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Starting off from Kikuyo Compound means about 25 km more, compared to from the centre of Nairobi, but it was worth it. Meeting David and his group was a very interesting experience, and I hope we will be able to do something together in the future. The bicycle is better, we have changed all the crowns of the gear in front and behind, done an overall maintenance, it is not perfect but we are close to the maximum achievable considered the starting materials and the spares available in Africa. But then one of the intentions of this journey is also to prove that it is possible to do a lot even with little, with limited means. Hence, what are you moaning about Matteo?
I was waken up at 5 in the morning by the owner of the room, who came to get his bicycle and outfit before going out for a long training session with David. Breakfast with tea, bread and banana. And go to try the bicycle, without the panniers on the ups and downs of red soil around there, after a couple of touches to the gear, we fix the panniers and we go as a group towards Thika. The boys escort me by keeping me always in front, and I was hoping to be following on tow for 50 km … we have fun on the ups and downs, we race for who gets the flattest on the handlebar on a downhill, and we send a small climber ahead to take pictures, to the group … for them the real training will be on the way back after bidding me farewell. So the first 45 km pass fast until Ruiru where we meet David and the one who woke me up … we do another couple of kilometers and we reach the freeway where we say goodbye after many pictures.
I had to stop to eat some eggs, because not to cut a sorry figure with the boys I had pushed too much and burnt too much energy, while I was about to start a young girl attracted by the bamboo bike started talking to me in Kiswahili while the mother was laughing a terrible lot … so I asked what is she saying … and the mum said she was saying ‘are you my father?’ …
A freeway like the one of Thika, I saw it only in Cyprus in the area occupied by the Turks, humps, motorbikes, bicycles, donkeys, a motorbike with taxi driver and a mother with three children, then when the road narrows it becomes the most dangerous road in the world liven up by old trucks full of sand, matatu (the Kenyan minibuses) and cars with a rush and a tendency to overtake out of proportion. The cars and the minibuses coming from the opposite side attempted my life several times, I saved myself with some fast off roads which made me a bit nervous. We are close to Mount Kenya, 5199 meters over sea level, but today I did not see a thing hopefully tomorrow.
I stopped at the Savage Camp in Sagana, where I found a bed in a ‘bunk house’ for 1000 shillings, about 10 Euros. It is a big room with 16 bunk beds, on the first floor of a traditional building with a thatched roof, the side facing the river is open to a veranda from where you can admire the river full of water. The noise of the river is a formidable lullaby, as a matter of fact I am fighting to finish to right and not fall asleep. I am the only one in the ‘bunk house’, a part from the mosquitoes which are kept under control by a system of double mosquitoes’ nets, which I do not understand exactly how it works and if it is effective. This I will understand tomorrow and in 14 days at the end of the malaria incubation period.
At the dinner table I met a teacher accompanying a group of English students who was reading ‘It’s Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life’ from Lance Armstrong, I read it and I did not like it, also for the way he speaks about Pantani …
Mark these names George Kiama, Martin Thiogo, Samuel Chege, Kennedy Kamau, Jessy Ngugi, Kenneth Kayaya, Peter Garthere, James Karanja and Anthony Ngeng’a we may hear about them in the future.
Nairobi Kikuyo Compound S 1° 29.206’ E 36°82.194’ – Sagana S 0° 66.951’ E 37° 20.611’
115 km