Cats and Corrugations

'You You' is the cry of random kids you meet in Ethiopia, which although sounding a bit rude is their version of saying hi. Normally you turn around and they cheerfully wave with a big smile. Sometimes they follow up with 'One Birr', which when you say 'no' they again cheerfully wave with a further smile.

'Hey You' is the Kenyan alternative. You turn round and they instantly demand 'Give me money' with a bottle of glue hanging from their nose. You say 'no' and they then shout 'f*** you mother f***er' whilst hustling you down the street.

I'm not feeling the love for Kenya.

I think I last wrote in Addis Ababa. Everyone I had met before had slated Addis saying it was pretty grim and dull. Perhaps it was because of the low expectation that I thought the place was OK. It was nice to get a few western luxuries as well. A big cafe culture there, the coffee is superb and when you add a tasty cake to the offering it meant that I was spending quite a lot of time in the cafes. As it was the weekend I also watched a couple of the premiership football games. Now I know this conjures up an image of an anglicised George and Dragon pub with a healthy serving of Egg and chips on the side but this is not the way they watch football in Ethiopia. They are HUGE fans of the premier league and normally support Arsenal or Man Utd. From my experience the set up seems to be a large room is found in a concrete shell of a building, a massive TV is then brought, lines of timber pews are then crammed into the space, the main gadgie then stands on the doors asking for a few Birr as an entrance fee (normally about 20pence). The place gets packed with a couple of hundred people intently watching the football taking in every detail. No beers are served which seemed a bit odd at first, but hey. A great atmosphere all the same.

I made my way on a long journey south after Addis, some horrible bumpy roads eventually led to a couple of cool towns called Arba Mintch and Konso that I stayed in. This seemed to mark the start of 'Black Africa' with a noticeable shift in ethnicity. I stayed at a really nice new place in Konso which was set up as an Eco Village. My hut was one of the typical round mud African huts with a thatched roof, felt fantastically cosy and smelt, um very green. Lots of local traditional villages to see around Konso, a good day getting lost around the twisting warren of passages that led to the different parts of the villages with a herd of children following you. At times I felt that I should have a pipe. Got chatting to a few people and this one guy invited me into his house to try the traditional 'Checka' home brew. My god, I thought I could stomach most things but this stuff was foul. A porridge type consistancy with a cat sick look to it and pure rancid taste. I chewed through a couple of mouthfuls not that I wanted two mouthfuls but I had to swallow it twice if you know what I mean. The guy seemed to enjoy my pain judging by the smirk on his face. Now i don't have time for people (you know who you are) that use the excuse of a 'dodgy pint' the morning after a night out when they are feeling ill, however that dodgy beer lasted me a good few days.

Moyale. The town between Ethiopia and Kenya. A typically grim border town. It was a bit of an effort to get to the Ethiopian side but this was in no way preparation for the Kenyan side of things. I had to spend a night in this godforsaken transient town before I could get further south into Kenya. Suddenly all the nice Ethiopian food was replaced by grot, hotel rooms took a dive for the worse, people had an edginess to them, and the road went from tarmac to dirt. For my dinner that night I had supernoodles with shards of bone. Beautiful.

On the up side I thought I had spawned the timing with a 24 hour long bus supposedly leaving for Nairobi the next morning. Yes, the 'supposedly' has given it away. The bus never showed and seldom does I was later told. That left just one option - the goods trucks that run the route. Basically 5 people get crammed into the cab of the small lorry and then you get a dozen or so people sat on top of the goods on the back of the truck. After much negotiating I managed to get a space in the cab squeezed behind the main seats. At one point I thought I was going to have to sit on the goods with the hard core crowd. I have no idea how they manage to stay balanced on the metal bars that house the goods below with the searing heat, clouds of dust, and horrendously pot holed road. I got knoocked black and blue sat in the cab. Now our main goods were empty beer bottles and crates but this was further topped up with a hundred or so jerry cans of diesal! This I suppose would ensure few casualties in an accident. When I asked about this danger they told me that although it was against regulations it was the only way to get fuel to some far out towns. Certainly there was no way a tanker would make it along these roads. The dirt road was permanently corrugated with ample pot holes, how do dirt roads get so perfectly corrugated? A Dad question I feel. All I know was that I was getting battered with the possibility of the Checka rearing its head once again. I was told that the journey was to take 24 hours to Nairobi but the driver thankfully decided that a rest was in order at the town of Marsabit. The town had had no rain for a year but had decided to rain just before we got there which made things a little chaotic. We arrived in the dark to a chorus of happy toads with no electricity and no water despite all the surface water lying around. I have no idea of the hotel that I stayed in that night as it was so dark, it was a room with something vaguely soft to lie on.

We left before sunrise the next day with the promise of Nairobi by teatime. This maybe would of been the had we not broken down 5 times, 3 of which were punctures. The tyres were not simply replaced but the inner tubes were patched much like a 12 year old would mend his puncture on his pushbike. It took ages. One of the breakdowns was at the foot of Mount Kenya at night and it was freezing watching the patient guys strip the wheel and tyre once again. At the end of the trip I looked at the tyres and the surface was ripped to shreds. We got to Nairobi at 2am the next day, but just as I thought I would eventually be getting my head down we polled into the Tusker Brewery lorry depot about 40kms from town and was told that we'd be spending the night here in the cab whilst we waited for the brewery to open so that we could get rid of our crates. I folded myself up with the other people in the cab and dozed occasionally.

It took a good few hours to sort out the offloading at the brewery the next day and didn't make it to Nairobi centre until 11am, a good 26 hours late! Despite walking around like a zombie for the day I managed to sort out a safari and saw some of the town. Everyone had warned me that Nairobi was the new Johannesburg and although I didn't experience any trouble I kept my head down and left the next day.

Safari time! 3 days in the Masai Mara on an all inclusive package costing a lot but hey I needed some braindown time. 5 of us in the anglogermandutch group and we had a class time seeing everything there is to see animalwise in Kenya. Hippos, rhino, lions, leopards, cheetahs, giraffes, crocodiles, zebras, elephants, warthogs, and all the other herding animals that you expect to see in Kenya. It was the stereotype Kenyan holiday people think of in the UK. You had to keep reminding yourself that you weren't in the zoo and these animals were wild. Amazing if a bit touristy following round the other 4WDs looking for the animals in the reserve. Stayed in a posh camp just on the outside of the reserve.

After the organised nature of the Masai Mara I wanted some time to myself without a guide pointing at everything. Went to Lake Naivasha. A beautiful lake with hippos on it's shores. A stunning setting. A national park called Hells Gate also exists behind the lake where you can go exploring on your own either by foot or bike. I took a bike and loved the vulnerability that you experienced being out in the wild on your own. Didn't see any predators probably due to the fact that most of the cats remain asleep most of the day. The mountain biking was quite intense with some great downhill runs where zebras would get startled and run out in front of you as you hurtled down the track. Awesome.

I'm rushing through Kenya a bit as I'm needing to get down to Malawi for the end of November for my job. Off to Uganda today, staying in a cool chilled out lakeside town called Kissumu at the moment a couple of hours from the border. My first glimpse of Lake Victoria, the lake I'll be traveling around over the next couple of weeks. Some proper adventuous activities to come in Uganda hopefully.

Stuggling to upload pics again, will tryto get them on here soon.

This morning I got given a cup of black water served with a sachet of Nescafe. It appears water is tea here.