Nairobi to Nanuki

June 4th, 6:29 PM

I am now sitting in my new home, my tent. Yes, I said tent.
But I’m not talking roughing it, by any means. I have a four-poster bed for crying out loud! And a wardrobe. And next door is a lovely shower with hot water all the time, Frida tells me. Frida is my… wait for it… chef. Oh how she chuckled when I asked her if she needed any help in the kitchen.

So where to begin.

I slept in due I suppose to the jet lag. I enjoyed a leisurely breakfast at the Aero Club. They have a backyard patio from which you can view the small planes landing and taking off:
I got really excited and went to fetch my camera, but unfortunately by the time I was set up Elodie had arrived, so we hit the road.

Sort of.
Let me just say that traffic in Nairobi is INSANE. I have to admit that at first I just thought Elodie was a crazy driver, but after a while I realized that you have to be aggressive to get by in that town. Town? It has 5 million people. Our first route was totally at a stand still. And Elodie picked me up in a BIG black Jeep/Land Rover/Range Rover (okay, so I am not so observant when it comes to car brands).
Big as in I would describe getting into the thing as “climbing”.

Driving through Nairobi was really interesting and cool. First of al there are tons of people out and about. Elodie said they walk everywhere. She said they can walk really long distances, and really fast. There were what I would classify as makeshift markets all over the place. For all I know though, they are permanent infrastructure.
We even passed through an extensive market area built on top of train tracks. Elodie called it the not-so-nice part of town, and someone there was blasting Shakira, which I love.

The picture below is a small market in a village we passed:
As we got further and further from the centre, I noticed lots of people on bikes. Doubling, like I had seen so many times in Cuba. Carrying large loads of I don’t know what. Huge sacks, or lots of smaller ones. Things you think would never be transportable on a bicycle that’s for sure. I saw lots of children walking often in pairs or groups, all with shaved heads, in their uniforms, little cuties. Some really tiny little kids. I also saw lots of women carrying big packages. VERY LARGE. Like bundles of firewood. I mean I learned in school that women collect firewood, sure. But I am talking like logs loaded up on the back. Or huge bundles of grass. And babies too. Though not at the same time, at least I don’t think so.
We drove and drove. I didn’t take many photos because taking them out a car window is always a disappointment. But the view was everlastingly interesting. We passed through villages. Lots of people out and about all the time. Lots and lots of people, did I mention that? The buildings were all painted in bright colours, similar to villages in Ireland, but also painted with ads everywhere.
People looked good. I don’t know, I saw a lot of people smiling at one another. I saw a father with a bunch of children, and he lifted one of them up in the air and they were laughing. I saw a man driving a donkey-pulled cart. On top of the pile of cargo on the cart was sitting a woman and she was smiling and laughing as they talked.

We stopped at an airstrip after a few hours for food (see above). Afterwards, we stopped in Nanuki for gas. Then she went inside to buy onions and told me to shut my window and lock the doors. Men came to the windows to sell sunglasses, batteries, anything you could want. I just smiled and said no thank you, but Elodie told me that she said, “Leave me alone!” to one boy and he said, “Fuck off” so then she actually chased him shouting “What the fuck did you say to me!?”

The man asked us for 30 shillings (about 50 cents) as we were leaving, for parking. Elodie told him she wouldn’t pay. As we drove off we saw that he was actually about to put a device on the wheel of the car, like a boot or something. She explained that they were probably frustrated that she never paid for parking, but she wouldn’t pay because she didn’t know where the money was going, except into his pocket.

Just as we exited the centre of town and were accelerating on the main road a woman spotted us and ran towards the car. She was middle aged, missing several teeth, and she just booted it into the middle of the road. Elodie swerved and hit the horn. But there were other cars around and she couldn’t swerve far enough. She also hit the brakes, but we were already going pretty fast. At the last minute the woman seemed to snap out of it and swerved herself. I think, although due to shock I am not sure, but I think I yelled either What the fuck, and/or Jesus Christ. We didn’t hit her. But she was close. I saw the whites of her eyes, and usually I only use that line as a joke. My hands were shaking, heart pounding. Poor Elodie was shaking and cursing. She said the woman was pissed drunk. I didn’t know what to think.
From Nanyuki to Lewa the road was bumpy. Elodie told me it was 60kms but there were huge potholes. Although I have to admit, after her description I thought they would be worse. I mean I have ridden down some roads in Costa Rica that I swear were really dried up riverbeds. Anyway did I mention that Elodie is an off-road racer? The woman has got mad driving skills.
This bus had to drive half on the shoulder to avoid the huge potholes:
We even had to swerve over to the right-hand (wrong) side of the road!
Finally inside Lewa's gates - it is very dusty because the rains didn't come: