Kenya

12th November

The final day of the group’s time in Dar Es Salaam was far from comfortable. During yesterday’s negotiations with the criminals the name of our hotel had slipped out, as had the prospect of us going to the police, which in combination made us extremely wary. Our fears of intimidation seemed to be confirmed when we were unambiguously told to ‘f*** off’ out of the city. Just after dinner Duncan and I were sitting in the hotel restaurant, when a drunken local started shouting at us from the entrance: “You English f***ers, you come here starting war, you come to Tanzania and start f***ing war. You don’t know what you are in, you f*** off from here.” He promised to come back with some friends, and although they might have just wanted a quiet ice-tea and a chat, we didn’t want to take the risk. The criminals knew where we were staying and they were pissed off. Although four very skinny posh blokes and a girl might have been a threat had we been able to tempt them into a ‘to the death’ cycle-off, we didn’t fancy our chances in taking on the Dar underworld. There was, however, very little we could do apart from leave as soon as possible, so the next day we headed to Chalinze, 110km from Dar.

The drama in Dar Es Salaam did not end when most of us left, as Jonny and Rob were determined to try and retrieve more of the stolen goods. Rob’s films and Jonny’s passports were particularly important, and despite the threats, they decided to take their chances:

Jonny and Rob in Dar

11th November

I (Jonny) woke up furious on Monday morning. Having had such a positive start to recovering our stuff, in that we got back the most important items, the footage, on the day we discovered its loss, it was soul destroying to spend the next two days on a fruitless but expensive search for the remaining items. On Sunday evening, I offered a large reward for the return of my new British passport, issued just 2 months ago at great cost, and when I saw the boys arrive with a passport in hand, I was overjoyed. But it turned out to be Duncan’s, who was already in the process of getting a replacement. Monday morning brought to a head the frustrations of the wasted weekend, and I marched off to the British Embassy. I decided to try one last time for my passport, so I approached a friendly local, who came up with the idea of hiring ‘police’ for the job. At a cost of $50, I had two armed men on the case. Within an hour, they had arrested one young man. He was taken, in tears, in a taxi ahead of the one I was in. We trailed the taxi to the slum area he lived in, where the police threatened to beat him unless he took them to the haul. He did so immediately, and it wasn’t long before I sat with passports in hand. The agreed cost, however, was of course up for negotiation. The ‘Police Chief’ as he called himself began by detailing the expenses of the recovery. $400 he promptly announced. I explained the charity nature of what I was doing in Tanzania, and he relented and returned to the agreed price. As we sped back to the city, I caught a glimpse of the guy who had the passports. He was getting on a bus back to the city, and when he saw me, he gave me the coldest stare I have yet received. It was literally a ‘death stare’, and I didn’t fancy staying in Dar Es Salaam for too much longer with an increasingly aggrieved bunch of gangsters and street kids looking for me. Although I still paid a large cost for my passport (more went to those kids involved in setting up the recovery), the satisfaction of finally getting back what I had spent so much time and energy in pursuit of was worth the final monetary expense.

Emboldened by this success, Rob and I stayed behind in Dar to look for some of the rest of the stuff, while the others carried on to Chalinzi, from where the once dreaded, now eagerly anticipated, return to cycling would begin. We were now convinced that our belongings were all retrievable, and some specific items were even mentioned to us, including Duncan’s watch, and my penknife and harmonica. Rob went off to make a phone call to our Tanzanian benefactor and host, Bim Theobald. On his return, he discovered that his phone was missing. We went outside to where he had just been, and were told that, as he was walking by, his phone fell out of his pocket, and was picked up 2 seconds later by the same people that have been helping us get our stuff back! In Dar, if one lot miss a chance to screw you over, there’s always another waiting in the shadows.

Anyway, Rob, with an air of a man defeated, left Dar. He had nothing to show for his efforts, except Duncan’s watch and plane ticket, and in true Hadman style, he left the ticket in the taxi. We finally had it confirmed that his films had been thrown away by one of the little shits in person. I stayed on the night, with the aim of trying to get the last of my stuff the next day. In the evening, I popped out to go to the Dar film festival. As I left the hostel, I was joined immediately by a man that had tried to ingratiate himself with me earlier. I was a little suspicious as to how he knew where I was staying, but he simply said he’d been in the area. We went, along with a friend of his, to the film. After, they were trying to convince me to accompany them to a local party going on somewhere in the slum area of Dar. After the last week, I was not entirely trusting of anyone in Tanzania that didn’t answer to the name Jonny Polonsky, so I declined their invitation, but offered to buy them a drink instead. We walked into a nearby bar, and as soon as I did so, I was called over by a white guy. He told me that the people I was with were notorious as members of a gang that befriend ‘mzungus’, and then plant drugs on them, at which point, ‘policemen’ appear and demand a special fine in order to avoid jail. I was introduced to a real policeman, who was the one that had identified the guys I was with as part of the gang. He told me to call him if I needed anything. The next morning, I did.

I arrived at the fated car park at about 7 a.m. I waited for Egon, the thief we’d been dealing with, and he appeared and told me to wait until 9. I did, and then went to find him. When I did, he told me that the man who had my bag was not at the shop, and to wait 15 mins. Wait, wait, wait. It was too much waiting. Over the past few days, these guys, especially Egon, had exhausted my patience. Waiting was now not an option. I grabbed him by his shirt and told him he was going to take me to the shop NOW! We walked up the street, at which point, he broke free and ran off. However, he left me with one of his friends, someone who was not involved in the theft and who was prepared to show me who had my bag. Knowing that I had to do this as effectively as possible, I called my new police friend, who came immediately. The three of us located the man, who was in fact a street hawker. He was a short, podgy guy, wearing a bright red shirt, which was why the three of us stood in disbelief as he attempted to run off. He was slow, and conspicuous, and so we quickly caught up with him, the policeman delivering a sound blow to his ear as we did so. Now, the policeman was taking no chances, taking hold of a fold of flab and pulling the man this way and that, leading him to the station. For good measure, he periodically slapped him, hard, across the face. We arrived at the station, and I was told to go downstairs while the man was ‘interrogated’, although I was later informed that there would be a beating. Meanwhile, Egon made a reappearance, popping his head round the corner and flashing his all too familiar nonchalant grin. He called me over, and handed me my bag, with almost everything still in it. There was even a very smelly Anti-Slavery t-shirt, which I knew Rob would appreciate, having had all of his clothes stolen. Relatively triumphant, I caught the next bus out to meet the group.

14th November

We have arrived in Moshi, at the foot of Kilimanjaro, and have said good-bye to Duncan, who was supposed to make it to Nairobi, but after three days of crim chasing he had to catch the bus. We all feel a bit bad about Duncan’s ‘holiday’, as it was basically made up of very tough cycling, heat stroke, stomach problems, theft and then spending three days with the criminals who had stolen from us. To make it all worse, in the last four days Duncs has got used to cycling all day in the heat, and even started to enjoy a few minutes of each day…just in time to fly home. We did try and make him feel better after his three week ordeal by saying that he will enjoy his week in Dubai with his girlfriend far more than if he had not had such a miserable experience in Africa. We, however, loved having him here and I hope that the mental scars start to heal soon, Duncs (and that scar on your leg from when Rob cycled into you).

This is quite a strange point in the trip for us, as although we are approaching half way up Africa, it feels as if we have done the easiest half. From Nairobi to Ethiopia the roads are awful, and the risk of being attacked by Somalian bandits is quite high in the north Kenyan desert, so much so that we may have to hire police escorts for part of it. Ethiopia is apparently beautiful and many of the people very hospitable, but apart from regularly climbing over 3,000m in the most mountainous country in Africa, there is some hostile rock throwing to look forward to. Sudan has a very good reputation for welcoming travellers, but we will be cycling through desert where the roads disappear at points into sand…oh, and there’s a civil war going on. We were also hoping to make it Khartoum for Christmas, where there might be hope of a nice hotel and meal, but because of Dar, we will probably be quite a few days short, which is desert. More worryingly, at some point Becks has to fly home to do a medical exam for next year, so for a month or so it will just be me and the relentlessly psychopathic Hadman cycling together. Having said this, the second half should seem a lot quicker than the first, and the thought of arriving in Italy will start to get very exciting. Moreover, cycling has become a habit and not a chore, and more and more of it is becoming enjoyable (all and all of it for Rob!).

20th November

Over the next couple of weeks most of the group is getting a visit from one of their parents, which is definitely something to look forward to, not least because we know we’ll get a good pampering. As we approached Nairobi, Jonny travelled to Milindi on the east coast to meet his mum and Carol Hadman arrived to take Rob and Becks to a resort nearby there. Carol grew up in Kenya and just as she loved visiting some of her old stamping grounds, so we loved having someone to find us nice places to stay and take us to country clubs! While they were getting a very well deserved rest in the beach, I got the chance to meet up with a partner organisation of Anti-Slavery International in Nairobi, called ANPPCAN(they pronounce this as a word!), a child protection charity that had much experience with the modern slave trade in Kenya. Over two days they took me to visit some of the children who had suffered as child labourers, and were now being sponsored to stay in school. (more details of this are in the ‘Documentary’ section, where Jonny has written an account of his experiences so far.)

23rd November

When something like being robbed happens you have to look on the bright side as soon as possible. The first way we did this was in the same way we make everything sound better…“it’ll make great footage!” Standing by the side of the road in Swaziland covered in blood, Rob pointed out that when the vehicle arrived I had the chance to look war-weary and brave on camera. When we first thought that we had lost the whole documentary in Dar Es Salaam, this perspective obviously didn’t make anything any better, but when we got it back, we knew our latest catastrophe, would make exciting viewing, especially after capturing all the crims on film.

The second bright side was that we arrived in Nairobi for the World Cup Final, instead of being in the north Kenyan desert, surrounded by Somalian bandits (all Aussie supporters apparently). Nairobi proved a very exciting place to watch the game, and to top it off there was a huge downpour to make us feel closer to Sidney. To be honest, I don’t think I’ve been as exhausted at any point on this trip as I was after watching it. We also saw the reception the team got when they arrived home in England, but we realise that’s just a warm up for when we get back!

Nairobi was a great chance for us to get some rest and eat a lot of food. We did this very successfully, mainly because we had such generous hosts, the Larbys, to whom we are hugely grateful. Both Rob and I have put a stone back on, and we are thinking of installing a Stenna stair-lift for Jonny Five-Bellies to get into his side of the Land Rover. Jono took the chance to catch up with some of his Overland friends and have a good break from the rest of the group, at The Campsite. This was a very nice place, although the owner has joined the ranks of the implausibly rude people.

First, there was the lady in Butterworth in South Africa who called me an ‘evil white man’ who would get ‘sorted out’ if I ever came back. Then there was Witch I in Lilongwe, who when we politely asked for a bit of a charity discount, dismissed us in her honeyed Dutch tones by claiming that “people froom HOOLLLAANND cycle round the woorld allll the tiime…just foor fun!” She was clearly not impressed by these English layabouts, and treated us with absolute disdain for the next three days. Witch II at The Campsite, also coincidentally Dutch, was outraged when we used a piece of paper from the camp printer to write a note for Jono. We apologised and even asked if we could pay for the sliver of sacred tree, but she was adamant: “It iiis just not something I would doo, you seee, that is alll, just some advice for further on youwer triip, you are very rude people, that is alll.” Speechless, Becks rummaged around for some fine bogies and left them on the bar for later.

27th November

During this week we have had mine and Becks’ dad with us, which has been fantastic. Not only have they given us some great support, but we also gave them a chance to experience lots of different elements of our trip. Unfortunately, they didn’t have to camp outside a hospital, eat goat three times a day or use a hole in the ground, but they did get to spend a few days with us cycling out of Nairobi, and even managed 10km each themselves! They were also able to drop off some Christmas presents from home and even a Christmas cake and miniature plastic tree, so while we are in the desert we will have cake, presents, a tree and even a minidisk of carols. It will be very hard to say good-bye to the dads, particularly as they’ve looked after us so well when we were on the bikes…as Becks quite rightly said ‘It’s bin mint.’

29th November

The 600km stretch from Isiolo, just north of Nairobi, to Moyale on the Ethiopian border and then up to Addis Ababa, has been in the back of our minds as the hardest of the trip since South Africa. Of the few people we have met or heard of who have cycled in East Africa, none of them have cycled from Isiolo to Moyale, which is made up of desert, Somalian bandits and near unusable roads. The problem for many years has been banditry, and the up till last year, vehicles were told to wait at Moyale or Isiolo until a convoy assembled, which had to be accompanied by police or army escorts. In northern Kenya the problem is an historic one in terms of tribal conflict between Somalian and Kenyan tribes, who have never been confined by the imposed national borders. The Kenyan government decided that the best way of defending the land and preventing movement into the country was to arm the Kenyans with AK-47s. Although giving big guns to tribal bandits works 9 times out of ten, this time it regrettably turned out to make the northern deserts of Kenya one of the most dangerous areas in East Africa. The government have recently been politely asking for the weapons back, but they don’t seem that keen on giving up their very profitable banditry business. Another big problem for us is the combination of the weather and the terrain. We met some English people who had been doing some off-roading around this area, and they said that the temperature in the desert got up to 47°C. We haven’t cycled in anything much above 40°C, and that was mainly on good roads. There is no tarmac between here and Ethiopia, and there is lots of sand and rocks.

Our hosts in Timau, the Millers, who live just 50km short of Isiolo, have given us some invaluable help. They run Rift Valley Adventures and, having travelled on the roads before, say that it isn’t a problem in terms of safety if you take a guide with you who knows the area and speaks the language. Very kindly, they have sorted out one of their drivers to accompany us for a week, and this has given us a whole load more confidence. The guide will know where the most dangerous areas are, and where to spend the night safely, which means that all we have to worry about is the cycling itself. Although this would have seemed a lot more intimidating three months ago, we now feel much more confident about covering the 600km stretch in a week, as normally we can do up to 800km/week in hot weather. As long as we make sure we drink enough water, which is about 10 litres a day in these conditions, we should be able to enjoy the most extreme week of the trip.

When we reach Moyale the roads into Ethiopia improve dramatically, but as I have mentioned before we have a lot of climbing to do. Much of Ethiopia stands at over 2000m, and the road regularly takes us above 3000m. All of this means that the next time we reach somewhere with computers for an update will be Addis Ababa, by which time we will have no doubt had the hardest, but most exciting two weeks so far.