Kenya

August 7th cont.

So we got to the border and it was all relatively painless although when I was doing Rhubarb they were trying to get me to pay $84.  This is the amount of vehicle tax for a five axle truck for the journey to Moyale in the north of Kenya on the Ethiopian border and is clearly marked on a poster on the wall.  After a couple of, "No it's not, it's $40" calmly and persistently on my my behalf they relented.  The $40 for cars was clearly marked on the wall too.  They could have tried to be subtle and just charged for a two or three axle job and I might not have noticed.  Naughty boys.

We drove on to Nukuru making the days journey 439km in eight hours of the weirdest tar road I've ever driven - except the potholes in Mozambique.  Oh they weren't weird they were c–.  The road's foundations can't have been built properly because the tar has become deeply rutted.  It has a really strange appearance - almost as if it has melted into wave shapes.  In some sections the waves go forwards and backwards creating a sort of choppy sea effect.  The main problem is the wheels gain and lose traction - they catch sometimes and spin the steering wheel left or right.  Overtaking is a problem as the ruts are so deep that traversing them to change lanes is sometimes impossible.  Not much fun when you're stuck in the wrong lane with a convoy of traffic approaching.  When we passed Eldoret (ex-President Moi's hometown) things got better as new road was being built.  However, they clearly haven't learnt their lesson as on the new tar (it's so new the chippings are still there and the lanes haven't been painted) the new ruts are already evident.

When we got to Nukuru I was dead beat and sulking.  We stayed in the Midland (Middle of the road, literally) Bland Hotel.  I might have added an adjective for effect there.  We went out wandered the streets a bit and had something to eat.  The commerce and stuff available to buy on the streets in just this little town is a big step up from anywhere since Dar.  Mind you as Lonely Planet proclaims it is the fourth biggest town in Kenya it must be quite the metrop.  LP describes it thus, "A perfectly pleasant place to stay for a few days."  You would have to be really short on alternatives to even consider it.  Maybe Tete in Moz. would keep me in Nukuru.

Jo went to bed and I decided to have a drink in the hotel bar.  I played five games of pool and lost all of them to the same guy.  W0 L5.  Luckily when he'd suggested a wager I halved it to just a beer.  Well done him.  Not so well done me - I think I only potted a maximum of four balls each game and only potted two in a row once.  Dirty, bastard Kenyan roads were to blame I'll warrant.  (Note to self to stop talking like Flashman, the knave and blackguard that he is.) 

I went and sulked at the bar and read an excellent book on Japan written by an anthropologist.  It's facinating, the Japanese are such a distinct race and culture, a similar development to the similarly island bound British but in so many more ways totally and utterly different.  Ta for that one da'.  Anyway, as anyone who has ever tried to read in peace in quiet with a beer in the evening - it's never long before someone comes and bothers you.  Generally they interrupt with one of these totally interesting gambits; 

"Oh, what are you reading, you like your enjoying it." – Yes I was, until you bothered me.

"Ooh, I could never read a book in a bar there's just too many distractions." – Yes there many distractions, mostly banal idiots like yourself.

Then there's the shrill ugly woman whose line is very similar to the ugly cheap hooker so I shall include them both,

"Awww hun are you lonely and bored there, reading all by yourself?  Do you want some company?"  –  No, you're the lonely one and you're just boring me.  Or if it's the shrill and ugly woman simply – Fuck Off.

This evening I got a bit of a treat.  I never got his name but he asked me something about the cricket score which I didn't know.  He was middle aged and English.  He sounded fairly well to do and wearing a tan blazer thing so I thought he might have a brain.  Turns out I was wrong as his eyes just glazed over when I explained the premise of the book.  He asked what brought me to Kenya and I explained our little trip - now perfectly convinced he was almost wanting to interfere with my bottom.  He then asked me,

–  What does your father do?

–  I'm sorry what relevance has that got?

–  A friend of mine's son is doing charity work around here.

–  Well I'm not I'm driving from Cape Town to England as I explained.

–  Oh, okay then, I just thought you might be his son.

Yeah sure.  Anyway it turns out he was getting married to a local woman the following morning.  My book now a distant memory I asked him how he met her.  He rambled on for a bit and told me;

–  Well I guess you could call me a born again Christian fundamentalist.  I was a just a bricklayer when I met my wife and I guess I feel sorry for her that she didn't get what she expected.  I now run a commune in Wales, we care for children and breed sheep to sustain it.  (Do Church people never learn!)  I met Joy on an American Christian Dating service a couple of months ago and now here we are getting married in the morning.  So err, where do your beliefs lie?    

I was drowning so good were my options for retort at this point, - I mean he'd described himself as a Christian Fundamentalist, who doesn't want to have a go at one of them?  Well, you're clearly a fucking nutter mate!  - was dismissed as too rude so I opted for the truth.  I offered something to do with being closer to Hitchins than Dawkins due to Hitchins being a bit more agro, I got a bit of intellectual stuff in, even using the Japanese since they were to hand as an example (How do explain the early development of such populations as Japan without reference to Jesus and God?  -  Well the population of Japan isn't very big.  120 million not big?  Well it didn't used to be very big.  Twice as big as Britain 500 years ago?) 

Any was really quite intellectually rude well just rude.  It predictably all went way above his head and as he was getting married in the morning I suppose he didn't deserve to be upset unduly.  Although when he gets back to the cult, I mean commune, in a few days he'll have carte blanche to poison a load of kids' minds.  Actually, maybe I should have made him cry.  Him and what he represents, what ever the creed of the fundamentalist beliefs him or his relations represent, ruin lives on a grand scale.  They are responsible for most of the violent deaths in our international landscape these days, one way or another.  Should I lay off him just to save the jobs of a few of our poor, poor television news producers and presenters?

He was also totally obsessed with mosquitos and malaria which I found bizarre.  He was worried that every single bite meant a death sentence of instant cerebral malaria.  I found this all the more bizarre as he so clearly has god on his side.   Oops, missed some punctuation there.  I told him Nukuru has has particularly violent outbreaks of malaria this year and he nervously bid me goodnight, probably to download kiddy porn until morning.

August 8th

We drove the remaining 150km to Nairobi which wasn't very nice.  Cars overtaking coming head on towards you at 100km/h forcing you into the hard shoulder, thick fog with visibility down to just 100m, that kind of thing.  We found a hotel and Jo got her hair coloured orange at a salon.  Apparently, it wasn't deliberate.  We watched the Springboks win, (now, there's a collection of bad hair, perhaps without parallel) and had a really good Italian meal which was really unexpectedly very good.

raised a glass of bubbles to various friends of ours who got married in the last few days.  Not the mentalist bloke, however.

August 9th

Went out to look for a jacket for me.  Failed.  Went out to get Jo's hair coloured to something approaching normality and succeeded.  I found another Flashman novel which pleased me no end.  I must stop talking like that.  Then we went out to Carnivore Restaurant.  It's a Nairobi institution and meant to be very good.  A load of meat is cooked over open flame and brought to you at your table.  When you can't eat anymore you turn your flag over at the table.  It's also meant to have a load of wacky game animals to eat too.  It wasn't very good though.  Compared to many similar places in Rio with amazing food and better views it was dreadful.  Compared to the place in Maputo with no views but great food it was just poor.  And more expensive than either.  It holds maybe 400+ people and $75 for two with only a bottle of water to drink is ridiculous for what we had; an out of the packet pork sausage, a chicken drumstick, slices of dry lamb, beef and turkey with a pork rib and baked potato on the side.  It obviously makes it name on bussing huge groups in at a time, the tour organisers taking a kick back and selling cheap crap quickly.  It's next to an airport too so it's not like there's ambience.  Anyway left there and went back to the hotel to nap.  We have some really bad roads ahead of his full of banditry and riots according to the news, but whatever.  Rhubarb is going to get a snorkel tomorrow - I haven't told Jo yet as she is adamant they're ugly but I've emptied at least 4kg of dust out of our one month old air filter in the last two weeks.  Rhubarb is like a wheezy old man on the roads at the moment and we have a couple of deserts to cross in the middle of summer.  Oh and a monsoon season in Ethiopia.  Nice timing d&J.

On the Subject of My Sister

Apparently I have one.  I can't really place her face but apparently she exists.  Don't even start to ask me her name though.  

August 10th

Found the snorkel was going to be too much money and failed to buy a jacket again.  We drove a fairly easy 300km to Isiolo where the tar was said to run out.  Only it ran out 30km before the town as they're building a new road and have dug all the other stuff up.  Had a bite to eat and wandered around a really dark, dusty - almost frontier town.  No water as there is a massive drought on.  There were a couple of thousand army bods around too - maybe something to do with the riots and killings in town the last few weeks - or the Ethiopian militia we'd seen on TV the previous night that are operating in the area.

August 11th

The tar started again as they are planning to build the road the whole 500km to the border.  We had 40km of new tar and then 30km of recently graded dirt.  Then 180km of the worst corrugations ever.  258km = 6.5 hours.  Got to the only hotel in town that we could find and found out it was a muslimist place.  Our dirty toilet of a room was opposite the mosque.  We went out to a bar and chatted to some mental locals 'til late and then went back to our room with a bottle of vodka and a ham sandwich.

This is called the Trans - East African Highway on the maps.

Some handsome chap playing pool...                                                                          ....and being throttled for his efforts.

  Our room...

...and what we thought of it.

August 12th

The corrugations stopped and turned to deep rocky ruts.  Possibly worse than the day before.  Driving through an arid rocky desert for 5 hours with the carcasses of dead cattle all over.  It was actually quite beautiful at times, especially the line of camels stretching to the horizon at one point.  The last 130km were on nice smooth dirt so we could do a steady 90km/h.  Still 254km, in 6.5 hours is a slog.

We hit Moyale and the border crossing to Ethiopia... 

More of the Trans - East African Highway

Camels, innit?