Day 174

Sleeping location: Spanish Mission, Nariokotome, Kenya (but in a tent this time)
Distance (km today/total): 0 / 12386
Estimated climb (m today/total): 0 / 91200 
Markup on the hotel room: 400%
Day in three words: Rest for free

 After the exertions of the previous day I slept like a log despite the heat and lack of fan. The breakfast included in our room price turned out to be a disappointing combination of bad coffee, a single sausage and some dry bread with jam. Then the whole mission experience fell apart as we were informed that the already high price for the room was in fact per person and we were paying an insane 5000 Shillings (£40) between us for a basic room with no fan or AC*. I was feeling like I needed a rest day to tackle the remaining 100km of sand (Rebecca was fine as she is superhuman) so we decided to stay another night, but we said to hell with “to hell with the cost” and went back in the tent. Happily this meant we could still use their facilities throughout the day, and I spent the day blogging, watching tv and and staying out of the hot hot sun. Rebecca went on a solo mission to a nearby, but not really nearby, town to get some food as we were running low. 

 During the day we both chatted to two Swedes, Sven and Ana, who were travelling by car in the opposite direction to us. Sven is retired and is driving his Toyota all over the world to show what retired people can get up to, and Ana has been visiting for legs of the trip in between her job as a nurse back in Sweden. They were both lovely and had offered us some food if we didn’t have enough. At dinner we had to take them up on this after our main course of omelette had to be discarded after it turned out some of the eggs were (very very) gone off. They gave us some tasty dehydrated meal things and we all had a chat on their balcony whilst Sven let us use his internet, and also offered us more food if it turned out the breakfast eggs were bad. Thankfully we did manage to give something back, handing them our Ethiopian SIM cards so they would have internet when they arrived.

 *At the time we were unfamiliar with Kenyan hotel prices, but now we have twice paid 1000 for a better room than this one


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