From Nairobi

Leaving Moshi the sky is dull. Light rain trickles from the heavy clouds and all around the land is swamped is grey. It is Sunday and the roads are quiet; the little highway towns waking slowly as I pass. A dense fog hangs stubbornly in the still air, hiding Kilimanjaro and a hundred beautiful views behind a drab curtain of impenetrable mist. I slip into a daze and soon I am nearing Arusha. From a village just out of town a long procession snakes its way slowly across the road. There are young kids at the front clapping and swaying, shuffling to slow rhythm of the march. Behind nuns in blue habits shepherd them along and women in their Sunday best sing hymns which carry through the crowd and drift into the surrounding fields. I stop to let the long line cross the highway before riding onto Arusha. The town is bigger than I had expected and hustlers chase me through the streets shouting about safaris and best-deal-hotels.

From Arusha it is 120 km to the Kenyan border. The road is being re-tarred and a relentless wind drives thick clouds of dirt across the rough track. The dust clings to the grasses and bushes to my left smothering them in a lifeless carpet of ashen dirt. To my right Chinese workers wearing clean white masks sit in rollers preparing the new highway. On the sections of completed road I speed along the smooth surface through the silent dry plains. I can see Masai roaming through the wilderness with great herds of horned cattle. Lonely Acacias and Buffalo Thorns stand out on the horizon and above it all Kilimanjaro looms above the clouds like a giant from another world.

As I near the border a Masai stops me and asks for a dollar. He looks a great warrior holding his spear, his beautiful robes billowing in the wild wind. It makes me sad that he asks. I camp over the border and head north on the road to Nairobi the next day. The air is cold and damp and all around the lowland slopes are covered in empty Savannah grasses. I ride quickly, using the momentum from each downward slope to propel me over the next. As I rise over the shallow lip of another small hill I see a dalla-dalla reversing towards me. We are already close and the little bus is still reversing. The driver hasn’t seen me and it is too late now. I swerve to the right as far as I can and the back smacks my leg and I fall to the ground.

I stand up and look at the saddlebags strewn across the roadside and the bike lying calmly on the gravel. I turn and stare at the bus still slowly reversing. It is packed with bewildered faces staring at the lunatic beginning to run towards them. Blood is streaming from my leg and I am screaming at the driver. He slowly stops and I wrench his door open and haul him from his seat. I cannot believe he didn’t stop. That he was reversing that fast. That my bike might be bust. I am pinning him against the bus and shouting in his face. He keeps saying sorry, that he didn’t see.

There are people all around us now telling me to calm down; kind eyes and peaceful hands trying to cool the spoilt rage of the melodramatic Muzungu. Kind eyes saying accidents happen. The bike can be fixed. The driver didn’t mean it. And above, all worse things happen. I look around at the corrugated shacks that line this section of the road. I feel ashamed. I step back and walk over to my bike. The back wheel won’t turn and the the frame is bent. I take out an allen key and begin to adjust the brakes and realign the wheel. Everyone is trying to help, bashing the frame back into shape, and after half an hour the wheel is turning again and I pedal off northwards.

I spend the night in a little Muslim guesthouse in Kajiado. It is the World Cup and I watch the England game with the owner, drinking sugary tea. From Kajaido it is only 80 km to Nairobi and by mid morning I am riding on a three lane highway past tall mirrored buildings and outlet stores and billboards advertising financial solutions. There are women in high heels and pencil skirts talking on mobiles and new Mercedes Benzes speeding towards the skyscrapers on the horizon. I head downtown and find a backpackers.

I go to the Ethiopian Embassy the next day to get my visa. I am sitting in a little waiting room when I hear a call to get in. There is a man sitting behind a desk with his arms folded across his tie. I hand him my passport and begin to explain my journey. He tells me it is not possible to get a visa. I must fly to Addis and get one at the airport. I explain that I have ridden a bicycle from Cape Town, riding every mile. He says it is not possible to get a visa. I must fly to Addis and get one at the airport. I stare at the flag on his desk and think that there is always a flag nearby in these situations. I mumble that I don’t understand and he looks at me sternly and tells me it is not for me to understand. That is the Ethiopian Regulations. They make sense. He tells me to get out. I wander back towards my hostel down a long avenue of high-walled compounds, wondering what to do. I decide to send my passport to London and get an agency to arrange the visa from there. It means two weeks in Nairobi. It is a fun city and I will climb Mount Kenya while I wait.