Saint Francis

From the border at Kenya, where they have replaced visa with "electronic travel authorization" for which you have to apply and pay 30$ but which is _not_ a visum, because Kenya is "visa-free" (the biggest bullshit I have encountered anywhere on this trip), I went to Kakamega forest, the only rainforest in Kenya. On the way I again had problems with my front brake—it was getting worse — so I again did road-side piston cleaning somewhere in a small town, which only helped for a while. It was rubbing constantly, so I tried to brake as little as possible: kind of deathgripping some sections.

Kenya is definitely more developed than Uganda, with much more schools, supermarkets, and buildings rather than "shacks" as in Uganda.

In kakamega forest I joined a sunrise walk for amazing views, and spent the afternoon trying again to make the brake work: I got some improvement done. The next morning, earlier than my early alarm: diarrhea. So did a 30 km ride only with lots of climbing and with a visit to a local church where they were jamming like it was a party, helped by imodium. That only lasted one day though (probably caused by bad water...), so the next day I climbed yo nearly 3000 meters, first encountering lots of kenyan long distance runners (kapsabet), and then encountering very bad gravel roads downhill, with bad functioning brakes (just enough to save me, it was really cool actually).

In the end of the day my front brakes really refused though, after the pistons were rubbbbbing again and pushing them back rendered them unusable, so I was forced to take a bus to Nairobi.

Ok so now I get finally to talk about Nairobi. As you know I am interested in (in)equality, living conditions, observing cultures, etc. Well I read "going down river road" before I got here, and I was dropped off by the bus a street away from river road, in the center of "genuine" nairobi, the real deal, the real mess. The area around the busstop struck me as a shithole: busy, cheap, somewhat poor and dirty, with many beggars (I was corrected later that "those beggars were very few") but many friendly locals. Very very busy with traffic. Go a few blocks out and you have small shopping malls, which are like western cities. Go 5 kilometers out—were the bike shop was, a very good one by the way— to the UN complex, and it is a separate world, with western people living luxuriously, lots of international restaurants, guards everywhere, and clear cultural divisions: the locals serve the foreigners. Go a bit outside of that and you have massive villas and houses, where the expats and UN personnel live. The division and different worlds of Nairobi are unreal; the inequality is possibly the biggest I have experienced anywhere. What's more, near the hostel I am staying there is a street full off big houses and hotels, and the street itself is guarded because of it (no embassies or anything). Go one street behind it, and the people serving there live, in shacks, slumbs, and poor makeshift housing. It is just a city of divides, where the separation of colonialism has been swapped by a similar economic separation.

I have heard a defence that these lifestyles also create jobs for the locals, and so it helps them. It's self-gratification; the poverty is not combatted by receiving big salaries and living in houses built by very low salaries.

To end this polemic, let me rephrase what an austrian cycling couple I met here said about cycling in Rwanda with satisfaction: that they, after having their bikes carried by children, gave them "some cookies as a thanks". I flinched. At least give them something worth to them, if they help you that much... But of course, I am not solving anything myself. (Not blaming anyone, it just proves the different worlds we are in and how they are kept intact.)

However despite all my quarrels with the city and, as a friend put it, " the UN where they manufacture poverty", my bikes is nearly fixed. The chain is fucked and the casette is fucked, but it will get me to Dar: on o ring in the piston seems damaged because there is air getting into the system, but they did an awesome job in getting it to work as good as possible. Plus, new pads.Read more