Tailwinds to Nairobi

Habari gani? (‘What news’/‘how are you’?)

So here i am in Nairobi, sitting in an internet cafe looking out at the incrediby busy Moi Avenue. The weather is strange; cool with grey skies and a slight breeze- a bit like the highveld before a summer storm except not as hot, and with no indication of rain. The quite high levels of pollution add to the overall dusty greyness of the city, but i rather like it. Probably more like Jozi than any other city, but much more similar to Maputo.

The flights here were largely uneventful, though the same cannot be said for the rather hectic days before. The trip had an auspicious start with the pilot on the Jozi-Nairobi flight noting that we had a 100km/h tailwind - every cyclists dream! (We shall ignore the fact that it was blowing in the opposite direction to the one i will be travelling in). He was also kind enough to drop 14,000 feet so that we could get great views of Kilimanjaro- one of his reasons was that the snowcap is soon going to disappear because of global warming.... It was very impressive, and i hope that i will get to see it from ground level in a month or so.

The bike arrived largely unscathed, so a big bouquet to SAA for that - many cyclists have made plans for epic trips only to get off the flight to find their trusty steed has become a piece of scrap metal.

I was going to avoid cycling in Nairobi- especially after seeing the driving on the airport road! However, i had to take the bike in to the train station this morning to check it in for the train to Mombasa this evening and it seemed crazy to push it or take a taxi so i cycled. It wasn't too bad actually, riding on CapeTown roads during heavy traffic has been good training. In fact, the only difference here is that everyone drives like the minibus taxis ('matatus'). On the plus side, Kenya has much more of a cycling culture - in terms of using them for practical purposes rather than purely for sport.

I'm currently staying at Nairobi Backpackers, which is perfectly pleasant. However, i tire quite quickly of the many inane backpacker conversations - who really cares about Western TV programs when you're travelling? - and so i am glad to be moving on. Being around relatively experienced non-cyclist travellers is also not good for my confidence because they have travelled more in East Africa than me and yet i can see they think i'm nuts, plus they are generally quicker to highlight difficulties than positive things. You might think that this is because it is going to be very difficult, and I am slightly crazy, but I think in this context it has to do with people not accustomed to the idea of travelling great distances under one’s own steam.

So far i have found Kenyan people to be friendly and helpful - as i expected. All seem to speak English, which is good for the moment but not from the perspective of practising Swahili – which by all accounts I am going to need very often in Tanzania. Incidentally, one of the first things I looked-up in my phrasebook was equivalents of my (Swazi) second name (‘mfundza’). There are two: ‘fundi’ and ‘mfungwa’. The former comes from a similar stem to the Zulu ‘funda’ (meaning ‘to learn’) and means artisan/mechanic. The latter however means convict/prisoner! I think they are both apt, because by the end of this trip I will look like an escaped convict and should be a fairly good bike mechanic.

A large chunk of this post just vanished, so perhaps that is a sign that i should end here for the moment. Aside from a few concerns about my malaria medication (the infamous Lariam) - which I am not yet able to assuage because at this stage I haven’t yet recovered from the stress and sleep deprivation of the past week and so am not able to identify for certain what may be side-effects of the medication – I am generally well. Suffice to say that I am wholly functional, and I will hopefully be able to decide whether to continue with it or switch to another – less convenient – medication once I return to Mombassa from my one-week foray northwards by bike (and boat obviously) to the island of Lamu.
Today i hope to finish some work I – rather embarrassingly – didn’t complete before I left, and then catch the Mombassa train in the evening, which I am rather looking forward to as a minor train enthusiast. If all goes well I expect to cycle to my accommodation in Mombassa from the station and leave on Friday morning to head up north. After which I will finally begin to go in the right direction…