Monkeys, Giraffes, Zebras Oh My!

The ochre sand is so similar to the outback!

Monkeys, giraffes, zebra and a maximum security prison!

To say the last few days have been interesting is something of an understatement!  So as I was saying in my last post, the hellhole of a hotel I ended up in two night ago turned out to be absolutely what I anticipated- a night of feck all sleep with the room doing a fantastic impression of a sauna. And to top it all, the ‘breakfast’ was a greasy overcooked chapati and instant coffee. I couldn’t wait to get out of there! I popped in to a shop I had been in yesterday and struck up a conversation, and bought food for the road and chatted for a while.
The road to my next stop, on the very edge of the Tsavo National Park was going to be the bees knees-pool, food, quiet. I couldn’t wait to get there.

The road was its usual challenge of glass and blown tyre shards which inevitably ended in punctures. I stopped off the road to repair one and met up with a small family group with a tiny shop selling sweets – not too sure who to, as you couldn’t see it from the road. Anyways, they were delightful and helped fix the puncture.

Further on down the road I started to see loads of monkeys in their tribes, meandering by the side of the road and occasionally jumping out in to it! Some guy came by on a motorbike, a real Rasta type, and chatted to me about the monkeys. He then proceeded to show me how to ensure they don’t jump up on the bike, by riding ahead and shouting and flaying his legs. I tried and it worked, tho one little bugger got on the pannier ….Mr Rasta then proceeded to kick it, losing control of his bike and careering off the road…only to rejoin laughing his head off!!

I arrived to a Tsavo Inn and it was everything I had hoped….sheer heaven. I dived in the pool, read, relaxed and fixed punctures! And then, as if some force above said ‘ok buddy, that’s way too much relaxing…’ the power went off. And didn’t come back on again. So my lovely ceiling fan was obsolete! Another night of crazy temperatures followed and feck all sleep! But gee they made up for it in the morning with the breakfast….muesli, toast, fruit, plunger coffee, eggs, bacon and sausages!!

As it turns out that breakfast was a life saver! I knew I had a long ride today, over 100, so I set off early to get some Ks in the bag before the heat struck. I made excellent progress. The road to Mombassa is one of the few that goes directly through a national park….to actually get in to the park there are designated entry points where serious money is exchanged. I can’t take Bob in to the Park but there was little need – the wildlife was everywhere!

Anyways, as I get to where I thought they’d be food and water….there wasn’t! In fact, there are NO shops the entire length of the road through the Park. As it started to dawn on me that this wasn’t looking good, things went for bad to worse! I met my first other cycle tourist coming the other way. Turns out to be a German /Turk….long sleeved shirt, shorts, sandals, an old mountain bike which had seen better days, a piece of wood strapped to the back upon which he had lashed a rucksack! Crazy….but he was as cool as they come! I enquired about food and water….‘yep, about 30k further on’! I’d already done 50 and was clean out of water and stupidly had no food as I mistakenly thought there would be shops along the route. I think my head took a nose dive, followed by my heart, closely followed by my stomach! Feck, oh feck! I rode on, seeing the road disappear on the horizon with nothing but savanna. I was getting in to all sorts of bother when I spotted a National Park ranger who gave me some water (it’s now 36 degrees) and told me to go to the maximum security prison just a K down the road, they’ll have some food! So I gingerly approached the security guard, who was nursing a humongous machine gun, and asked if they had any food. ‘Welcome my friend. Yes, give me your passport and you can go to the small shop on the prison campus’. And so it was that I cycled in to a Kenyan maximum security prison and bought me some coke and biscuits! Then got another puncture!! So here I was, inside a maximum security prison mending my puncture with prison guards helping! It occurred to me afterwards that I could have had a shed load of explosives on the bike….no one checked! Where else would you have such an experience!

So, returning to the road, it wasn’t too long before all the red lights came on- I was increasingly thirsty, hungry and really in trouble….with no shops in sight! Around the 90k mark I must have looked like a drunk cyclist as a lorry stopped and asked if I was ok, which I wasn’t! These two guys then proceeded to strap Bob to the container they were hauling and bundled me on board! Gee I was sooooo happy and relieved. I was in trouble and I knew it. My lack of foresight re the shops was a rookie error, and it cost me dearly. I was dropped some 4 k from the room I had booked….by the time we got there, which was only a few minutes, we had struck up such a heart warming conversation – Kenyans are deeply religious, but in a non evangelical way, and they explained how my being there when they happened to be passing was gods will. Well, being a born again atheist I’m not sure about that, but in that moment, what they said made complete sense to me! After parting I found my room which had both a fan and electricity! Quite a combination!