I have one goal today: meeting my youth friend and motorcycle buddy, Willem. But before we meet I still have a long 500 km journey ahead. We will meet at Lake Navaisha, close to mount Longonot, 60 km north-west of Nairobi. As I’m making my way down south, some serious rains are chasing me. A few times they catch me and my socks are soaked once again.
As this reference to rainfall may already indicate, the landscape becomes greener and the basic pastoralist huts are replaced by farmlands and houses. Just when a new windy wave of rain is about to hit me, I find a lonely soul along the road. A man waives at me. I stop and we set off as fast as possible to stay ahead of the rain and to catch up with a fastly proceeding bus that carries the suitcase of his wife. She forgot it. We manage to stop the bus and to retrieve the suitcase. When I drop him off the rain finally catches us and he invites me inside his house to shelter.
I must say that deep inside I expected a small thank-you-tea but there is no time, because the whole family is preparing to go to church. Steven is a nice guy but it becomes a bit awkward when he asks for a job. It’s not the first time that happens to me. I’m always honest and tell them that I have no connections in Kenya and that I’m, for now, actually unemployed myself. But it always gives a bit of a strange feeling to leave on such a note.
I have to drive through Nairobi, but I’m lucky because it’s a Sunday. I still manage to take a wrong turn in what must be the only traffic tunnel in East-Africa. After a long exhausting ride I’m appeased by the sight of the water of Lake Navaisha, glittering in the late afternoon sun.
WILDTRIPPING 