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Date: 05 Apr 2006
Time: 20:48:55 +0200
Remote Name: 66.36.203.193
We had a well-earned rest day in Marsabit, camping in a wildlife conservation park full of baboons, with the occasional herd of elephants wandering around the outskirts of camp. One interesting aspect of camping here was that the baboons enjoyed spening lots of time jumping around in the trees above us and "bombing" the tents below with baboon crap when natures calls had to be answered. Sarah's tent got bombedand she soon shifted out of firing range...The next riding leg out of Marsabit would include crossing the equator, and to mark this auspicious occasion, more or less half way through the trip, there would be an Equator toga party the night before crossing into the Southern hemisphere. Katherine and Huberte would also be hosting the "half way awards" that evening, including such categories as "loudest snorer", "fastest out of camp in the morning", "most obsessive tent cleaner" etc. In anticipation of this significant booking in the TDA social diary, many people spent a fruitful afternoon toga-shopping in Marsabit. The rest day came to a fine conclusion with a barbie in the evening - one of the few that we have had on the trip. Out of Marsabit there would be another three days of off=-road riding until Isiolo, then we would be back on pavement. The off-road from Marsabit was truly shitty - corregation across the whole road so it was impossible to find a line through, lots of sand, lots of stone. Just to spice things up one day, the Kenyan army were on manouvres and carrying out exercises such as firing live ammuntion at cardboard cutout targets by the side of the road. Rudi apparently turned round and went back when he heard gunshots. It was quite a hot day that day and when I finally managed to find a tree with some shade which didn't have half of the Kenyan army sheltering under it, I could quite easily have snoozed for a couple of hours. In the end I decided against snoozing in case they shot me by mistake. I rode the last of the off-road days to Isiolo with Ron, who had ridden all of the off-raod days and had had some very long days during this section of the trip. When we finally hit the pavement at Isiolo Wondey (our Ethioian crew member) was waiting for us with directions to camp and, more importantly for Ron, the location of a couple of shops selling ice-cream. We had some ice-cream, which I commented tasted nice to which Ron replied "you are obviously not a connoisseur" - Ron takes his ice-cream very seriously. Some people were so pleased to see pavement at Isiolo that, rumour has it, they got off their bikes and kissed the tarmac. Isiolo to Nanyuki the following day was a beautiful ride: half climbing and half fast descent as we skirted the base of a snow-capped Mount Kenya. The scenery seemed to reflect the change in road conditions - from off-road grind through arid semi-desert to pavement paradise through wheat fields ready for harvest around the base of Mount Kenya. After flying down the foothills of Mount Kenya we donned our togas in the Sportsmans Hotel for the Equator party. A fine evening, chance for everyone to let their hair down (unless they had shaved it all off) and marvel at Eddies prowess on the dance floor. The following day we crossed the Equator just a few kms out of Nanyuki and then rode on to Sagana. The days ride was through scenery which could almost be described as English countryside - open fields, large oak-type trees reminiscent of driving through Windsor Great Park. It was fairlyl evident why the Brits had decided to colonise Kenya all those years ago. We were on teh main A2 Nairobi road, so traffic was fairly heavy bit not too dangerous. The ride into Nairobi itself was split into two parts - the first part of the ride was quite hilly with big rolling hills and along a busy road that turned into a dual carriageway. The second part was the police-escorted convoy ride into Nairobi. The convoy ride was again over very hilly terrain and the rules for the police car and vehicles at the front of the group were: 20k per hour on the flat, 30,k on the downhills and 10k on the climbs. The theory was good, but in practice, the lead vehicle would drop from 30k to 10k at the bottom of the hill such that all momentum to get up the other side would be lost and it would be a slog up. Also, 10k often turned into 15k as soon as the climb began. The convoy was supposed to be around 30 - 35k into Narobi, but it turned out to be around 46k. This was over big rolliong hills, and with no break stops at all. Thankfully one of the trucks got a flat tyre, so it was possible to wolf down an energy bar and have a drink at that point. All in all, it was a fairly exhausting convoy ride for the non-racer cyclists,and I'm sure it didn't need to be that way - 46k over big rolling hills is too long without chance to refuel along the way. Thankfully there was a good spread of food laid on for us at the UPper Hill Camp site in Nairobi which lessened the unpleasantness of the convoy ride in. That afternoon the TDA also handed over somebicyles to local womens groups. It was quite a formal little ceremony, moving too, as representatives from each of the groups made a short speech on how the bicycles they had received in the past had changes their daily lives: ie, able to bring medicines to sick people in the community, able to become more independent and less reliant on outside support. The ladies groups present were all from the slums of Nairobi and they spoke very eloquently of their thanks to Tour d'Afrique for provision of so many bicycles to their groups.