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‘Don’t you feel cold?’ asks me a young girl coming back from school, while her school mates throw each other hail balls …
Yes today I got cold! Very cold! It seemed to be on the Alps on a rainy day … from the 1197 meters of Sagana to almost 2000 of Naro Moru, with in the middle a series of uphill and downhill, then you go down again but not as much as you went up.
The departure from Sagana is covered in a mousse of very fine rain which slowly slowly wets you all over. The sun cannot be seen, I pedal the first 10 km with Benjamin who works in a fish farm in Sagana, who advises me that before Karatina there is a small mountain … it is about 5 km of tough uphill especially for me and my panniers …
When on my last stage in Tanzania the almost new jersey flew away I was quite pissed off, instead that flight in the hands of a Masai was providential, because today with that jersey fit for a fashion victim cyclist I would have frozen and soaked, while with my old jacket in goretex which Serena recovered in the night from Venegono has limited the damage …
It may be that the bamboo bike seems very solid but it is incredible what they have tried to sell me since I started, ok the Masai blanket could be compressed, but a bag of oranges or of sweet potatoes of 20 kg … really no … ‘look there is still space’ was saying a lady at the market pointing on top of the wrapper which holds the tent, sleeping bag and mat … ‘do you smoke marijuana?’ this happened this morning and at the market in Arusha … ‘if I wanted to travel with marijuana I was going to stay at home, I could I cycle more than 100 km per day smoking…’ … ‘shame because I had half a kilo!’ … a child who ran after me on top of a uphill where I was refreshing, if I stop I always do it on top it is then psychologically better to start again downhill, told me ‘Please carry me at home?’ … ‘Where should I put you?’ … ‘There !’ he says pointing with his straight arm and the forefinger the tent again … maybe from the outside it seems a comfortable saddle …
At a certain point when I thought to be at about thirty kilometers from arriving I check on the Blackberry, in this area it works, and surprise surprise it says that I am on the wrong road and 79 km from arrival … I try again … it confirms … ‘where the f… did I make it wrong?’ … I ask a matatu driver who confirms that I am on the right way… with the clouds it does not work well … the definite confirmation is given to me by two very smart policemen, in their blue uniform covered by a raincoat, who are stationing close to a road block where to stop the cars they have put on the floor a steel bar with many nails pointing up … shortly after the last shower of the day, and intense rain pour of about ten minutes which rinsed me and the two cyclists with whom I was chatting, and which made feel again the typical smell of the wet tar.
About ten kilometers before Nanyuki I noticed some big white spots at the sides of the road and on the fields, from afar I thought it was salt lost by a truck, then a boy told me ‘it is ice from the sky’ … the children were throwing each other like snow balls … even though the consistency of hail did not allow the balls to reach any target … including me …
Cold, rain, wind and hail gave more value to reaching the Equator, I had been there already but not here, I arrived with a good light so I will not have to come back for the ritual photographs … the sticks which on the water turn clockwise on one side, and anticlockwise on the other today I have not seen them in action, but they were there ready to be used for the tourists who will pass by tomorrow …
I have yet to see Mount Kenya, but I should be able to see it tomorrow. A short stage awaits me, even if I will go up to 2500 meters, before nose-diving down to Isiolo. Probably the last in Kenya because of the bandits … it makes me laugh a bit this word in 2012 bandits who attack the diligence … nonetheless there are the reports from the Embassies and UN which are not very encouraging … I am told they are Somali, but Ethiopian militia too as you get closer to Moyale … I had an idea to pass further East but that side it is even worse. Last week in Garissa near Somalia two churches were bombed and attacked during the morning sermon… so I think I will do the majority, or all, the stretch on the convoy, that is a line of vehicles, opened and closed by the police …
Sagana S 0° 66.951’ E 37° 20.611’ – Nanyuki S 0° 01.666’ E 37° 06.666’
118 km