Getting Sorted in Nairobi…

It has hardly stopped raining since I arrived back in Nairobi… The roads are flooded, traffic is a nightmare and accidents are commonplace… Cars are forced to avoid water-filled potholes, and in doing so, usually end up stuck in a ditch or cause mayhem by driving on the wrong side of the road…

Jungle Junction... The Purple Scooter had ridden all the way from Spain...!!

It had been a very wet night for the campers....

Where once there might have been tents, now there was mud...

On my way to the Jungle Junction, an oncoming bus forced me off the road, then a taxi went through a mud-filled pothole and covered me in a wall of brown water… By the time I arrived at Chris’s place, I had the mutters in a big way… I took a long look around me when I got there, and realized that I did not have it so bad… The camping area was flooded, tents were hung out to dry, sleeping bags covered the shrubbery and a few inches of water lay where once there was lawn… Had it not been for the generosity and hospitality of the Gauntletts, I would have been hanging my own kit out to dry here!!

The Big Fella was wheeled into the garage and onto the work table, his old shoes came off and on went a new set… I had managed to get over 19 000 km on the old set, and Chris agreed that under normal circumstances, I would not have had to change tyres, as in his estimation, there were still a few 1000 k’s left in them… I did not however want to carry a spare tyre all the way to Khartoum, 3 000 kms away, and opted to put the new ones on, here in Nairobi…

New "shoes" for the Big Fella...

Setting valve clearences...

After an oil change, we checked the spark plugs and made some minor adjustments to the valve clearences, then washed and oiled the BMC air filter, the Big Fella was good to go!! We had tried welding a piece of the Touratech cylinder-head cover guard, which had snapped off, but were unsuccessful… Instead, Jeremiah, Chris’s assistant “made a plan” with a small strip of metal which we riveted in place… Chris plugged the diagnostic sensors into the bike and then went through all the setting on his laptop, to ensure that the engine was performing as it should be… The Big Fella got a “clean bill of health” and Chris took the bike out for a run, to satisfy himself that all was well…

We were ready for the North African leg of our World Tour…!!!

The Jungle Junction was filled with interesting people… The vast majority of them on their way South… There was one guy who arrived on a purple scooter…all the way from Spain!! He had however managed to find a kind soul who took pity on him at the Moyale border, and found place in the back of his truck for his scooter… When I asked him about the road, he rolled his eyes heavenward and said,

“It would have broken my machine…and even yours too…” nodding in the direction of the Big Fella… “The roads are washed away in many places…, there is thick sand and rocks… Very bad…!!”

I also met Scott Parker, a Canadian, who had completed North and South America, and was on his way to Eritrea, where he hoped to get his F650GS onto a boat sailing to Saudi Arabia. He intended riding right across Russia and then flying his bike home to Edmonton… A great guy, Scott and I discussed the route to Moyale, sharing insights into what we had experienced ourselves, and heard from others… His machine was a lot lighter than mine, and he only had about 60 kgs of gear… He opted to give the “Highway to Hell” a bash, and after getting his visa, left for Isiolo, promising to call me if and when he got through to Moyale…

Jeremiah services the Big Fella...

Then Gael and Dave Edwards arrived from up north… I had at this stage decided to truck the bike through to Moyale, rather than chance it, but the sight of Gael on her own 1200GS Adv, had me in two minds again…!!! Dave was riding an 1150GS, a bullet-proof beast of a bike if ever there was one… I watched as Gael sauntered casually over to where we were standing… I congratulated her on making it through, and insisted on buying both Dave and Gael a beer, which we sat sipping under an umbrella, while the rain poured down around us…

Gael had not made it through this tough section of her journey without mishap, and had busted a rear shock on the run down from Moyale… Luckily for her, Chris had one in stock, and an eye-watering $1300.00 later, Dave had it fitted and the old one was added to a very large pile of broken shock absorbers that were collecting dust in a crate in the workshop… I saw that she was not carrying as much gear as I was and knew that my shock would not make it to Moyale… It would have to be the “truck option” and I resigned myself to getting a friend of Allan’s who had helped him truck his own bike to Moyale in 2008, to help me arrange the transport.

A Jackson's Chameleon... Common visitor in the gardens of Nairobi...

Steven proved to be as efficient as Allan said he would be and after a few calls we were all set… He would collect me at 2.00pm on Saturday and we would load the Big Fella onto a cement truck for the 20-odd hour journey to the Ethiopian border…

While at Jungle Junction, I discovered that it would take only a day or two to get my Sudanese visa here in Nairobi, rather than have the hassle of trying to get it in Addis next week, so with the help of Roger’s driver, I handed in my passport, filled in the forms and paid Ksh 4 000.00 and yesterday afternoon, Angela drove me across town to collect my passport and visa…

Apart from the Libyan document I will still need to sort out when I get to Cairo, I am good to go for the whole of North Africa…

Another one... This one a little anagrier and with only a single horn...

I am hoping to hook up with a colleague of Roger’s in Addis Ababa or a friend of Louis’s who used to work for the breweries in Swaziland. If none of those options work out, then I will look for a hotel that has plenty of security, as Gael warned me that Ethiopia is where I will most likely be robbed or ripped off… While they were stopped in one of the towns or villages, a guy had dashed up to the bike while she was on it, and tried to grab one of her bags… Luckily it was tied down, so the silly bugger did not get away with anything…

Until now, I have not had the least bit of trouble with regards to theft or security, but her warning has made me think of all the precautions necessary to make this as safe a passage as possible… Dave also mentioned that the roads up in northern Ethiopia were even worse than the Moyale to Isiolo run, and that I should consider flying up to Lalibela, rather than riding up there… More to concern myself with…!!!

Time will tell how things pan out, but forewarned is forearmed…

© GBWT 2010