Paddington Pitkin in Africa.

'Please look after this Bear. Thank you.'

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Sisi wakipanda baiskeli zetu juu ya milima ya Laikipia

Last Autumn I went on a little adventure with Fleck and Alisha. With keen-to-be-met promises of comparable mountain biking to their home area of Morzine/Les Gets in the French Alps. I'll try to keep it short but I should start with some lessons learnt about doing a self-organised mountain bike trip in "Kenya's high country" just north of Mt. Kenya, called Laikipia.

Call ahead, everyone and everywhere. Get lots of numbers and phone them all; "Mambo vipi, I'm a random mzungu trying to explore with some other mzungus, can you please help us not get eaten by things?"

Know how to fix a puncture, quickly, on repeat.

Have spare tyres, just having spare inner tubes won't do.

Have multiple phone network sim cards.

Have a map, but don't necessarily trust it.

Pack warm clothes and torches even though it's hot and sunny.

Only ride good bikes.

Recruit a man who knows the areas, and knows the managers of said areas.

Recruit a man who can cook.

Alisha with some kids who enjoyed us randomly appearing from nowhere and riding with them on their school commute

Whilst this was a 4 day trip, the photo above shows what the third day was like. I'll stick to the second day which started early and had a bit more adventure to it...

8am Meet Lenjoh. Share route plans, agree drop off location. Eat breakfast. Transfer cars. Lenjoh, the man and legend that 'makes camp' better than anyone I've met, knows his outdoors better than you could ever want to need and has two diplomas in cooking. This is a man you hire when you want to mountain bike around Mt. Kenya and Laikipia.

Lenjoh packing my car with Benson looking on

Fresh after our training ride on the foothills of Mt. Kenya the day before, we had the bikes fixed up (only one chain snapped and we replaced it easily from Naro Moru) and the car packed ready for Lenjoh's arrival. Arriving bang on time we told Lenjoh what we had planned pointing at our borrowed map; he then told us what was possible. "Between 60-80km" through private ranches and forests. We'd take my car, he'd drop us, come back and grab all of his kit then drive to the camp site (a specific point on a map with no roads in or out). From the drop off point at the south entrance of Lolldaiga Hills we'd cycle north to Dol Dol, before looping around south up through Mukogodo Forest and and on to the point on the map. Before dark of course. Using our iPhone GPSs and our trusty tourist map we set off.

Confirming our route at Lolldaiga Hills. Measure twice, cut once.

11am Negotiate access into Lolldaiga Hills. Herds of zebra. Trotting giraffe. Elephants aplenty. Baboon Hill. Some mzungu-mzungu smooth talking finally gets us access to Lolldaiga Hills private ranch. It transpires that our request is not a common one. We get on with it; ~30km riding north of absolutely unbelievable biking. We rode alongside stampeding herds of zebra, surprised elephants and giraffe, and found ostriches chilling in the bushes. Breath taking scenery and not a car, or person, in sight. That and some pretty good up and down hill. We we then sure that it was all worth it. Photos:

Zebras crossing our path shortly after running alongside us

Alisha catching me being generally smug after locating some tembo for my punters

An unexpected journey up a hill that wasn't on the map as we turned east

Halfway through the first 30km we arrived at the main office to meet the head of security. "Jambo, we've been expecting you. So where exactly are you going?" "West? Ah, no. No chance you'll make it through that thick forest (not marked on map). Even if there weren't 50 elephants there that would trample you, that track (marked on the map as a road) is only navigable on foot with a local guide." "Go north on this track (not on the map) and out of our North Gate. You'll find it, just make sure Baboon Hill is on your right after the descent" "Give me your number so I know you're ok". Fine. Asantini wazee. Off we pedal, driven in much part by our lack of options.

The head of security of Lolldaiga Hills with his guys. Even the office dude came out to catch a sight of the wazungu on their bikes

2pm Lunch at the North Gate. Rivers of sand. Punctures #1, #2, #3. Dol Dol airstrip. We found the path and made it out of Lolldaiga Hills as planned. The route now took us North East over a beautiful sand river and an unexpected uphill (not on map). The GPS telling us we were almost at Dol Dol, we elected for a short cut (trust the map) that seemed necessary after only covering 40km. Got a couple of punctures on my bike and one on Alisha's, luckily we brought more than one spare tube, and repair kits.

Some awesome single track, pocketed with a few stretches filled with bushes and their 2inch thorns. Classic short cut terrain.

4pm Thorns. Ditches. Single track. Punctures #4 #5 #7 #8. South East of Dol Dol somewhere. This section had some really amazing cross country, when we got going. 4 punctures in 10km, all three bikes had at least one.

5pm Punctures #9 #10 #11. Broken tyre #1. Sunset. Near Mukogodo Forest, we think. Darkness was coming as fast as it does on the Equator and we were now covering ground very slowly: 50km on the clock so far so about 30km left. We were now looking at a situation where we were stopping every few hundred metres to fix a puncture - 11 and counting. It turns out that when you get over 6 punctures on 1 wheel there's probably a problem with the tyre. My rear wheel's tyre was over, and we were walking. The forest elephants, buffalo and other exciting African creatures were all warming up to reclaim their night time territory. Cue Lenjoh. The Bushman, The Cook, The Camper. Ready to answer his phone bring us back to the bosom of his camp. I get my phone out; no Safaricom network Kenya's biggest mobile network doesn't care about Mukogodo Forest. Thanks to Helen we had a tip on getting Airtel sim just in case; 3 bars. A series of phone conversations now ensue where we try to establish with Lenjoh where we are and how we get to him (or him to us). "We're close, probably at this blank point on the map" "No, we're walking now, can you come and meet us" "Ok we'll flag down some piki's" "There are no people around, you need to send a guy?" "Yeah call me back" "Next to a sand river" "We're at another sand river" "Ok, it's dark now"

Not a perfect situation for sundowners, but good lighting for capturing an impatient Fleck with his horizon

6pm Darkness. Walking. West of Mukogodo. We know know more about where we are(n't); we weren't yet in the forest. We have no choice but to plough on towards our destination, each pushing our broken bikes. Each with our heads down. Each only sharing positive and helpful words of encouragement. Up and down valley after (probably beautiful) valley. The map and the GPS, and the Lenjoh, all agree we're heading in the right direction but none of the three are sure how far in the right direction we are. Maybe 5-6km left, maybe more. It's walkable, we'll do it. More and more rivers of sand, open expanses, rolling hills and still no forest. No people, certainly a strange sight for a Kenyan road. Updates from Lenjoh get more regular, more confused, more desperate. Every noise, every distant animal grunt is a false hope of the piki motorbike coming over the next hill. We'd now walked about 15km with our bikes.

7pm The sound of the piki. Mukogodo Forest. We're definitely in the forest now, there are trees but we can only see them because they are within metres of us. Otherwise there's is just darkness. Total uncompromising darkness, the kind of darkness you can only get when you're so far away from everything that is light. We hear the sounds of what we hope is not another engine mirage. Coming to sweep us up and take us to our Lenjoh. Mirages they were. More walking. Complete darkness. Forest. Noises.

7:30pm The site of the saviour. The piki boys. Mukogodo Forest. Elvis arrives. We're not alone. We immediately stop our march and drop our bikes. It's clear we'll need two piki's. Elvis offers to to leave get another, we don't let him go anywhere and ask him to do it by phone. Elvis was surprised to find us where we were, so far away from where we thought we were.. It turns out we were still about 20km from the campsite and only just got inside the edge of the forest. The second guy arrives and they put our bikes in a nearby (invisible) village for the night. Both piki's had overcome heroic struggles navigating the roads between us and the campsite. They were almost impassable; washed away and infested with marauding elephants.

Elvis and us, we were not alone any more.

8:30pm Epic piki trip. The Campsite. Home. One of the most 'exciting' piki trips of my life. Over an hour's ride through incredibly impassable terrain. So impassable it was that we needed to get off an walk about 30% of it just to get the motorbikes across. At one point we came across fresh steaming elephant dung. We dismounted and got in formation, one bike in front of and behind us. We made it. Arriving in the campsite we see Lenjoh and Benson the manager of the forest. Lenjoh had managed to find Elvis and informed Benson of what was happening. It transpired that he'd sent a guy before Elvis and the reason it all took so long is that that guy had given up and gone home; he said the roads were too bad.

Some truly impressive camp fire cooking going on; roast beef, vegetables, ugali, rice and enough tea and Tusker to see us through

9:30pm Some of the best camp chakula I've ever tasted. And bed.

The next day saw us wake to a place that didn't seem possible. Mt.Kenya rising in the distance, and elephant dung by the door of my tent. There was none there when I went to sleep. Our piki saviour delivered our bikes back from a local village in suitably heroic fashion. My bike was totally KO'd but we made 2 of the bikes work by pillaging bits from mine.

Elvis returning with our 3 bikes that he rescued from the invisible village in the morning. Mt Kenya, Mukogodo and Laikipia in the background.

Fleck and Alisha cycled south to Nyaro Nyare forest as Lenjoh and I followed in my car. The tripe finished with more incredible food and great camp, waterfalls and a swim with a dead sheep. The 4th day required a simple cycle back to Timau and home to Nairobi.

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Thought I'd film my daily commute across Nairobi

I wrote a while ago about cycling here in Nairobi. It is possible to get across from Spring Valley to Ngong on a bike during the day, it isn't in a car.

It wasn't that interested I didn't think, so I sped it up and made it more so. Spot the help I get from a Girl's School...

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A 16hr bus ride in North West Ethiopia with minimal planning

...to get from Axum...

...to the Simian mountains...

The plan was a simple one. After flying from Addis to Axum we'd get a bus down to Debark, the gateway to the Simien Mountains National Park. My acquaintance from a previous trip Abebe Tesfa would be there to meet us with all the necessary arrangements for a 3 day hike to over 4,000m. We were warned that buses were usually a difficult means to travel in this country so we made plans to leave for Shire early...

The rush of the 5am bus station opening was not as hectic as anticipated in the end, but it was entirely confusing. By the time we found our bus, it was full and ready to go without us.

The bus station at Shire as the gates opened. Everybody except me (Ben was getting Shiro sandwiches made) knew where they were going. There was not one single sign and people speak many languages here with English being low on the list.

The usual "It's full, there's no chance you'll get on....How much are you paying?" debate ensued. We bought 3 pairs of then rejected & refunded tickets before being allowed to sit by the driver (only after the bus had made to leave 2-3 times with the two of us and our 'helper' entourage chasing after it) in the poof type engine cover with our faces and knees pressed up against the massive windscreen. Pros include the view and the fact we got on the only bus going that day. Cons were many, like not actually having a seat for 16 hours. Anyway, we were on.

The people of the bus, a Police man catching a free ride included.

One of the times I caught The Driver catching the view. His face and mine were about 12 inches from each other for most of the hours.

One of the first villages we passed through, while there was still tarmac. It soon disappeared, the luxury only re-emerging intermittently for 10 hours.

This is where we were going, Google Maps says it's 3hrs. Google, it is clear here, is sometimes entirely wrong.

The driving was slow going of course because of the extreme mountain valleys we were scaling and descending, but occasionally they had to actually build a part of the non-existent road for us to get through. It is also worth appreciating that over the 16 hours we only really passed a hand full of cars.

There was no road here, men (passengers or bus workers I don't know) dismounted and built the segment before us.

Sometimes the road-building required more time and machinery, so we all got off to wait. This is the moment where the driver decided enough road was present. Ben won the race.

The views were totally breath taking for nearly the whole time. With your eyes and mind on such things, it works as a kind of pain killer for your knees and back.

The road from Axum to Shire. Less mountainous but no less brilliant.

After 5 or 6 hours we stopped for an incredible lunch, and then briefly at a market town where a guy somehow bought a goat and had it strapped to the roof of the bus without moving from his seat; efficient.

The 'goat market'. I have no idea where this place was or what the name was.

The bus, fellow passengers, some road building machinery, the colourful mountain side and some nice Ethiopian detailing on the bus wheels.

The last couple of hours before Debark saw us climbing and climbing, the road clinging to to side of the mountain. The view to the right showed the top of clouds and no sign of the bottom.

We made it eventually as Debark appeared in sunshine after more mountain switchbacks than I've seen in all of my Alps trips. And my knee was only temporarily shaped into the mould of a broken Isuzu truck fan. We disembarked at Debark to greetings from an old Gondar acquaintance ABU and headed directly into the Simien Mountains National Park, which was worth it:

The Simiens, between the Sankaber and Gich camps. Whilst hiking the second day we joined a procession of farmers on their way to a funeral before an ice-cold dip in the river for lunch.

Meskel flowers light up the valleys deep inside the national park.

At a rest after a dawn summit of the Imet Gogo peak. My A-level Geography didn't really help me understand how this place come to be, but it helped appreciate it.

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This week I retired from 3rd division Kenyan football

Last week I retired from 3rd division football and as a player in the Football Kenya Federation.

I will forever keep my (first ever) player's license; I would have needed releases and transfers if I wanted to play for any other FKF team. The team is the best team coming out of the famous Kibera region and has a history of grooming players for greater things; I watched some KPL games with the head coach where he pointed out the numerous ex-students of his, the only other mzungu to have played for them 'John Guidetti' went on to play for Feyenoord and is currently with Manchester City and Sweden.

This is talking it up, naturally.

Me looking angry (I wasn't, I promise) on the subs bench for a game. Being part of a team with a set of coaches that rotated players was actually one of the most interesting parts of the experiences. Proper Tactics. @ City Stadium.

I joined the team in the close season 2012-13 and have decided to reduce my commitment after our last game last weekend; one full season of full on football. I trained on average 2-3 times a week (the team trained 4-5 times a week) and got about 13-14 'caps'. Quite a few substitute performances and no goals unfortunately. I mainly played #10 but occasionally #8 or #11.

It was a great experience playing with some excellent young players who were technically (they didn't have other jobs) professional footballers. They all have ambitions of professional football in Europe or elsewhere, and that really had an effect on how they and the team approached the game.

A selfie of me cycling away from my last training to get to work while the team talk was finishing. In hindsight 7am training is a great way to start any day. In practice it's always difficult to get out of bed 3 hours before you need to be at work, no matter how nice and sunny it is. @ our home ground in Kibra.

I have many fond memories from these times; of reporters interviewing me after a game, after a game buying ice pops for the supporting kids, getting lost in backwater Nairobi districts in our massive old clunky African team bus, the team bus that was provided by the local 'Dohty Reggae Family', carrying the captain up and down a notorious training hill somewhere in Kibera so deep that it took me an hour to find my way out, paying the ref his fee myself as the FKF hadn't paid him, our captain suggesting at training that we bribe the ref at the next match as "it was an important game that we needed to win", a pitch almost entirely being washed away in the second half when I was mostly concerned about getting sunburnt in the first, and many more . . .

But more memorable maybe were some of the chants. My favourite (excluding the clever shouts of "Yesu" - Swahili for 'Jesus', or more accurately Swahili for 'you look like Movie Jesus') was the one in Dandora concerning the lines woman in the picture below fancying the mzungu (that would be me, since there were precisely 0 wazungu in the entire league). Great bit of terrace banter.

The novelty of a mzungu turning up to play a league match, especially for Kibera, was never lost. This is a photo a journalist took of the pre-match license check that we had to go through; you showed your photo license before the game to the opposite captain to prove you were that person. Mine was always met with surprise. @ Dandora Stadium.

I bought all the ice pops that an enterprising girl homemade and got the coach to hand them out to the kids. He made them queue up and once the bigger boys had pushed their way to the front, proceeded to hand them to the ones at the back. A well respected move. @ Dandora Stadium.

A very clear memory this one will be; Oosh giving a post-game talk after a home match. @ our home pitch

The pre-match huddle at our final game of the season. @ Kenya's 3rd biggest stadium 'City Stadium'.

Fresh from the team talk (including magnetic pieces on a little pitch) the lads are ready. This particular match was only happening because I had some cash on me and offered to pay our half of the ref fees. Through no fault of our club, we had already paid our annual fees to the FKF to cover such expenses but by the end of the season they had spent it all. No money for the refs, no match. We were only 90 mins late for kick off. @ City Stadium.

My thanks to head coach Oosh, coaches Mamba, Edu and Murunga. Ofe, Boy and Cliff for excellent co-captaincy. Silly, Shidi, Dennu, DJ Jo Nyalo and Pedro for not questioning why there was suddenly a lanky old white guy turning up and playing. Oche for arguing against the bribing idea, Bo for training in a Spurs shirt but insisting "it's just for training, I'm saving my Utd shirt for the pub" and Cliff for teaching me chondo, fika, tuleeya, moja and all the other Sheng football banter that I missed./p>

And everyone generally; Brighton, Mwas, Mrui, Sam, Essien, the other Essien, Roy, Legu, Maldo, Mlama, Karl, Krispo, Fender and all the rest who came and went through the season.

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Nilienda Ethiopia. Ninapenda Ethiopia.

I did tourist proper again:

I thought I'd do another one of those trips where it's easier to remember it on a map then in any sort of memory or set of 2,000+ photos. So there it is, up there. There were 4+ Rift Valley lakes at Debre Zeyit, 11 rock-hewn churches in Lalibela, a whole load of partially British-bombed castles in Gonder, innumerable life changing meals and 1 Blue Nile.

First things first, Lalibela. Wow. This is some place that I'd never heard of. They actually just dug down into a complete piece of rock and carved an entire church out of this one piece of rock. One piece. So they'd shape the rock to make the roof, then dig down to start a wall (if you can call it that), then cut into the top window of this wall and start to excavate from the inside leaving rock as supports and columns and all that, you know, architectural stuff. One piece of rock. They did this for 11 churches all of different design. That man above is just walking through a little walkway, more pictures to do this justice:

Beta Giyorgis and Beta Immanuel. Probably the 2 most impressive examples. Totally monolithic, perfectly preserved and generally impressive. Beta Immanuel (the 2nd one) was carved in the style of a wooden church with beams and all. Still one piece of rock, no mistakes.

This is of course incredible and there are of course other places in the world similarly as impressive. Albeit only a few. But what struck me on the way round was not just the fact that not many people have really heard of this place but that these ancient places are still in use.

If you think about all the old places knocking about the world, most of them are either derelict ruins or almost solely tourist destinations. This actually changes the feel of the places a lot; a lot of the old orthodox christian imagery is still in there in the same way and the floors are still covered in the same rugs. The churches' priests were the ones who opened the church and services still took precedent over anything else.

I could talk for more about the other places as well but I think I'll just chuck in some photos in standard non-chronological order and let them and the captions finish off the story. I did a lot in 9 days thanks to my leaders Ayenat, Abebe, Woubie, Noah, Idris and Enguday:

The Blue Nile Gorge and an epic guide/host at Tomoca. An example of the excessive buna / coffee drinking, and the cradle of human kind.

Two dudes guarding stuff. One guards the holiness 7th church of Lalibela, one guards the people of the Simien Mountains.

Lots of Oxes ploughing fields there, here in Debre Zeyit. I noticed that a lot of the farming of the country was still pretty crude, but very effective. It was impressive how they farmed so much of the Simien Mountains in the photo above.

I hung out with this guy on the shores of Bishoftu Lake.

Coming down from Entoto hill in Addis. The loads that the women and donkeys was epic (the men just seemed to stroll down with their caravan except this fella who was putting in the effort). It was about a 2 hour trek up and hill.

Some more Lalibela landscape. Cards and marbles seemed to be popular with the kids, and posing for photos. This one was better than when they stood with their their chests stuck out proudly in a line.

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Habari fupi katika Ethiopia

A quick little story about horses, petrol and how to negotiate whilst on the move.

Debre Zeyit is a nice place. So nice we went for a evening twilight cycle from our base at Bishoftu Lake (see photo time above) around Hora Lake and back; not something you really do in Kenya. It was good. I like places that provide free bikes for you to explore, and free kayaks but that's a chapter without photos and only stories of sunburn, fatigue and probably some newly adopted African fresh water worms. Anyway...

When we left I thought it would be a good idea to get one of those horse taxi ('gari') things that you get in romantic places like Vienna and Rome, but with added bedraggled African-ness. Enter a mzungu / farangi / whiteblokewhomusthaveloadsofcash on to a novelty transport scene that is in fact not novelty or romantic but just the cheapest form of transport that locals only use if they can't afford a piki-piki / tuk-tuk / taxi / bike / anything-else. Definitely the type of situation that warrants a little bit of a price hike I think you'll agree. A man saw his prey, pulled up and kicked his local customers out; they were walking, we were paying.

A typical road and traffic situation in Ethiopia

But. This guy took the biscuit. He wanted to charge us 100 Birr (yeah I know eh?!) for a trip that cost 50 Birr in a tuk-tuk. Just taking into account the fact that his taxi runs on carrots which is a lot cheaper - especially out here in the Ehtiopian Rift Valley - than petrol makes it weird to think that it should be more expensive, and that's not taking into account the speed (a lot slower) and comfort (much less) of the thing. We set off without real agreement (mistake) and the haggling quickly got pretty over-the-top (I was with an Amharic speaker so I was just using my facial expression talents) and we demand he pulls over to let us out.

After some slightly physical persuasion we do stop and get off; grumpy tourists. The driver then demands 50 Birr just for the 300m we've travelled. I laugh. He insists. You can picture this scene demands quite a lot of interest from the street folk who are now helpfully gathering around and listening in. I decide it best to just ignore the horse dude and try to get a proper petrol dude.

We flag down a tuk-tuk who pulls in and also tries to rip us off. Brilliant. Next tuk-tuk then.

A typical road and traffic situation in Ethiopia

We finally get a decent guy who quotes a fair faranji price. Then karma sets in. The rip-off first tuk-tuk guy is talking with the original rip-off horse guy when another horse guy appears and crashes straight into the back of the rip-off tuk-tuk. Priceless slow speed crash. I'll have to leave it to your imagination what that whole scene looks like but it definitely involved; two angry horse dudes, a particularly enraged tuk-tuk dude, a good-karma honest tuk-tuk, one faranji, a foreign habesha and whole load of gesticulating locals. We left the scene pronto, and made it to the bus station for a reasonable 50 Birr. Cheers.

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Niliendesha baiskeli yangu kuenda kwa kazi

I've started cycling in Nairobi more and more. I thought I'd write about it a bit. And yes I've started writing my titles in kiswahili following the lead from some of the great travel writers of our time.

The bike on the right is my first African bike and is a 'Black Mamba'. These are basically sit-up-and-beg Dutch style bikes mostly made in China and totally made for carrying stuff. 100kg on the back of that puppy. They are not made well.

Cycling more is making me happy. This is because I like cycling, or maybe because I really don't like city driving. And I really truly detest stupid city driving like the driving you get in Nairobi:

This is a classic example of a Nairobi roundabout. Yes there is a roundabout there, you just can't see it with all of the idiots edging forwards to try to shave 10 seconds off their journey but in the process deadlocking the entire junction and making everyone at least 20 minutes later.

Most of my drunken declarations of my planned solution to this problem were met with either disdain, worry or dismissed along with the other 'yeah so I'm like totally gonna push the development dialogue and solve the cultural problems of Africa with this NGO start up I'm planning' comments that have been known to float around the Havana Bar.

There are of course actual reasons not to cycle in Nairobi though. Reasons like the roads and hills, the drivers, the lack of other cyclists, the fact I've got a car, the distances, the general danger of the city… 7 points to cover then:

1. You can't cycle on those roads can you?

A piece of my Kileleshwa route that isn't paved, isn't so good for my road touring bike. But it is actually sometimes less pot-hole-y than the tarmac.

It's true that the roads in Nairobi suck almost without exception. This has actually been less of a hindrance then even I optimistically expected. I do need to stare at the road directly in front of my front wheel more but then there are some holes in Brixton that I almost fell into that are worse. At least I only need 2 inches of good road, unlike my car: Cycling 1 Driving 0

2. There are lots of big valleys and hills

Hills? No. There are lots of valleys but this ain't Bristol:

This is my commute to work. Clicky clicky for more geeky Strava stats.

Ok hills are always better in cars and Nairobi is certainly no Holland: Cycling 1 Driving 1

3. Nairobi drivers are dangerous enough already, they'll knock you off!

Yeah they aren't that great. But how do they compare to Bristolians and Londoners? I think they are much less dangerous than London cabbies, and probably care slightly more than English bus drivers. They are probably just as oblivious to cyclists as your average driver on Gloucester Rd in Bristol or a commuter on Upper St in London.

There's no doubting it though, driving here at rush hour is just awful: Cycling 2 Driving 1

4. No one cycles in Nairobi, there's no critical mass.

It's true that there aren't really any other people cycling to and from work in the way I am. I think there might be like 2 other mzungus and a handful of lycra-clad Kenyans. But there are cyclists, many of them. They cycle as work, to transport things. This guy was one of them and was riding my bike along at about 2 km/h when I noticed his bike, caught up with him on my black mamba, got his number and bought the bike off him:

It's ok he got enough Shillings to get himself a good Black Mamba, and change, which is significantly more suitable for him; they ride slowly and surely and with a whole lot of comforting squeaks.

More cyclists would be definitely better just to help plough that channel through the traffic: Cycling 2 Driving 2

5. When you've got a car, use it.

This is a rather ridiculous argument mostly presented to me by my Kenyan friends who don't own cars. Here I think folk use the most prestigious mode of transport that is available to you at the time no matter what the journey. I'm shirking that bit of local integration, Cycling 3 Driving 2

6. Everything is really far away from each other here.

If you've ever driven around Nairobi in daylight, it feels like a big city. Sometimes 3-hours-across-town big. It's not actually that big. If you look at my commute on Google Maps I actually cover a big chunk of North-South Nairobi in my 25-odd-minutes commute:

It takes me between 25 and 80 minutes (yes it varies that much) to drive the same commute: Cycling 4 Driving 2

7. Nairobi is too dangerous, you might get robbed.

Yes it is, but mostly at night. I am therefore limited to cycling between 6am and 7pm and this is ok. Unless you want to hide in a metal box all day: Cycling 4 Driving 3

…

So, if you travel across Nairobi regularly I recommend cycling. Choose your route carefully and always assume that bad things will happen at every junction. Maybe a slightly bias view as I'm comparing cycling here both against driving here, and cycling back in the UK. But that doesn't matter.

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Pole sana, lakini nimerudi

Haven't written anything in a while. 97 days in fact.

It turns out that when you're having fun doing things that you'd want to write about, and people might even want to read about, you don't actually have time to write about them.

In those numerous days events have indeed unfolded which I may or may not decide to elaborate on in the future. A couple of photos for now while I try to think which things are the most interesting.

I've signed for (literally this time) the Kibera Black Stars. They are the biggest team in Kibera and play in the Nairobi Provincial League - 3rd division in the Football Kenya Federation below the KPL and 1st division. It's a pretty serious affair and good fun; we train Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, and they do post match interviews.

For the first time in my life I used crampons to hike a ridge in the Alpes in Morzine and, maybe more importantly, performed the duties of best man for Mr Marhsall. Living in Kenya and flying to Morzine for an extended 10-day snowboard-holiday-best-man-wedding is pretty extravagant, and I recommend it.

I've been on road trips number #4, #5, #6, #7 and maybe even #8. I know! All the grand Mitsubishi-based stories that are missing from the Interwebsphere?! They were to Diani Beach, Galu Beach, the Aberdare Mountains, Mount Longonot, Aberdares #2 and some of the 'away' NPL matches certainly felt like road trips.

I now live here and this is the view of my garden from my own balcony.

I've moved to Spring Valley, survived an all too contentious yet slightly over-dramatised election, dug a grave for a dog, learnt to cook Ethiopian food, kite surfed, crashed my car in a shopping centre, drove through tear gas & angry fans after a KPL football game and started cycling my 7 mile commute through Kenyan rush hour.

Some typical shopping stop off on a road trip through the Aberdares.

/p>

Team talk for our visit to Dandora Stadium. We lost but at least there was a stand full of people to see us lose.

A weekend away in the Aberdares involved us actually having our own private waterfall for the night.

[pddngtnptkn]

‘Jesus’ offers solutions to rainy days

I had a little article written about me, which was nice.  It was about something I didn't really know I was being interviewed about.  But it was my first ever post match interview so you have to make allowances don't you?

For the record I definitely did not say the word 'seduced' even once.

[pddngtnptkn]

Road Trip #3: Lake Magadi

During a drunken BBQ at the stately Spring Valley home of Jakob there was a decision made to go for a day trip to somewhere called Lake Magadi; time for another road trip post.

Having no idea when or why we chose Magadi, I thought that rather than read my guide book I would just blindly accept it. It's an African lake! Must be nice and green with monkeys riding baby rhinos handing out fresh papaya, right? The team sheet was strong enough to withstand even the greenest shrubbery; Tosh, Anne, Jakob, Oliver and me:

The road trip down was proper; it turns out that no one else drives to Magadi at 7am on a Saturday. The changes in scenery in just a 2 hour drive from Nairobi were epic. Driving out through the little towns that surround Nairobi is always an immediate culture change, but driving up and over the hills into the Rift Valley at sun rise with no one else on the roads is something else. This was followed by long stretches of road through Maasai villages and nothing else but termite mounds and Acacia trees. A police check point was the only real other milestone as we shared the roads with 'country matatus' (open pick up trucks with as many passengers hanging on as possible). The policeman made it interesting by acting as though he was going to fleece us for everything possible, before simply warning us of false pay points and waving us through.

Not many photos of the above so you'll have to take my word for it.

Turns out Lake Magadi isn't green, it's hot and barren and white and salty; very very salty. But this was great in a totally fresh way. There was a big salt factory there and the old salty industrial stuff gave the place a really eery interesting sort of visual aesthetic. That and it was possibly the hottest place I've ever been to.

Possibly the best thing about this trip was the sheer lack of tourism about it. This was summed up best by the entry; none of the usual entry fees, gates and hawkers oh no. Instead, a TATA official asking us to sign in and out, asking who we were visiting etc.! We spent the day basically exploring on our own as we wished with no real plan. I think this is sometimes the best way to do things anyway and it allowed Tosh to use his linguistic Maasai skills to recruit some mini guides:

There was an amazing pink part of the lake that we walked to, made so by the "pink salt" of course. Not the elaborate explanation I was hoping for either but still a pretty striking thing to see in such a landscape.

The scene in the film Constant Gardener where Rachel Weisz was killed at 'Lake Turkana' was actually filmed here. It was definitely hot enough to pretend to be the world's largest permanent desert lake.

This part of the lake was pure dried salt that we drove over to see some natural springs. The lake gave it some, but I reckon my car came the winner.

Road trips around here are fun, looking forward to #4 already. Thanks for this pic Anne, makes me look well integrated n that.

[pddngtnptkn]

The fall and rise of our 'Lunatic Express'

I've been really struggling to actually write anything specific about my January African adventure. I think the reason for this is I don't really know where to start. It's been a month since I have got back now and all I've really done is upload a few photos (avoiding the Facebook endless pit), draw a picture of what I did (probably comes across more as showing off than interesting) and said that I went to Kampala (a capital city, well done). But as anyone who has been to any of these places will agree, how do you sit down in the evening and pick between Lamu, Watamu, Bwindi and the Rwenzoris?! You don't. You sit there checking Facebook for photos that people have uploaded and RT some people on Twitter before being distracted by anything else.

That, and it turns out Nairobi is full of top drawer people who like to adventure, play football, party, arrange events and eat epic food. This has severely reduced the number of times I 'sit down in the evening', and I'm not complaining.

Tonight, however, I have had enough and have decided that it would be fitting to show everyone how a once disastrous, ridiculous, deadly, expensive and ultimately pretty useless colonial idea, a train line from Mombasa to Kampala, is nowadays. It was of course probably once glorious, for about 5 minutes, and now just seems like a nice way of travelling if you are on holiday and have lots of spare flexible time. Kibaki likes it.

It's an interesting story this one, definitely worth a bit more attention by any train lovers or people that generally marvel at how idiotic some of the people in charge were in the 1800s. It's the reason Nairobi exists for a start. "I say Dick, shall we stop and make a rail depot here, it's a bit cooler up here and we can have a nice cup of tea". "Spiffing, we could build a house to have the tea in the shade?". "Great thinking Charles, I dare say it's pretty marshy here with nothing much about, but nice and cool". "Yes it is, nice and cool. What say you to running the entirety of East Africa from here for a few years old chap?". Retarded.

Anyway one doesn't worry about that when one has 2 days to travel back from Mombasa to the marsh capital, and one has a camera and enough money for a 2nd class full board ticket.

I just think this is really the only way to start a trip like this. Just look at the angle that the 'Upper Classes' sign hangs at, that's enough for me. I mean, it's not like the folk haven't got the ability to hang that right. It's just not a thing really worth bothering about.

The rest of the station was a pretty normal old British station and could have been in a Buckinghamshire village if the sun hadn't been shining and it was generally just cleaned up a bit.

Before committing to this route I had heard a few stories about getting this train. Most of them revolved around 5/6/10/16 hour long waits in the middle of Tsavo NP (the one with the Man-eater lions) and just that there was absolutely no guarantee of when, and if, you'll roll into Nairobi. At this point I was just focussing on the imminent colonial travel experience; dinner and breakfast with game watching through the plains of central Kenya.

Dinner and breakfast, and the morning's game view.

My optimism was fuelled when the train was only 1 hour late to arrive and almost as soon as found my shared cabin, dinner was called with a high-tech 'man with bell'. It all started pretty much like any of my past travel experiences; my room mate was Polish and donned Crocs-with-socks and a camera lens bigger than my arm. And I sat down for dinner opposite an excitable Dutch guy and two jock American students.

The only note I'd say about the food that my photography doesn't quite capture is that the table decor was most certainly up to expectations and the dinner (still near Mombasa) was probably the most I'd ever sweated in a 30 minute window.

The sunrise as viewed from my bed. People arriving at Kalembwani during a bit of post sunrise mist.

Novelty menu holders aside, the real money maker was always going to be sunrise. It didn't disappoint. After a snoring, wobbly night of being rocking we were lucky enough to wake up to a crisp and clear sunrise. Not too shabby at all as you can see.

Central/South Kenya is a pretty magical place at this time of day. People were appearing from all around after what must have been long walks (the stations were certainly not positioned around the places where people actually lived) to try to catch a ride to school, market or wherever.

Dotted in amongst the wilderness where some interesting villages the kind of which you don't ever see near roads:

After a while of clicking away feeling incredibly inferior with my little G15, it was time to enter the urban sprawl of Nairobi. I had heard that this would also be an interesting bit of the journey as you tend to see a very different view of life from a train to that of the road. The route runs right through Kibera which is not only Africa's largest slum but also the football team I play for. I have been there a few times but it is vast and so I hadn't been as deep in as this.

The train track acts as a passageway right through the crowded mass of huts and people. Hence the in-photo inaccessible shopfronts. Lots of waving happened as Mister Poland finally recoiled his Nikon missile.

In conclusion, I am now about as proud to be British as I was when I first read about the line. But it is an experience so if you're a punter like me, then get a massive camera, buffet car ticket and make some generic international tourist friends.

Home sweet home. Spot the mzungu looking for his matatu with a massive back pack. Ah, that would be me.

Oh, and incredibly we rolled in about 3 minutes early. TIA.

[pddngtnptkn]

Live in Uganda

During my tour of Uganda I found a lot of really interesting life, and not just 'the big 5' or 'massive mosquitos' or 'killer badgers'.  

There really was so many different areas in South Uganda with so many varieties of everything.  Probably worth sharing I thought.  If I was a bird spotter I would have been very happy, but I only really like eagles, when they fight.

Take a look at the captions on the photos in case you wonder whether that's a lion stuck up a tree or a cow with fake horns.

[pddngtnptkn]

Kampala Quickie

Here in Nairobi I hear a lot about how nice Kampala is.  I think it's maybe just because Nairobi just isn't that nice to look at, but then it is often mentioned in the same 'to-go-to' chat as Zanzibar and Mombasa.  Worth a day's exploration I thought.

I was here for one full day between flying in and heading to the Rwenzori's in south.  A little research told me that I should just grab a boda-boda man that understands my mumbly English and novelty Kiswahili and  get him to take me to interesting places.  It initially worked and I found a really interesting market built in 1927.  The market seemed to be a centre for locals to shop for anything and everything.  I still always love it how fresh and great everything looks there so I got in the spirit of things I bought some oranges, tea and some fresh vanilla (that I of course really needed).

Walking around this non-mzungu area I chatted to some locals who gave me some insight into, amongst other things, the nightlife that I wouldn't have time to sample but maybe one day would like to.  Since this was my first day in the country, it really set me up for understanding Ugandans a little more and how they might differ to Kenyans.  

Some classic organised chaos here. It's amazing how no one ever looks lost in these places, everyone is just moving towards their destinations with minimal drama. I pretended to know where I was going, grabbed another boda-boda and headed somewhere with shade and tea.

As a whole I found the city had a great feeling to it but didn't leave me wanting to swap any countryside days for it.  These two pictures show some of the less nice things I found:

There were a lot of these chickens who must spend so much time in these markets caged and exposed like this. Not such a great thing if you ask me.

I watched these two for a few minutes. The crazy-forehead-lady would shout sentences from her Bible and then the boy would have to shout a repeated version of it. I was the only one paying them any attention. Who knows how often and for how long for that kid has to do that every day.

[pddngtnptkn]

A brief history of my January holiday

Since January isn't normally such a good month if you're not on some kind of snowboarding adventure, I thought I would take a bit of time and invest in the public transport infrastructure of East Africa.

Finishing up at Circle Digital on December 21st 2012 and returning to start at FrontlineSMS on January 23rd 2013, I had a whole month to fund:

Air SWISS

First Great Western Railways

Lufthansa

Various matatus

Somali Pirates. Tanaka Coaches

Fly540

Rift Valley Railways

Air Uganda

Francis and Jamil and their Land Cruisers

I can't be bothered to type out a thousand words so here's a picture of what I managed to piece together using the services of these esteemed transportation services.

Trip 1 took me to my old homeland, to Buckinghamshire, Bristol and London.

Trip 2 sent me back to my new homeland of Kenya and its esteemed coastline on the Indian Ocean.  I flew direct from London to Mombasa on new year's eve so that I could welcome in 2013 in Watamu.  We welcomed in the new year by burning a huge wicker man at midnight in Mida Creek, I popped my waterskiing cherry and generally hung out on the sea & creek with a top team sheet of Nairobi folks.

Whilst on the coast I planned a trip up to one of my top planned-for destinations of my time in Kenya; the North coast island of Lamu.  Travelling up here was a much bigger effort than London-Watamu as there isn't really much of a road between Watamu and Lamu, and there weren't any Somali pirates to hitch a ride with.  After 8-9 hours of slow onward travel, the bus stopped seemingly in the middle of nowhere and I found myself piling into a tiny public boat in the pitch black.  Eventually ending up docking on the quaint tiny streets of Lamu Island after 9pm.  In a tightly packed tourist destination such as Lamu Town, this time of night is just an ideal time for a mzungu to wander around lost with all his bags...

This leg ended with an amazingly once-colonial overnight train journey from Mombasa to Nairobi.  Waking up to breakfast in the buffet car watching game at sunset was pretty special.

Trip 3 started with an incredibly brief stop in Nairobi.  Uganda was the next destination and a trip through the south of the country with Pitkin Snr.  Mountains, animals and National Parks were the order of the day down there.  Gorilla trekking near the Virunga mountains trumping the other animals which, to their credit, included all the big ones including lions in trees, elephants in water and about 300 different eagles.  Hiking up the Rwenzori's was also a bit of a highlight of a morning.

I have about 10,000 photos from all this so I'll edit hard for some more posts shortly, but for now...

Testing the appropriateness of the height of a bridge in the Rwenzori's

My silverback mate Ndahura 'the alpha'

Lake Bunyoni

The End, for now

[pddngtnptkn]

I found some sun in the UK in winter

And my parents and a panda were ready to inadvertently pose.