Karibu Kenya…!!!

Zach and David Owens bid me farewell...

Mount Meru was swathed in cloud, and a light rain was falling when I woke. We had enjoyed a wonderful dinner prepared by Judi the night before, and after a round of coffee, I had headed off to bed and slept without waking until after 6.30am…

David and I spent the morning chatting about the effects of his work as a Pastor here in Tanzania. He has certainly led an interesting life! Born in Switzerland, educated in Wales, hitchhiked around Europe at the age of 16, lived in Canada and Australia, and now resident in Tanzania… A sea change from what he has been used to, but enjoying every bit of it!

We discussed the various methods that had been used by Aid Agencies and the Church in previous years, to assist the less fortunate here in Africa, and compared them to the latest, fresher approaches being used…

Entrance to The Outpost Lodge, a comfortable and centrally located hotel... It also has a reasonably well-functioning wireless internet service...

Instead of trying to imprint what the West believes Africans need, the thought process has changed in that more emphasis is being placed on what it is the Africans themselves believe they need… It quickly became clear that their needs and approaches differed to those previously “forced” upon them by well meaning individuals and agencies the world over… For instance, one of the villages wanted a basketball court, before clean and consistent water supplies!! Although this seemed like a very frivolous request, the elders of the village explained that their young men had nothing to do with their spare time, and a basketball court would keep them out of mischief!!

Zach had spent much of his time picking and strumming on a lead guitar that belonged to his sister and after listening to him for a while I asked the all important question…

“Are you familiar with the music of Mark Knopfler…?”

Flowers of the Strelitzia... These trees line the entrance to the Outpost Lodge...

Aghast at his reply to the negative, I immediately downloaded my extensive Mark Knopfler and Dire Straits collection onto his computer… Sounds of the maestro filled the living room as Zach went through some of the tracks, listening to the chords… I could see by the look on his face that in time to come, the amazing riffs of MK that so many people enjoy, will be played by Zach Owens right here in Arusha, Tanzania…

My GPS took me on a walkabout through some of the worst roads in Arusha... Needless to say, we had little to say to each other for the rest of the ride...

I spent my last night at The Outpost in Arusha, and early the following morning, set off for Kenya… It was raining again, and I debated whether or not I should get my rain gear out, but decided against it… It seemed that the rain was just part of a few isolated showers that would clear up north of the town.

I spent the first half hour trying to extricate myself from this frontier town, and by the time I finally got onto the A104, the Garmin Girl and I had “had a few words” and were no longer on speaking terms… She had taken me on what seemed like a tour of the entire town…down dirt tracks, through areas that were awash in mud and puddles of dirty water and around just about every traffic circle in Arusha… In exasperation, I finally resorted to ignoring her altogether and asked directions from half a dozen people, before managing to point the Big Fella in the general direction of the Kenyan border…

The narrow and slippery roads were a bit of a challenge, especially if you have to have the odd argument with a bus...

They have built the modern blocks of flats, but will they ever do something about the collection of rubbish generated by the occupants...

The diversions placed in my path by the unscrupulous Chinese, were a major source of irritation...

Our Chinese friends were in the process of building a new road to connect Arusha with Namanga, and for most of the ride to this border town, I was forced to endure the diversions they had made next to where the new road would finally be built. I had been told that the construction was way behind schedule, and that only 20% of it, had been completed…

I could just picture the Chinese foreman, gesticulating wildly at the “couldn’t care less Tanzanians, and saying in his best “Ingrish”… “You dere, you must dig this hole, chop-chop!! Or I go show you some King-Fu for your backside!!”

I could not understand why they had torn up most of the 105 kms to the border… Surely it would have been better to complete the road section by section, leaving the old road in situ in places where they were not working… The Chinese clearly have other ideas…

On the new stretch of road, the Big Fella could wing it...

I had to ride the long sections of gravel road at low speeds to protect the rear shock, and it took almost two hours for me to reach the border. On the completed sections, I was able to pin the throttle back and tear through the Maasai Plains at high speed, but all too soon, I would have to gear down again and leave the road to tackle another long diversion…

Luckily, I had left the rain behind me in Arusha, and did not have to contend with any slippery conditions, which would have had me riding even slower that I already had to…

What was once a relatively clean bike, now showed signs of having been through the wringer...

About halfway to the border, I looked in my side mirrors and noticed that my spare tyres were not in the same position they had been when I had left Arusha earlier that morning… I pulled over to find that I had been a little sloppy when I had tied them on… The tie straps had slipped on the tyres and were only preventing them from falling off, but not from banging about on the top-box…

Luckily they had not slipped back far enough to damage the brake light cover, but it had been a near thing… I retied everything, drank some water, and then set off again…

A long section after Longido had been completed, and I zoomed along at about 140 km/h, until a small herd of Impala went bounding across the road a short distance in front of me… That had me coming off the throttle in double quick time!! Until that point, I had only encountered goats and cattle, herded by “down-in-the-mouth” Maasai… They neither returned my waves of greeting, nor did they crack a smile as I passed… All I got was hooded stares…  Arrogant blighters, one and all… I could see why members of the other tribes looked upon them with dislike and even scorn…

The new road cunningly comes to an end, leaving me to contemplate another 5 kms of rutted gravel... The goats and sheep just add to the fun...

The Maasai are the “postcard” tribe of East Africa, appearing in many photographs in thousands of posters and coffee table books, yet in their own country (and certainly in Tanzania) the people I spoke to depicted them as an indolent lot, not prepared to do any kind of manual labour in order to earn a living… Apparently, the only work they are likely to show an interest in, is that of “security guard”… not the most strenuous of enterprises as we all know… (It does however allow for long periods of sleep, and I assume this is the part of the job that most appeals to the Maasai…)

They have become used to being photographed, but at the sight of a camera, the universal sign for money is made with one hand, (rubbing thumb and forefinger together!) while the other hand is waved to indicate that you should put your camera back in its pouch!!

Just before the border, a herdsman deliberately chased his flock of sheep into the road in front of me, and when I had brought the Big Fella to s stop, walked over to me and without so much as a “Jambo!” said,

“Money…” rubbing his finger together, and holding them six inches in front of my face…

I looked around to see how many of his brethren might be lurking in the bush alongside the road, and then satisfied that we were alone, decided to “mess” with him a little… I shoved my right hand close to his own face and rubbing the fingers together said “Money….”

He then patted his side, where a pocket would be if he had been wearing pants instead of a blanket, and said “Money…” again…

So I patted my side pockets and said, “Money…” back to him…

Then he patted his stomach and said “Food…”

So I patted my stomach and said, “Food…” all the while grinning widely at him…

In exasperation, he took a step back, put his hand on his hip, and let forth a stream of Swahili, while shaking his stick in my direction, a scowl darkening his face…

I considered this for a while, and decided that if this was an example of a Maasai highwayman, then he had better come up with something a little scarier to get my attention…

I put my hand on my hip, stood up off the seat and said,

“If you try anything funny with me, my friend, you are going to need the services of a good proctologist to remove that stick from your backside…!” all the while grinning and smiling back at him…

He took a further step back, shook his head and clicked his tongue and then muttering to himself, turned away and walked after his sheep…

Presumably he was saying something like, “I have to do more work on my social skills….”

I kicked the bike into gear, and scattered his sheep as I went by, my thumb pressed firmly down on the hooter…

The greater metropolis of Namanga, gateway into Kenya, looms up ahead...

At the border, parking seemed to be as much of a problem as actually driving...

The final stretch to Namanga was particularly bad, but I made it to the front of the Immigration offices without incident, and using the little map that David had drawn for me, had no trouble in finding where I needed to go to get both passport and Carnet stamped… A short while later, I was parked outside the Kenyan Immigration office and the process of entering the country was over in what seemed like only minutes…

The Chinese were also hard at work on the Kenyan side of the border, and had torn up long sections of the original road and replaced them with even more diversions… On one of these, I came across a young guy chasing a camel, whose front legs had been hobbled, but was nevertheless making good speed, and staying ahead of its owner… It ran out onto the road, only metres in front of me, and when I stopped to take a photo, the herder became agitated and ran between me and the camel… I put my camera away and shook my head in exasperation… It was only a camel, for goodness sake!!!

Namanga Border Post, Kenya... "You can take a photo, but you must face towards Tanzania...", a soldier instructed...

Did you know…?? Kenya has the worlds fourth largest population of Camels… Now you do… A 2005 census counted almost 925 000 of these Ships of the Desert…

After about 20 kilometres of on/off road, I finally came to a new stretch of highway, and the Big Fella was given his head for the first time in what seemed like weeks… I held in the middle of the wide and smooth road surface, and watched as the Speedo climbed up past the 170 km/h mark, and then settled back to enjoy the sensation of “flying”… With Bruce Springsteen’s, “Born to Run” album thumping through my earphones, we ate up the kilometers to Athi River in what seemed like no time at all…

The Kenyan diversions were just as potholed, but just in another colour...

Then it was off-road again, and I ended up circling the Mombasa Cement Factory, before finding my way back onto a three lane highway, that took me into the capital… I was not at all sure if the GPS was taking me to where I wanted to be, and stopped at a service station to ask directions to the suburb of Karen…

I was told that I was only a short distance from the first major roundabout that would take me all the way past Wilson Airport and the Army Barracks, and would lead me close to where I wanted to be… I pulled over to the side of the road about 20 minutes later, and called Angela Gauntlett, to make sure I was in the right area…

Entering Nairobi...

I was only marginally off course, and a few minutes later I had entered her driveway and was pulling up in front of their beautiful home, set amongst what seemed like a forest of indigenous trees…

I was shown to the room that had been allocated to me, and after a hot shower, was ready to greet my host, who had been taken by surprise by my call the previous day, advising that I would be arriving in Nairobi today… It seems that she had expected me in a week or two, rather than a day after she had so very kindly offered me a bed, through Louis Barnard in Swaziland…!!

Angela returned from collecting her two delightful daughters, Gemma and Abby, from school, and I was made to feel at home within minutes…  Angela’s husband Roger arrived home from work and we enjoyed a succulent fillet steak for dinner that had been prepared on the Weber

Later that evening, Pippa, a friend of Angela’s, arrived from Johannesburg, and we all sat chatting on the patio, enjoying “long after sun-downers” until the girls went off to bed… Roger and I stayed up until after midnight, “solving problems for the rest of the world”, before we too turned in…

The Gauntlett's beautiful home, set in 5 acres of rolling lawns, manicured gardens and thick forest... Stunning combination !!

The room I slept in soon looked as though a hurricane had been through it, and before I went to bed, I tried to stack my gear as neatly as I could, and eventually gave up and hit the sack…

Karibu Kenya!!

Another flag to go onto the panniers tomorrow…