Half Way Home

Trip Start Aug 05, 2006

Trip End Ongoing

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Flag of Kenya Nairobi, Kenya
Monday, March 5, 2007

The trek from Addis to Nairobi is without a doubt one of the most wild rides I have undertaken so far. It takes at least two days to reach the border on the Ethiopian side but it is on the Kenyan side that the real "fun" begins. At the small border town of Moyale my friends and I negotiated for a ride on an overland truck to take us to the town of Isiolo which is about 5 hours north of Nairobi. For about 15 hours we flew south at breakneck speeds. Then around 10pm we stopped on the side of the road somewhere and were told to climb up onto the roof of the truck because the driver wanted to pick up about 20 cows to take to Nairobi. The cows however, did not want to get on the truck and it took nearly 3 hours before they were all loaded. Then the driver took off again at high speeds and and didn't seem to even care about all the passengers on the roof because he would swerve back and forth constantly and seemed to hit most of the tree branches the hung out over the road causing us to duck down as low as we could while hour feet dangled over the cows below.

After what seems like ages I am finally making progress south again and Nairobi represents a kind of halfway point on the African continent

Brian Testing His Manhood

. Nairobi is the first city since Cairo that also has a truly modern feel to it. The city center is filled with high rise buildings and wide tree lined streets. The streets are also surprisingly clean as well.

All is not wonderful here however. Nairobi has a rather infamous reputation as a crime capital but as long as you are careful and take a taxi around at night the danger of being robbed is significantly reduced. I took a day trip out to visit Erin, a fellow Kirksvillian, and she gave me a short tour of the mission where she works. It was a very rainy day however and we did not have time to go out and visit some of the Masai people which are a tribe that live in the famous Masai Mara game reserve here in Kenya.