It has been a while since the last decent update, and so much has happened, I think on any trip of this length you reach a time around the middle where you trudge through the days in a rythm that makes them go by so fast ech day blurs into another, these last few weeks have been this way.

Dont get me wrong, it has been incredible. It has been described as the hardest part of tour. This is not so much form a standpoint of the riding, that has been difficult but more from the mental aspect of hard riding days, extremely bad road conditions, extremely hot weather, illness's passing through camp, extremely unsanitary toilet facilities, and shortage of water, as such no washing alwed other than what you can do with wet ones you have. The ethiopians did at the end get the harsh end of some of this from most, the constant barrage for attention over a long day just simply wears you donw to breaking point, and it is almost impossible to smile and say hello when the words 'shut the fuck up' are all that are on you mind.

Luckily food has remained excellant, and as such if you are not ill you can get through most of it.

It is at best difficult to try and explain the terrain, the last week of Ethiopia which is when I think I last got online was rolling, lush vegetaion, and incredibly fertile soils, alot of the farming is still done by hand, but you cant help but think that if it was managed well how good it could be for the area. The biggest thing that stands out is the sheer volume of people, or more specifically kids. After remarking on the apparant lack of contraception I have thought back to if I have noticed any condoms on sale and have only noticed twice. Once was crossing the border into kenya where there was a box giving them out for free...it was empty, the other was just today as we passed through a town I saw some kids playing with a blown up one. I choose to ask no more questions or look no further at that point.

After 3 weeks or riding across Ethiopia it was good to cross into Kenya at the border town of Moyale, riding up into the first kilometre of Kenya was a great feeling, finally felt like we where progressing and there was a great feeling of achievement going around, we stayed in the Kenyan Wildlife agencies grounds and all got a sun warmed shower in a tin shed that goes down as one of the all time best showers of my life. The feeling of having some water running over you with a semblance of power and almost the perfect refreshing temperature was the highlight of the few days around it. Heading out into the Northern Kenyan scrub for the next six days we where warned that the roads where going to be harsh. I was of the mindset that its a road that has traffic, how bad can it be. I should add at this point that we are in the rift valley and as such all the rock around is volcanic. The terrain for the next 6 days (broken up with a rest day in Marsabit a Small town on a volcanic rim that we climbed up to where we stayed in rainforest for a night before riding down the side of the crater the day after into the desert again.) the roads where basically volcanic rock that was shredding tyre's with corrigations that shuddered through your bones jarring kidneys, teeth, bones, muscles and wrecking bikes. Ths rocks and coregation where broken up with stretches of loose sand that you could try and power through but would take every ounce of energy you had left to do so. Along the route we passed through maybe one hamlet per day where you could but a warm coke, other than that you out in the sun with no where to hide. Camps at this point where also just the trucks finding a spot where they could pull off the road into the srub and park, you would move whatever you had to to find a spot for your tent.

This brought one of the most interesteing evenings and some of the best photos I have caught yet, we got into camp at a reasonable time and sat waiting for the sun to cool a bit in any shade you could find. As the day went on a band of storm cloud formed to the one side but the camp still in sun, the cloud darkened to leave you without any doubt that we where going to get rain. The wind had been sparodic to this point and suddenly moved up to gale force, followed by the first drops. Within minutes its torrential, tents are falling under the pressure, people are running in all directions trying to rescue their shit, I had been too lazy to put up my tent so as such sat in the truck with the camera out the window laughing and taking the piss. Should have probably tried to help but it seemed pretty fruitless and besides which, it was way too much fun! When the rain reached its high point Eric and I jumped out with our soap and had a shower in it, still on water shortage so it was welcomed, then both of us tried to clean our bikes. Best part was figuring out where all the floods ended up then putting out tents up in the dryest spots in a break in the clouds. I have to say despite some people soaking absolutly everything they had everyone had pretty good spirits about the whole thing.

Vehicles have been another source of amusement recently, from the Land Cruiser the Ethipoian support guys had, an early 80s model they used to get food shopping and other things we needed. I spent a bit of time with these guys as they liked a beer at some point of every day and gave a totally different insight into the country. In this car all the windows are wind up but none have the original winder still on the door, as such thay have found another one that sits in the center consol and when you need to wind down your window you simply lean forward, borrow it, wind to selected height, take it back off and put back in the center console. Simple really, the fun really starts when it rains suddenly- good times.


Also came across a bus with a flat tire on one of the hills here in Tanzania the other day, bus is a loose term for what is left of this thing - it has stopped right in the middle of the road leaving no way for other traffic to pass, apparantly this is how you get help here. I was pretty impressed to see that they had a spare, till I realised it was one of the 4 wheels from the back of the bus! At this point the jack came out and they got the flat tire a little up but not totally off the ground fine for getting a flat wheel off but no chance of getting an inflated one on. The jack was at full stretch so the logical way of fixing this to me would be to lower it use chocks off wood and raise it higher....african thinking says different. The guys then produced a shoval and proceeded to dig a hole in the middle of the road beneath the wheel deep enough to allow the new wheel to fit.


I was enjoying this spectacle with Eddie, a Zambian that's helping us out for a few sections and who I was traveling with that day and as we go to pull away when its all finished two guys grab wood stoppers from beneath the bus and a truck wheel and jump back on their respective vehicles with the makeshift brake. According to eddie its cheaper to employ a guy to do this everytime the bus or truck stops than it is to fix the brakes.

Kenya seemed to pass to quick once out of the northern scrub we had a couple of cruisy road days heading toward Nairobi, in one of these camps about 20 of us went out to do some moonlit white water rafting. Rafting to me is great fun for the 5 minutes that you actually go down rapids, but the other hour is spent sitting on your ass in wet clothes freezing cold, but the moonlit thing put a new spin on it and we headed off to give it a go. Our guides philophosy seemed to be to take us down everything backwards as we couldnt see it anyways. Either that or he was a shit driver. The bats we came across in some of the areas of the river where incredible, its an experience I definatly reccomend.

I have written more but this fucking computer keeps crashing when I try and post it, im gonna finish here and keep trying to publish until I either succeed or start throwing monitors at the woman who who runs this place and thinks its funny when you loose your shit. Not sure how it would look in court - grevious bodily harm by computer mouse.