Stage 8: 3 types of fun on the road to Kenya...

Dar to Nairobi; 950km, November 28th - December 10th.

Fun isn’t always fun. So Jim Blyth, a Chamonix mountain guide told me in 2010. During Type 1 fun, you enjoy both doing the activity and reflecting on it. Type 2 isn’t much fun at the time but you enjoy looking back on it. Type 3 is neither.  I explained this to my new stokers Rob Heck & Emma Watson Mack as we planned the next stage over a Kili (local beer) in Dar. Our aim was to avoid Type 3 and get close to the real Kili before Rob would have to go back to work…

Rob and Emma were friends of friends who I hadn’t met before but the conversations leading up to their visit suggested we’d get along. Rob’s background was similar to mine, but was still working in Canary Wharf. Emma, meanwhile, had enjoyed a varied career which included the British Army, farming in New Zealand; working at Goldman Sachs in London. She had parted company with the latter in the summer and was taking a few months to decide on next steps.

After taking a pick-up to avoid the lethal Monday morning rush hour out of the city, we stopped on the roadside, greeted by the usual attention from inquisitive locals. Combined with the temperature change from the London winter, it was somewhat of a culture shock for Emma & Rob as we tucked into some chipati (pancakes) to fuel up before setting off. Our aim for day 1 was to get beyond the junction at Chalinze that would take us onto the main road north to Arusha, hopefully a little quieter than the Dar road. Thankfully, a couple of near misses were just that as Rob and Emma got used to the bikes: Emma stoking the Tandem with Rob on a borrowed single Thorn from Rich Chapman, a previous Beyond the Bike stoker in Zambia.

Rob & Emma after the first night, with Isa & his wife Elizabeth

We camped the first night with the village chief Isa and his wife Elizabeth, once again being shown amazing hospitality by complete strangers. Elizabeth and her daughters worked tirelessly to brush the dirt where we would be camping and sprinkled anti-ant powder around our tent. People often ask me what is the difference between Europeans & Africans. A starting question might be to ask yourself what you would do if a feral looking African pitched up at your door asking for a place to camp? Invite them in (& consider giving them your bed!) or call the police? Sadly, I think that the answer would be more the latter than the former… Richard Downden, a pre-eminent writer on Africa reckons that ‘amidst our wealth & time pressed lives, we have lost human values that still abound in Africa’. The contrast of the last six months with my time in London would go some way to supporting that.

Getting into a routine with new travelling companions always takes a bit of time but Rob & Emma mucked in admirably and there was less faff than I was expecting. After 80km on the first day, we ended the second just shy of 100km, enjoying the rolling green countryside that had hungrily absorbed up the recent rain. Finding a friendly village to camp in that night proved slightly more complicated with several attempts in my pigeon Swahlii needed to explain that we were just seeking a safe place to camp & cook. The commotion of having 3 muzungos on strange bikes meant that our cooking got a similar audience to Saturday morning kitchen. Even with our Spanish Chorizo, a kind gift from Tom Balthwayt in Dar, I doubt that our staple of rice & vegtables would captivate many British audiences!

One of the questions that I consistently get asked is how much does Thandie weigh? So as we passed a weighbridge on day 3, we rolled off the road, much to the bemusement of the officer on duty. After some gentle persuasion, he let us stop on the bridge, with the scales topping 250kg. I’m about 85kg. My father told me never to ask a girl’s weight so I didn’t. But that little experiment was reinforced a few weeks later when Rob Ravilous and I hauled the bike onto a roadside scale in Kenya with the reading shooting above 80kgs! I’m still to be convinced however…

getting off the beaten track towards Same...

My rough aim on this trip is to try and have a decent wash at least every 3 days. With this in mind, we agreed to find a place with showers on day 3 which meant stopping in Korogwe, the main town in the shadow of the Usambaras mountains. Despite the rolling hills, the ride was made easier by the dense cloud cover which erupted into a heavy downpour mid-morning, forcing us to seek cover in  some sort of (empty) animal shelter on the side of the road. Korogwe also proved somewhat of an EU summit, as we bumped into an Italian cyclist Fabio heading into the opposite directions and also hooked up with Jeremie &Claire the French couple that I met in Malawi. Over some local food that evening, we planned to head together towards Moshi and caught up on their news since Malawi: they had enjoyed an adventurous cycle across the Selous, dived with whale sharks on Mafia and camped on a fishing boat back to the mainland. My trip sounded tame in comparison!

Fabio’s comments that it was much flatter ahead had been music to our ears. The following day, we enjoyed a relatively easy 80km on the tar, split by a prolonged lunchstop during another heavy rainstorm, before camping with the village chief of Mkomazi. Its chief warmly welcomed us to camp next to his house underneath a stunning pink flowering tree, which contrasted beautifully with the red dust, white walls & blue skies. From there, we decided, also on the advice of Fabio to take the backroad to Same.

The traffic on the back road was two legged.... 5 minutes after this shot, I collided with a pigeon at 30km/h. Sorry fella.

Although harder on the bike, it was great to get away from the traffic and enjoy some of the spectacular scenery: palm trees amidst a velvet green landscape around the xx lake. Villagers dried the maize in the sun and cleaned it in the wind, getting on with their lives peacefully. Camping that night with a young man called Ali, I felt very relaxed as Jeremie & Claire played away on their accordians under another magical African night’s sky. I reflected that on November 30^th, I was still sweating at 10pm, camping with four relative strangers in a random masai village. The same time in 2012, I’ll probably be marking economics essays trying to stay warm in my cottage in Cranleigh!

Room for one more? A lady cleans her maize in the wind

Rob had to  catch a bus back to Dar the next day so the Brits go up early and cycled the 40kms to Same, enjoying en route our final group breakfast of Chipati with Emma’s Scottish honey & Scrogren (delicious homemade trailmix). A wash down, kit faff and a beer, we bode Rob farewell as he got on the bus. We were told it would take 5 hours. 8 hours later, Rob’s text arrived: ‘Africa time’ was my reply.

The final breakfast before Rob returned home...

We agreed over that final beer that the week had been primarily type 1 & 2. Type 3 was reserved for poor Emma on the following day as we set off to cycle the 110km to Moshi: Emma riding Rich’s bike with me solo on Thandie. Pushing into a strong headwind, we managed a full 80km before lunch. The next 30 took nearly 6 hours as Emma’s lunch failed to agree with her.   To her credit, she refused to even contemplate the idea of getting on a truck and soldiered on all the way to Moshi – we arrived in the twilight, satisfied but weak and looking forward to a few days rest.

Although I’d planned to catch up on blogs & other admin (you should have been reading this in December !!), Emma was keen to visit the famous Ngorogoro Crater and generously offered me a subsidised place to join her. Two nights later we were camping with Buffalos grazing around our tents and an Elephant joined us in the camp during breakfast.  Despite plenty of other tourists there, this really is a special place, with views from the crater rim to match any I’ve seen on this continent and an abundance of game on the crater floor – I believe it has the highest density of regular game in Africa. If there is a ‘garden of eden’ on this planet, this is it, I thought as we drove out of the crater in the evening sun, having seen 4 of the big 5.

A Cheetah surveys the crater floor

An unwanted breakfast guest...

Back in Moshi, we (eventually) decided to take the back road around Kili to avoid what Andres Peres had informed me was ‘the most dangerous road in East Africa’ (from Moshi to Arusha). Tanzania was celebrating 50 years of independence as we rolled out on Dec 8th. I had organised to deliver an economics lecture at the International School in Moshi  (ISM) and it was interesting to hear some of the (older) teachers telling their personal stories of their country’s journey from Colony to sovereign state. The ISM included the American Climber turned charity guru Greg Mortenson amongst its alumni. His book ‘3 cups of tea’ that had provided some of the inspiration for this trip and the Beyond Cranleigh project. Sadly, he’s been in the news recently for the wrong reasons (misuse of charity funds etc). I hope it isn’t true but when told that he demanded $50k & a first class air ticket when invited to speak at his old school, I sensed that his saintly character portrayed in the book might not have been 100% accurate. Nonetheless I enjoyed speaking to the students and they responded with some excellent questions, putting us in high spirits as well left later that morning.

Kili from Moshi

Speaking at the ISM ... the message on the board is from Mandela: 'Education is the most powerful weapon to change the world...'

The late start meant slogging up around the eastern side of Kili in the heat of the day as we caught up with the Frenchies. Despite having Richard , a local mountain guide who could run a 1.05 half marathon, on the back, it was tough going and the next couple of days were two of the shortest on the trip as we arrived in Loitoktok on the Friday evening, having passed through the border into Kenya without any hassle. We camped in the Catholic church and enjoyed the mountain’s efforts to emerge from the clouds on the following morning as we set off towards Emali at the junction of the Mombassa road.

Claire & Emma in front of Kili... With Munyee the Masai.

Downhill and good tarmac made up for the headwind as we passed through some sparsely populated Masai countryside in between the Tsavo & Amboseli game parks. Years ago, this place would have been teeming with wildlife! The highlight of the day was probably cycling with Munyee, a local Masai elder who was walking home when we passed him. He was grateful for the 10km lift home all was going well until his cloak got stuck in the breaking system!

We just beat the night getting into Emaili and enjoyed a night’s camping at the Pentecostal church with Bishop Daniel. We met one of his protégés Lemona, a delightful 17 year old orphan educated by the church. He showed us where to find some food and helped us navigate through the town back to the mainroad in the morning.  80kms later, including my first puncture of the trip, we arrived on the outskirts of Nairobi where we were met by James, Mark Durston’s driver where I’d be putting my feet up for a couple of weeks over Christmas.

With Bishop Daniel & Lemona in Emaili... thankfully the Bishop declined my offer of a ride.

Hitting the half way mark for the trip, things had broadly gone to plan. A quick review of some of the key stats:

6500km cycled

55 different stokers from more than 15 countries

1 puncture & 1 written off support truck

More than £50k raised for Beyond Ourselves & the other charities & Kawama School’s new classrooms ready for action!

The new classrooms nearly ready after the Beyond Cranleigh October trip... I'm told they are now fully functional... photos to follow!!