Last nights few beers and an early night, became one beer and an even earlier night, when the torrential rain returned complete with the obligatory power-cut. For the first time in its use, the tent leaked a little around the seems. Not enough for us to get wet, but still a little disappointing. With any luck it had more to do with the fact that it had not been refastened properly after the tortoise incident, than the tent itself failing.
The morning brought us dry weather and after breakfast we got packed and headed out into the Nairobi traffic. Cycling in cities is rarely fun, but despite the pollution and heavy traffic, the journey out of the city was easier than expected. What we hadn't considered was just how hilly the road was. The journey was more of a workout than we had been expecting for our first day back in the saddle.
As we rode through the Ngong hills, we passed through several bustling towns and villages. Our first impressions of Africa is that everyone seems to be busy, unlike in the Middle East where all of the men seem generally to be sitting down or asleep!
Stopping at a small pizza restaurant we had a mid morning drink and a welcome hotdog.
The joys of being able to eat whatever you fancy at any time of day, will I am sure be coming back to us the more we cycle!
As we were leaving the restaurant a man commented on one of the stickers on my bike and asked where we were going. One of those small world moments occurred and he told us that he was also going to 'Whistling Thorns', so we would see him later. It was just a shame I didn't ask him how far we had to go.
Back on the road the hills got steeper and the people got friendlier. Fortunately the traffic also got lighter. Before too long we were cycling down into the town of Kiserian and would be soon turning off towards 'Whistling Thorns'. We certainly wouldn't want to complain but this was slightly surprising. According to our research we shouldn't be at the turn off for at least another 10km! Obviously we had taken a steeper but more direct route to our destination. For some reason we had never been able to get Google maps to accept the road we wanted and had to settle for a best guess on the distance.
The 13km stretch along the pipeline road was great, although littered with potholes. We were firmly in Masai territory and were greeted heartily by an elderly Masai woman in a pick-up truck and received generous waves from passers-by. Animals may have been conspicuous by their absence, but riding through the open savannah was a great pleasure.
Climbing one last hill we arrived at our destination approx 2 hours earlier than I had expected.
Getting on to the site proved a little challenging when we were greeted by a closed gate, no guard and a sign that said 'sound horn' for entry. Our bells were a little pathetic so we resorted to shouting hello and eventually got someone's attention. The site is certainly going to be peaceful after Nairobi, as we are the only campers and possibly two of only three guests. The 'no outside food allowed on the premises' sign fortunately only applies to the restaurant, so cooking isn't going to be a problem.
A couple of beers at the restaurant reminded us how tired we were and we settled in for an early night. Tomorrow will be a rest day before we press on to the Tanzanian border. The plentiful camp-sites are breaking us in gently to life back on the road.
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