I know that this is a slightly generic title but with everything that has happened and the fact that I am now just crossing into Tanzania I thought I would just sum up the last ten days.

However you chose to look at the Kenyan section of our journey you can’t say that it has been uneventful. From the second we reached the border between Ethiopia and Kenya, life changed! In many respects it has been considerably easier and more enjoyable, but it has also been logistically and bureaucratically considerably more difficult. In stark contrast to Ethiopia where people both old a young incessantly demand money and stand open palmed expectantly, the Kenyans have been far more ‘Mzungu savi’. Mzungu is the Swahili word for ‘white person’, and is used primarily passively to simply identify and announce us as we pass through towns and villages. It also has a slightly darker, rarer and more aggressive implication of resentment when it comes to money! In general though, the Kenyans have grasped something that the Ethiopians still lack, the understanding of making a ‘Mzungu’ feel welcome and at ease. The more aggressive and demanding the Ethiopians got regarding money, the tighter we held on to it!

The difficulty started when we tried to pay for our Kenyan Visa’s using Kenyan Shillings. To me it doesn’t seem a totally preposterous concept paying for a Kenyan visa, in Kenya, using the Kenyan currency! Well according to the border official I am living in a dream world and he proceeded to laugh out loud as he explained (as he unequivocally believed to be true) that no matter what country you went to in the world you could ONLY buy visas in US Dollars. We did try to explain that this was simply not the case and we even tried to show him the payment stamp from other visas in our passports but he was adamant that the answer was the US Dollar. We managed to muster enough emergency dollars to pay him and make it safely into Kenya. Once there however, our cycling came to an abrupt end! As we pushed our bikes up the hill we were informed by the local police that we were not allowed to cycle the first couple of hundred Kilometers from the boarder as they were completely ruled by bandits, and the government had no law or control over the area (it was this region that saw the majority of the bloodshed back in February). It all sounded a little melodramatic to me as he explained that even vehicles had to leave in convoy, but sure enough the next day the convoy assembled on the edge of town.

The main road between Kenya and Ethiopia! (Not our image)

In light of this we got onto a very old and tired looking blue bus with a Chelsea Football Club crest on its side and a couple of guards with large riffles joined us as a routine safety precaution. Just as we were preparing to leave two Japanese and a Finnish backpacker jumped on the bus and we headed off for another ridiculously long and bumpy journey. Along our 200km bus journey, we passed through numerous villages whereby the driver put his foot flat to the floor in a bid to get through as quickly as possible (and to not be shot at!!), maybe they weren’t being melodramatic after all!.

I have to admit that the drivers here in Kenya are some of the worst in the world, they make even the Nepalese look like fully qualified BSM driving instructors! So much so, that about 20km after we got off the bus the driver flew off the road (sorry dirt track) and rolled the bus over. We actually only found this out when we coincidently ran into the two Japanese and Finnish backpackers again in Nairobi some days later. They didn’t seem too badly hurt, and although we saw the vehicle in the ditch we never looked closely enough at it to realize it was our bus!

Next, we stayed with the Umoja Uaso Women’s Group, next to the Ngiro River in the Samburu region of Northern Kenya. Samburu women are among the most marginalized groups in Kenya. Development has been slow to reach the area and education is often not easily accessible. Furthermore, women have a low status in the community and are the last to receive the few resources available. Within this context, many women are subject to severe mistreatment by their husbands. Faced with continual abuse, these women opt to leave their husbands. Another example of the discrimination and ill-treatment that Samburu women have faced is the alleged rape of approximately 1,400 Samburu women during the 1980s and 1990s by British soldiers from training bases in the area. Many of these women were subsequently shunned by their husbands. Whether they leave their husbands or are abandoned by them, the women are left as sole providers for themselves and their children. In 1990, 15 women formed and registered the Umoja Uaso Women’s Group with the then Ministry of Culture, Heritage and Social Services to address these issues. They started by selling beadwork and other goods. After facing threats from men jealous of their success, the members decided to found a women-only village and reside together, thus providing collective security and cooperation. The group also dedicated itself to informing women about their rights, their health (for example, by encouraging pregnant Umoja residents to receive prenatal care), and helped them start income-generating activities, (one of which being the campsite in which we stayed). As the group’s members prospered, more and more women joined. UUWG now has 48 members, and continues to strive to achieve its goals.

Samburu Women (Not our image)

During our stay by the river, (in a part of Kenya that normally sees next to no rain), we were woken in the early hours of the morning by our tent gradually being engulfed in water. As the river had risen 2 metres in one night from the rainfall! The next major event was when our camera was stolen in Nairobi. Incidentally I’m glad to say that we have found a temporary solution at least and I now have a new camera to continue the journey with. I’m not sure how many of you have ever tried doing a police report in Kenya but its not quite as simple going to the police station and reporting the theft, Ohhh no. We were relatively lucky with our experience but its more a case of the police commissioner saying something along the lines of “What a terrible tragedy, why don’t you take me out for lunch and tell me all about it and I’ll think about giving you a report!” In any case the whole event was completely overshadowed by the phone call telling us that Katie had to fly back immediately.

The raging Ngiro River

For those of you who’s African geography is up to scratch who will know that the country I am about to cross into, Tanzania, is home to the ‘roof of Africa’, Mt. Kilimanjaro … here I come!

Well as you are all aware now, Katie has returned home for her operation and after considerable deliberation we decided that I should stay out here and finish the journey. The last few days have been difficult for everybody and I just wanted to thank you all for the support you have given Katie since she got back. Just to add to the already complicated situation we have had the video camera that we are using to document the journey stolen!!! This in it’s self has caused us a major headache logistically. I can’t carry on without it and we have no idea how long the insurance company will take to get us a new one. In any case we are working furiously to try and solve the problem and I’ll let you know as soon as a solution presents itself. I also noticed that loads of people have emailed complaining about the security code on the comments not working so I have removed it, very sorry about the inconvenience.

In the mean time I thought I would tell you about the ‘African Way’!!! So what is the ‘African Way’? Well it would be slightly presumptuous of me to generalize all of the following as endemic to all of Africa but I can certainly say that they all have happened in varying forms along the journey so far!

The first of these phenomenons is that everything is done in ‘African Time’! African Time is a concept that was specifically designed to drive you completely crazy if you let it. In England if you happen to be one of the ‘cool’ gang you turn up fashionably late to events. Personally I find it discourtesy to turn up late (even if it is cool) but I can understand arriving half an hour late or so to a function as that is your prerogative. Over here however the meaning of ‘fashionably late’ is taken to a whole new level, in fact I would go as far as to say it is just plain ridiculous. If you arrange to meet somebody at a given time (as we did a short while back) you would expect them to turn up some time vaguely resembling the agreed one… not a bit of it! Everything happens at least 1-2 hours late and if you make provisions for this, it will turn into 3 or 4. It’s truly unbelievable that people turn up to meet us 5 hours late without batting an eyelid!!!

The next ‘African Way’ I would like to introduce you to is the law of subtraction! This is the simplest of all rules and it dictates that by African standards it is always better to remove parts (or modify parts) rather than add them. OK so this doesn’t sound too bad on the face of it but let me give you a small insight into the kind of thing I am talking about. A few days ago a nut fell of my bike (again) and I had to push it to the
nearest village (again) to get a spare. I went to a bike repair shed, pointed out the problem, asked for a replacement nut and went to the shop next door to buy a bottle of water. When I came back I found the man hitting my bike with a hammer! I let out a yelp and rushed over to find that instead of simply adding a nut like I asked he had hit the end of the bold with his hammer so hard that it had splayed out and jammed itself into its slot never to be removed. He then sat open handed with his toothless grin waiting for me to pay him for his ‘fantastic service’. My burning desire to hit him was increased exponentially as he tried to charge me for the use of his hacksaw when I tried to cut the bold out! This rule is basically true for all things. I have seen fixes going on in workshops that would quite literally make you stand and stare a gasped! I was discussing this phenomenon recently and I was told a story about a man who’s brake pads (on a car) were completely worn down and instead of getting new ones he simply padded them out with cardboard and was upset when he was pulled over by the police with flames pouring out the side of the wheel!!! They start with the smallest of problems and instead of fixing it properly, they make the problem exponentially worse with each ‘fix’!

Whilst I am on the topic of mechanical fixes I thought you might like to have a short run down of all the parts we have been through since we started our journey one month ago. This is partly due to the fact that in order to make the parts affordable for local people they are produced in China at a less than perfect standard. The other day when we were repairing her rear wheels first puncture we were amazed to find 5 other repair patches on the inner tube! Quite amazing considering we bought her brand new wrapped in bubble wrap and card board!!!

Inner tubes x 3
Puncture Repairs x 9
Chains x 5
Brake cables x 2
Brake cable sheaths x 2
Brake pads x 4
Wheels x 1
Steering column x 1
Saddle post x 1
Rear sprocket x 1
Peddles x 2
Whole bikes x 1
And counting….

The next ‘African Way’ is the statement ‘I think this is not possible’. I have now heard this statement so many times that it has begun to make me laugh. In retrospect I think this statement is trying to say one of three things; either ‘I can’t be bothered because it sounds like hard work!’, ‘I have no idea’ or ‘I genuinely don’t believe this can be achieved’. The latter of these meanings is only used, I think, when ever I tell anybody what I am doing. This statement seems to be a standard default statement when ever I ask a question that requires a person to actually help. Just a few days ago I tried to draw some money out of an ATM but was faced with a message on the screen saying that the machine was currently out of service. So I asked the security guard where the nearest ATM that worked was. He looked at his watch, made a deep and purposeful noise as he sucked air through his tightened lips and promptly said ‘I think this is not possible for you to get there today’. Being only 9 am on a Tuesday in a major city I was perplexed by the statement. The only rational reasoning I could conclude to this when I found the next ATM no more than 250m away, was simply that he couldn’t be bothered to get up out of his seat, walk to the street corner to point to it.

Of course the ‘African Way’ drives me completely crazy but it does have a certain charm in its own special way, you simply have to accept it and let it go over your head.

From Shashameme we detoured from our cycle journey and headed East to visit the magnificent Bale Mountains, home to the Ethiopian Wolf! We have been repeatedly advised that we will not be able to cycle this route on our particular model of bicycles, and thank goodness we actually listened and took the coach as the 158km journey took us over 9 hours. We had expected the journey to take 3 hours and so we came poorly prepared with food and drink for the journey, and having not bought a seat on the bus the day before (we were not aware we need to at this point) we were left seating next to the driver on cushions. It was a pretty unpleasant journey! The only saving grace was the scenery we passed along the way, probably some of the most stunning scenery I have seen any where in the world.  We arrived in Goba at 3.30pm and we set about trying to find a way of getting to the top to visit the Sinatta plateau. There was a dirt road running up to the plateau (the highest road in Africa I believe, as the plateau sits at 4300 meters) however, it was void of traffic. By 5 the sun was beginning to set and we were finally blessed with a lift to the top in the form of a gravel truck. We climbed on board and made our selves comfortable on the bags of grit and put on our jackets, as the air temperature was going to get pretty nippy as we rose up the mountain, and sat back to enjoy the view. Within 500 meters of setting off the truck stopped and 50 or more locals piled on with all their bags, tinned sardines had more room! Half way up the mountain as dusk drew on, Tarka asked the only passenger who new a few words of English (he was a zoologist in the region) why some of the passengers on the truck carried riffles. He said 2 reasons, the first is that there are bandits up on the plateau which kill people! Filled us with confidence for our nights bush camping! Secondly, to protect themselves from Tigers! I assume he meant lions but still I was skeptical that there were lions, the Bale mountains were Ethiopia’s trekking region so surely there were no large carnivores roaming around. A few minutes later in the last of the light we drove straight passed two lioness out for their evening prowl! We were excited, shocked and slightly apprehensive about tonights camping and tomorrows hike!

When we finally reached the top of the plateau at about 8pm, the truck dropped us off and suggested we walked 10 minutes (with the light of our one head torch) west and we should find a hut with two mountain rangers inside with guns. He implied that if we made camp there then they could protect us if we need it. It was below freezing and so we took off at a run in a bid to make it in 5 minutes until we could get into our sleeping bags and by the same token half our chance of being attacked by lions! Although somewhat surprised to see us merge out of the night, the rangers greeted us with a grunt and wave and went back to their fire as we set up camp. Despite being below freezing it was the best nights sleep we both have had since we left home, maybe we are better suited to the cold regions after all!

We rose early in a bid to see all the wolves outside our tent at first light, but instead we just got thick mist! A little annoyed we set off walking to keep warm. We walked for 4 hours before we saw are one and only Ethiopian Wolf. Despite its grand title, if you picture in your mind an image of the good old British fox, then you have got it in one!! We walked 30 km in all to get back down the mountain to Goba and now 3 days on I am still in pain from the walk…

The return journey by bus is hard to put into words. We bought the last two tickets available the day before travel, and arrived  at the bus station  as requested for 4am to prepare for a 5am departure. When we got there we were by no means the first and the gates were locked! By 5am the gates to the station were still locked and the number of people gathering at the gate had reached a few hundred. When someone finally arrived with a key the place became mayhem. Men, women, children and the elderly made a surge for the bus with such violence you would have thought they where racing to win a 1 million dollar bill!! we were quick enough to make it onto the bus but no where near quick enough to make a seat. There must have been 100 or so of us on this one particular bus, but only 60 seats and brawls were going on left right and center. No one on the bus spoke a word of English, but one boy did indicate I could have his seat for money. I bellowed back that “I booked and paid for my seat yesterday and that I was not getting off this bus until I was given a seat”, the boy just carried on his business. I then started with the bus workers, who not only didn’t understand my rage but just flatly ignored me!We were being shoved kicked and elbowed from all sides. I stood in protest refusing to budge an inch until I got my seat! After a further 30 mins of ciaos the boy again offered his seat for 5 Birr (25pence …ish). It was only when we had sat down and watch the madness going on around us that I realized that all the young lads who had got to the bus first had no intention of ever leaving the bus station, they where just earning a few extra pennies selling a seat to some one who had ALREADY bought and booked a seat!!!

The journey back was longer, hotter and generally more miserable than the outward journey and when we finally were reunited with our bicycles (Herbert and Flashdance), it was blissful. The open road, space, fresh air and the peace and quite. I will not be swapping my bike for a bus again in a hurry…even for a detour!!!