Nairobi
I wash up in Nairobi feeling washed-out. The last few months in the heat of Sudan, the inscrutability of Ethiopia and the wildness of Turkana have taken a toll. I have bruises and cuts all over, borderline narcolepsy and stomach pains for a fortnight. All I can do is sit on the verandah of Jungle Junction and stare. The bike is feeling it too and requires hospitalisation. Luckily, Chris who runs the place is an excellent mechanic.
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| Chris & Philip - Jungle Junction, Nairobi |
Apparently I can have parts smuggled-in by the Somalis but I opt for FedEx instead. This results in a little melodrama with customs. First they want to charge me about $350. I plead and cajole. It becomes $200. I visit the officer in person, speak a few words of Kiswahili and tell road tales. It becomes $2.50. Then customs officer number 2 wants to overrule and I have a very surreal argument with him during which I realise I just have to agree that I should pay the duty in order to satisfy his ego and for him to let me off...
I wander the Malls open-mouthed at the sheer abundance. I can buy anything I want here. I buy tupperware, bread and cheese. They have cheese!
I meet up with Gareth, a Kiwi who I first met 13 years ago in Northern Vietnam when we rode little dirt bikes up to the Chinese border and narrowly avoided being shot by a 12-year old border guard. He has been driving a tour group all the way from Morocco, down the west coast and up the east, starting around the same time I did. He is suffering from a bout of malaria but still manages to raise a few war stories.
After a few days I am joined by my bicycling friend Blanca, who I met in Ethiopia. We spend a quiet sort of convalescence together until she finally strikes out towards Uganda.
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| Blanca & I after convalescing at Jungle Junction, Nairobi |
It's nearly two weeks before I get around to doing my Kenyan immigration and customs paperwork. I have been languishing in a political no-man's land. I just a slight frown from the officials and I am in.
Jungle Junction is a well-established halfway staging post for east coast overlanders and I chew the fat around campfires with the various oddballs in their array of imposing-looking vehicles.
Finally, after 3 weeks in Nairobi, I am fit and well and so is the bike. I am ready to move. I haven't seen the ocean since Egypt in January and I plough down the road to Mombasa. A rude re-awakening - this is the main artery of Kenya and full of trucks - and Kenyan overtaking is probably the most dangerous manoeuvre I have seen in my 69 country experience. They just peel out onto the wrong side of the road and, if someone is in the way, they flash their lights as if to say 'not my problem, mate'. Other vehicles generally have to lurch into the ditch and I witness plenty of accidents. I survive this little video game and, after a few drizzly, muddy tracks, arrive bedraggled in the dark in Tiwi. The sight that greets me in the morning makes it all worth it.
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| Vervet Monkeys, Tiwi, Kenya |
In between rain showers, various beach boys come up to me offering their services. One picks me a coconut for lunch, one brings me firewood. They offer lobsters and boat trips.
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| Tiwi Beach, near Mombasa |
The tide is out most of the day and it reveals acres of rock-pools teeming with wriggling tentacles. When the tide is in, squadrons of tiny crabs dart in and out of the spray like hyperactive little robots.
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| Tiwi Beach |
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| Crabs, shoreline, Tiwi |
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| Tiwi beach |
I get directions to Shimoni from a British lady who sounds like Sybil Fawlty. 'Left after the sugar factory and then 14km of horrendous dirt'. She has helped me find a place to park the bike at Firefly Camp while I meet Shafii to stay at his house in Mkwiro on the paradisical Wasini Island. His friend, Mshwe, shows me round the little Muslim village, the new desalination system and water-collection tanks, the school, the otherworldly mangroves.
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| Wasini Island |
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| Mangroves, Wasini Island |
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| Mangroves, Wasini Island |
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| Wasini Island |
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| School, Mkwiro village, Wasini Island |
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| School, Mkwiro village, Wasini Island |
And I take a boat trip out to spot dolphins and snorkel.
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| Wasini Island |
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| Wasini Island |
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| Mangroves, Wasini Island |
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| Wasini Island |
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| Mkwiro, Wasini Island |
Back on the mainland I get my bike and set off for Kilifi but only get as far as the centre of Shimoni village before the bike dies.
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| Shimoni |
In the midst of a curious crowd, I flail around with spanners, scratch my head and, with the help of a marine engineer who appears from nowhere, finally make a bypass cable for my fuel pump but, by then, it is late and I take refuge at the church, where Alan the pastor brings me a cup of hot water so I can make instant noodles.
Next morning, at Firefly Camp, while I am tinkering with my poorly bike, I meet Kim, a Belgian member of NGO 'Reefolution' who are doing amazing work restoring damaged coral by installing structures to encourage new growth.
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| Kim, Reefolution, Firefly Camp, Shimoni |
They need empty wine bottles to make them and I am more than willing to muck in and help provide, especially as there is a world cup game on at the heaving cinema in the village.
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| Belgium-Colombia World Cup game, Shimoni, Kenya |
The bike is at least as hungover as I am as we make tracks for Kilifi. I can't let go of the throttle without the engine stalling and getting across Mombasa's gridlock in this state is trying. Nevertheless I make it to Distant Relatives ecolodge by sundown. Getting into the bunks, made out of natural tree trunks and wreathed in mosquito nets is a bit like climbing into a gigantic pair of y-fronts but mostly I luxuriate in good food, beer and wifi. The rainstorms are glorious. Stealing down to the little bay to swim in the pitch dark, all sparkling with bioluminescence is nothing short of magical.
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| Distant Relatives Ecolodge in a rainstorm, Kilifi |
I meet a sparky pretty Kikuyu girl called Njoki who sits me down and grills me on why I have been keeping myself to myself. She's from Nyeri and drives a taxi in Nairobi. I spend time with am Argentinian-Chilean couple and a Basque couple (Have met so many Basques on this journey) and we go to the windy beach and eat swahili food in little eateries. Sukumu Wiki (spinach, literally means 'stretch the week') and Baraghwe (Beans) with chapati and tea.
I forget about my newly-made fuel pump switch and manage to drain my battery but the nearby boda-boda drivers help me out, running around making jumper cables for me and don't expect a tip which is so refreshing after Ethiopia.
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| Boda-Boda drivers helping me jump-start the bike, Kilifi |
I take a ride out to the Vuma cliffs, via Takaungu where I find an acrobat troupe rehearsing on the beach.
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| Acrobats, Takaungu beach, near Kilifi |
A man called Alamien invites me to his house. I sit and chat with his family and then his friend guides me along the little goat tracks, sweating on his BMX in front of me, to the track to the cliffs. I ride on alone through towering cornstalks and past little huts with surprised inhabitants to finally reach the stark and beautiful cliffs with their Edward Scissorhands rocks and breathe in the power of the sucking, bludgeoning ocean.
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| Near Vuma cliffs, Kilifi |
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| Near Takaungu, Kilifi on the way to the Vuma cliffs |
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| Vuma cliffs, Kilifi |
In the evening, I smoke some weed with a girl called Mokami, a singer. We talk colonialisation and then slavery. She gets teary when we consider the abuses heaped on the people of this coast. Slavery is just such a dark thought. A practice common among African tribes and then later stepped-up a gear by the Arabs but finally brought to an industrial scale by Europeans. Black Kenyans, in general ,strike me as sweet and warm-hearted people and seem to live in relative harmony with white Kenyans such that it is easy to forget this recent history. Scratch the surface and there is hurt.
I brave the road past Garsen to Lamu. It leads me through stunning wetlands but the potholes nearly remove my teeth and the battery connections on the bike come loose several times from the vibration.
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| Garsen-Lamu road |
I am stopped several times by army patrols and thoroughly searched and questioned. 'This is bang-bang place' they say, eyeing me suspiciously - we are near Somalia here and there have been several attacks by Al-Shabab. I ask what I should do to avoid the terrorists. They just tell me not to stop. Of course I do end up stopping about 5 times to fix the bike.
Despite everything, I arrive intact at Mokowe, I call at the police station and they agree to look after the bike while I visit the island. A quiet guy called Mushroom helps me deal with the swarms of touts trying to sell me a private boat and I reach my guesthouse as the Aden echoes through the atmospheric alleys and mangroves of Lamu.
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| Lamu |
I wander and visit the little museum and learn about how the trade winds governed the rhythm of life here and about swahili wedding rituals.
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| Lamu |
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| Lamu |
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| Lamu |
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| Cemetery, Lamu |
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| Door lintel carvings, Lamu |
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| Spaghetti maker, Lamu |
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| Kanga cloth, Lamu |
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| Lamu |
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| Lamu |
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| Insignia from Dhow, Lamu |
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| Lamu |
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| Lamu |
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| Sandals, Lamu Museum |
On the road back from the coast, the bike abruptly dies. This time it is not just the battery connections and I get a cryptic message "EWS" in German on the dashboard. "Engine Won't Start" I suppose it is helpfully telling me.
I push the bike to the little village of Kibaoni and find a tiny hotel. It takes two cold showers before I am not pouring sweat. I go drown my sorrows in a little bar and spend the evening drinking Mnazi - made from palm leaves - with a guy called Newton and his friends. It's a third of the price of beer and way stronger and the evening gets thoroughly blurry. Ibrahim, the guy who is charging my battery for me, tries to sell his singing talents to me and I record them dutifully on my phone. His musician friend goes by the glorious tag of Kruger dem Shit. We float off to another bar, where they serve Ncoma - from another tree and more bitter. There are dire warnings about mixing Ncoma with Mnazi but nobody is listening.
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| Ibrahim recording demos with me over Mnazi, Kibaoni, Garsen-Lamu road, Kenya |
In the morning I don't feel that bad - just gently crumbled between the ears. Newton shows me a little shack for breakfast. I get Mandazi - little hollow triangular sweet breads - and eggs. The TV, behind thick iron bars, is showing a cortortionist which does not help. My bike is not feeling any better, despite a fully charged battery. I haggle with a passing truck driver to take me to Malindi.
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| Truck to Malindi |
I squeeze in the back with a bunch of furniture and try to stop the bike smashing itself to pieces on the sides. The sound of the panels of the truck as it passes the huge potholes is more intense than any MBV show.
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| Truck to Malindi |
At the checkpoints, the soldiers eye the Mazungu in the back even more suspiciously than before. They ask Yasin, the driver, why he is giving a lift to me when, he says "Mazungus fund Al-Shabab"
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| Garsen-Lamu road |
In Garsen they drop off one passenger and I can sit up front which is marginally more comfortable.
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| Truck to Malindi |
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| Garsen-Malindi road |
The truck's radiator pours water and we stop regularly to refill it. At one stop, Yasin gets some curry powder and pours it in. Hey presto, the leak stops. I love Africa.
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| Yasin fixing leak in truck's radiator with curry powder, Garsen-Malindi road |
In Malindi, Yasin does not want to trust my GPS and goes his own route. We get stuck on a tiny muddy track in the dark and I have to unload the bike there. Yasin laboriously reverses, narrowly avoiding electrical wires dangling above. The last I hear of him is the sound of glass breaking as he squeezes past trees.
In Malindi, I spend a couple of days with Asif, a mechanic and one of the many Hindus who have lived on this coast for generations. He helps me try to diagnose the bikes problems and when not doing that we go to the beach and chew Mira - very similar to Chat but using the pink bark of the plant instead. I get to know his family quite well and spend time chatting with his mother who used to live in Bradford and cooks me tuna curry. In the end I know that the problem is not the wiring and that I just need to get to Nairobi. Asif won't accept payment. I thank him warmly and get myself on the hellish overnight bus to the capital, leaving instructions to truck the bike the following day.
I get my taxi-driver friend Njoki to pick me up at dawn from the Nairobi bus station and return me to Jungle Junction. There I struggle with booking last-minute flights and visas for Azerbaijan. I have decided to go visit my friend Julieta who is arriving there from Iran while Chris diagnoses my bike and parts are shipped.
So my holiday from my holiday is a surreal blur of airports and sleeper trains across the Caucasus. Cutting edge architecture in oil-rich Baku and desolate seaside resorts on the Azeri coast. They love their rules here. Everywhere officials say 'no!' if you want to cross the road, walk on the grass, hire a car, ride the apparently functional funicular, drink your coffee not at a table or just drink coffee without buying a cake... On their maps, Armenia is missing. In the gorgeous Heydar Aliyev Centre there are t-shirts and phone cases idolising the president and a sumptuous multimedia presentation of all the wonderful things he has done for Azerbaijan.
Wine-sipping and wanders in Tblisi, the text that makes me think of Thailand, the incensed-filled churches with their paintings and chanting, a swooping ride to the mountains on a tiny scooter and fruit trees and pebbles in Batumi. I make a mental note to return for a trekking holiday in the stunning Caucasian peaks and wind up in Trabzon in Northeast Turkey before flying back to Nairobi.
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| Heydar Aliyev Centre, Baku, Azerbaijan |
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| Flame Towers, Baku, Azerbaijan |
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| Bilgah beach, Azerbaijan |
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| Julieta, Bilgah beach, Azerbaijan |
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| Bilgah beach, Azerbaijan |
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| Presidential car, Heydar Aliyev Centre, Baku, Azerbaijan |
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| Heydar Aliyev Centre, Baku, Azerbaijan |
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| Heydar Aliyev Centre, Baku, Azerbaijan |
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| Painting in St George Armenian Cathedral, Tbilisi, Georgia |
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| Tbilisi, Georgia |
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| Greater Caucasus Mountains, Kazbegi, Georgia |
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| Greater Caucasus Mountains, Kazbegi, Georgia |
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| Mtsvane Kontskhi beach, Batumi, Georgia |
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| Mtsvane Kontskhi beach, Batumi, Georgia |
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| Trabzon, Turkey |
Meanwhile in Nairobi.... my parts have of course gotten lost in the postal system and I have to ferret them out in an office in the CBD. Again I have to turn on the charm to avoid import duty. I spend time with Njoki, my Kikuyu taxi driver and she tells me about life in Nyeri and Kikuyu customs. For example, her name means 'the returned child' and is what a girl is called when a previous girl child dies. But then the name also comes from grandparents and so somewhere back in her ancesters an elder sister died, that's all she knows. She tells me whenever someone in Nairobi talks to her in Kikuyu they are trying to con her and now she doesn't even reply to them.
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| Kasarani, Nairobi |
I go to Karioko market in search of Maasai jewelry and get sidetracked by the guys making sandals from old tyres.
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| Karioko Market, Nairobi |
With the bike finally (finally?!) fixed I take a trip up to Lake Naivasha. Njoki comes along for the first day and we wander around Crater lake.
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| Njoki, road to Naivasha |
Inexplicably we forget our helmets but decide it will be OK for the short ride to the park. It is not. A policeman pulls us over and tells us we will pay $30 fine each. I ask him if there is "something we can do" and he takes me behind the truck where I offer him the $1 that Njoki says is the normal bribe she pays. However, he isn't going to take this from a Mazungu and waves $2 from his wallet in my face to show how little he needs my stingy bribe. Njoki negotiates in kiswahili with him and offers her phone number, which apparently works most of the time. He is actually just about to accept, but then I, not understanding the conversation, offer him $5 and he grudgingly accepts that. As we ride off, Njoki says, "Oh yes, he is a Somali, they are always difficult."
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| Crater Lake Park, Naivasha |
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| Njoki, Crater Lake Park, Naivasha |
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| View from Crater Lake Park, Naivasha |
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| Crater Lake Park, Naivasha |
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| Crater Lake Park, Naivasha |
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| Black and White Colobus monkeys, Crater Lake Park, Naivasha |
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| Crater Lake Park, Naivasha |
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| Njoki, Crater Lake Park, Naivasha |
With all the wildlife around, the subject of evolution comes up. Njoki is not convinced. "So the monkeys will eventually become humans?" she asks. She is a proper Christian and believes God created man from mud. She also listens to Mariah Carey. She thinks being gay is a choice.
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| Vervet monkey stealing our butter, Crater Lake Park, Naivasha |
I stay at the gorgeous Kilimandege Sanctuary, a 1920s villa set in an 80 acre wildlife park. I have a huge room right on the lake. Absolute serenity and bliss...
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| Kilimandege Sanctuary, Naivasha |
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| Waterbucks, Kilimandege Sanctuary, Naivasha |
Joseph, who runs the place has meticulously restored the house from when it fell into disrepair following the murder of its owner, the conservationist Joan Root and his own inventiveness and passion for the place and its animals is inspiring.
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Kilimandege Sanctuary, Naivasha
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| Kilimandege Sanctuary, Naivasha |
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In the night I see giraffes glide by like silver ghosts and one night when I return, I catch a hippo in my headlight. They come ashore to graze at night. "No need for a lawnmower here!" says Joseph
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| Kilimandege Sanctuary, Naivasha |
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| Hell's Gate Park, Naivasha |
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| Hell's Gate Park, Naivasha |
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| Hell's Gate Park, Naivasha |
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| Hell's Gate Park, Naivasha |
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| Hell's Gate Park, Naivasha |
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One evening as I ride around the lake, a cyclist comes out from behind a bus and there's no time, I simply hit him. It is surreal to see him bounce off the front wheel of my bike... Thankfully I was not going that fast and we both just have scratches. I ask him if he is OK and he says "Blood is coming out from my arm" and he wants money to go to the doctor. I say he just needs to clean it and it will be fine. Then he says he wants 100 bob ($1) to repair his bike. The bike is clearly undamaged but I give him $2 anyway. It's the first accident in the ten month trip. I feel shaken for the next few hours.
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| Mt. Longonot |
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| Lake Naivasha, Kilimandege Sanctuary |
On to Lake Baringo. It gets hot after the mild weather of Nairobi and Naivasha. The landscape is spectacular. Robert's camp near the little settlement of Kambi ya Samaki is another slice of bliss. I camp just next to the water's edge, all fringed with lilies and watch the kingfishers diving, the wading birds with their darting movements catching tiny fish. I walk into the village, all eyes on me and buy some rolls from one house and some bananas from another. A mad person rants at me from his stoop. In the night I hear the strange groans and snorts of hippos tearing at the grass around my tent. The creatures are the second heaviest mammals after elephants and one of the most dangerous - they kill more people than sharks or big cats or snakes but thankfully they leave me in peace. In the morning I see what I think are logs floating in the water a few metres away from me. They turn out to be a family of hippos and I watch them for hours memerised.
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| Lake Baringo |
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| Robert's Camp, Lake Baringo |
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| Robert's Camp, Lake Baringo |
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| Kambi Ya Sumaki, Lake Baringo |
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| Robert's Camp, Lake Baringo |
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| Robert's Camp, Lake Baringo |
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| Hippos, Robert's Camp, Lake Baringo |
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| Another animal stealing my butter, Robert's Camp, Lake Baringo |
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| Hippo, Robert's Camp, Lake Baringo |
Another breakdown on the way to Kisumu. This time I figure out that it is rainwater caught in the connections to my fuel pump from the downpour overnight and once I dry it out all is well. Two kids watch me as I work. I give them some nuts which they devour hungrily. They do not say thank-you and it feels like Ethiopia again. Onwards and a section near Eldoret of homicidal trucks and matatus. Why is it they sit lazing under a tree all day but when they get behind a wheel they are so impatient?
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| Road to Kisumu from Baringo |
Kisumu feels very edgy. Everywhere there are security guards and iron bars. I arrive soaked from the rain and decide not to camp as planned but go to "Sooper Guest House" which is far from super. The WiFi is being weird. "There is a problem with the Somali internet" they tell me. What is this thing about the Somalis?? I venture out gingerly to the smokey fish shacks by the lake and eat Samaki and greens in the curious little cages. I listen to the same show from lots of different TVs all echoing each other. I tear the fish apart with my fingers and the waitress tells me "you really know how to eat fish"
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| Fish shack on Lake Victoria, Kisumu |
I wander slowly out to Hippo point.
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| Sign on road to Hippo point, Kisumu |
and find a big party going on. All the locals are here eating chips and getting drunk. I find a space by the shore and stare out across the lake.
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| Party at Hippo Point, Kisumu |
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| Hippo Point, Kisumu |
Once it is dark I get a Boda-Boda back to town and find an eatery for Kuku (chicken) pilau.
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| Eatery, Kisumu |
I ponder my bike whose front wheel is not turning freely and from which a disturbing grating sound is coming. I just want a few days with no bike issues - is that too much to ask?
In the end I decide to backtrack all the way to Nairobi to deal with it. Chris suggests the cush drive which is a bit wobbly and I fix it, African style, by cutting up an inner tube and packing the drive with carefully cut pieces. I also replace the bearing which is very slightly worn. Bingo! The noise is gone.
Next morning, as I am weaving my way across Nairobi, I am doing as all motorbikes do and riding along the pavement when disaster strikes. I catch a lamppost with my pannier and fall into the side of a queued car. Of course, being my luck, it is not one of the many dented and abused vehicles that adorn Nairobi's streets but instead a fairly new Subaru and the gouge in its bodywork does not not look pretty. I negotiate with the driver and pay a hefty price. My smashed windscreen can be glued and my pannier hammered but not so easy with a new car...
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| Accident, Nairobi |
I am so ready to leave Kenya, despite some magical and beautiful moments and I speed off to Kisumu and the Ugandan border. A brief stopover at the lovely Dunga point.
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| Dunga Camp, Kisumu |
..and a brief battle with a persistent tout at the border and an odd moment where I mistake the Ugandan customs for the Kenyan and I am away. Country number 70 greets me with lush padi fields that remind me of Northern Vietnam. Hopefully here I can get my momentum back.
