud coated my tyres and clogged the underside of the mud-guards forming a huge mud-clod that acted like a brake on my wheel, so otent that I couldn't even push the bike! This would be the first of many timy times that I would stand there, digging mud out of various parts of my bike with a stick! (We actually both carried sticks for the next few hundred km's especially for this purpose!) Whenever the wheel-ruts dipped down they invariably had water at the bottom, making it quite daunting for a "roady" like me to dive in, pannier-bags and all! (Try to remember that before this tour my cycling had consisted of road-riding, time-trialling and track...none of which involved much mud! So I was a real softie when it came to messy cycling..) It all looked much better towards the end of the day as the sun came out and the road started to firm up very quickly. Spying a grassy campsite we headed off the mud and set up for the night. Making a fire was not quite as easy as those old guys makle it look, but we managed, and in the end had the BEST cous-cous ever followed by some delicious Milo-improved Favena pudding! Day one on the mud was complete...good-night! |
| Craig : 30 April 2007 : Moyale, Kenya OSMAN is an Ethiopian working here at the Barossa Hotel in Moyale. He's almost single-handedly balanced our entire view of Ethiopians by being so helpful, polite and easy-going without once asking for something from us! He's always saying "If there is something I can do, then ask me and I will do it." |
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