Day 177
Sleeping location: Hotel Eliat, Kalokol, Kenya
Distance (km today/total): 29 / 12467
Estimated climb (m today/total): 0 / 91200
Remaining money: 150 shillings (£1.15)
Distance (km today/total): 29 / 12467
Estimated climb (m today/total): 0 / 91200
Remaining money: 150 shillings (£1.15)
Day in three words: No more sand?
The most arresting thing about the morning was the fact that a huge spider had spun a little silk cocoon in one of the pockets of my helmet, and had to be expelled with a puff of air and some terror. Breakfast was biscuits with peanut butter and no coffee because we didn’t have enough water left. It was actually quite difficult to find any water as it was Sunday and most of the already infrequent village shops were closed. I got some from a building site, and also bought an overpriced big bottle of cola which I drank 20% of and secured to my bike, only to discover the next time I stopped that it had fallen off almost immediately. The going was initially very sandy and very hard work, but as the day went on it improved and speeds of up to 15kph were attained - heady heights.
We arrived in Kalakol, allegedly the end of the really difficult sandy bit and the first decent sized town since Omorate, in the early afternoon and checked into a hotel, where we managed to negotiate despite having to pay with USD (the first ATM is in Lodwar and we have burned through most of the shilling we exchanged at the Todonyang mission, mostly because of the stupidly expensive second mission). We had some lunch and experienced cooked Kenyan food for the first time; it seems to involve lots of this starchy white stuff called ugali and not lots of flavour. Hot and knackered, we then lay down and napped in the room all afternoon.
In the evening we decided that our low cash reserves would be best spent on some kind of bedroom picnic rather than a meal out, so we went on a shopping spree and got lots of cheap street food, including some tasty samosas and some amazing mangoes*. We also found some Guinness, one of Rebecca’s favourite beers, for the first time since the UK and bought a bottle as a luxury item. It’s actually 6.5% here and much more intensely flavoured, but pretty tasty and a nice change from the endless lagers that have usually been the only option since...err...Germany. In the pub we met a friendly drunk man called Franklin who was drinking a very large glass of something called “Kane Extra”. I examined the bottle, which said on the front that it was a “golden spirit”. Looking for further information I turned to the back, which informed me that it was a “potable spirit”. Must be delicious.
*Plus a bottle of some “fermented milk drink” which I excitedly bought in the hope it would be like Turkish ayran or Jordanian shaneeneh. It was actually a disgusting lumpy mess similar to the stuff the nice Ethiopian family gave us in their compound near Lalibela.
The most arresting thing about the morning was the fact that a huge spider had spun a little silk cocoon in one of the pockets of my helmet, and had to be expelled with a puff of air and some terror. Breakfast was biscuits with peanut butter and no coffee because we didn’t have enough water left. It was actually quite difficult to find any water as it was Sunday and most of the already infrequent village shops were closed. I got some from a building site, and also bought an overpriced big bottle of cola which I drank 20% of and secured to my bike, only to discover the next time I stopped that it had fallen off almost immediately. The going was initially very sandy and very hard work, but as the day went on it improved and speeds of up to 15kph were attained - heady heights.
We arrived in Kalakol, allegedly the end of the really difficult sandy bit and the first decent sized town since Omorate, in the early afternoon and checked into a hotel, where we managed to negotiate despite having to pay with USD (the first ATM is in Lodwar and we have burned through most of the shilling we exchanged at the Todonyang mission, mostly because of the stupidly expensive second mission). We had some lunch and experienced cooked Kenyan food for the first time; it seems to involve lots of this starchy white stuff called ugali and not lots of flavour. Hot and knackered, we then lay down and napped in the room all afternoon.
In the evening we decided that our low cash reserves would be best spent on some kind of bedroom picnic rather than a meal out, so we went on a shopping spree and got lots of cheap street food, including some tasty samosas and some amazing mangoes*. We also found some Guinness, one of Rebecca’s favourite beers, for the first time since the UK and bought a bottle as a luxury item. It’s actually 6.5% here and much more intensely flavoured, but pretty tasty and a nice change from the endless lagers that have usually been the only option since...err...Germany. In the pub we met a friendly drunk man called Franklin who was drinking a very large glass of something called “Kane Extra”. I examined the bottle, which said on the front that it was a “golden spirit”. Looking for further information I turned to the back, which informed me that it was a “potable spirit”. Must be delicious.
*Plus a bottle of some “fermented milk drink” which I excitedly bought in the hope it would be like Turkish ayran or Jordanian shaneeneh. It was actually a disgusting lumpy mess similar to the stuff the nice Ethiopian family gave us in their compound near Lalibela.
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