We arrived in Kenya 4 days ago and I am delighted to be here! I don't know why but I got it in my head that once I crossed the border from Ethiopia to Kenya I would no longer be sick.....so far so good! We have had 3 days of riding and it has been great - and HARD. I guess I should just stop saying that the riding is hard and just let you all assume that it is true all of the time!
We are riding off road here and the roads are long, corrugated, and covered with huge chucks of lava rock. Day 1 wasn't too bad and I found myself alone on the quiet road and happy. On the road I came across camel herders with their lovely camels. I love camels! And a huge family of baboons. Babies and adults. It was brilliant to see them in the wild although I didn't get too close because the big ones can be dangerous. Last year riders spotted giraffes in that area - I wasn't that lucky. Still lovely landscape and friendly people.
All of these Northern Kenya rides are around 80-90km long - tough but manageable distances. Day 2 the last 25km was treacherous lava rock mania and I rode the afternoon with Dave, the lovely NYC bike courier. I caught up with him after a UN vehicle ran him off the road! Really! Sometimes having a riding companion is a bonus on the really crap roads - you can laugh at each other and time passes more quickly. Day 3 was a Mando day - that means mandatory for the racers. Mando days can not be used as a grace day (you have three opportunities to drop your worst times on the tour). Mando days are always hard and yesterday was no exception. I rode the whole day alone and just plugged away at it - one long km at a time. 85km took me over 8 hours. Lava rock, gravel, sand and hills. At home I am always looking for new rides on mapmyride.com - this Tour is a like a mapmyride dream - everyday is a new adventure and you never know what to expect. Sometimes at home I think I don't feel like doing the same ride I did last weekend - but here that is never the case - everyday is different and every ride is a new adventure. Only 31 of 61 riders finished the day. I was pleased to be in the group that rode it to the end.
The rest day is in a town called Marsabit and we are camping at the local Catholic camp outside of the town. And it is raining again. There's not much around here but the men at this camp located some beer for us and the nuns cooked us dinner. Not much to complain about - except that with all the rain I haven't been able to do laundry for two weeks - yikes! I hope it clears up this afternoon.
We are 6 days from Nairobi and I am looking forward to having Leah join the tour!
I will try posting some photos of Kenya now too!
Jx
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