Day 186
Sleeping location: Wagon Wheel Hotel, Eldoret, Kenya
Distance (km today/total): 0 / 12929
Estimated climb (m today/total): 0 / 95100
Visits to immigration: 3
Distance (km today/total): 0 / 12929
Estimated climb (m today/total): 0 / 95100
Visits to immigration: 3
Day in three words: Wild shopping spree
The hotel had a buffet breakfast, the first in ages, which we enthusiastically ravaged to get our energy up for a day of admin. Kenyan ex-president Joseph Arap Moi died overnight and there was wall to wall coverage in the tv and papers, but I couldn’t stop pronouncing his name in the French way in my head, which led to some interesting headlines like “world sends in tributes to Moi”.
Our first job was to go to the immigration department to finally get stamped into Kenya, as there was no border post on our route from Ethiopia. Nobody seemed sure what to do and we were initially directed to the “Investigation and Prosecution” department. Eventually someone got us the paperwork for a Kenyan visa, but this was no good as we wanted the East Africa visa (which also includes Uganda and Rwanda) to save some money and further border admin. They didn’t have this visa and were stumped, so the woman told us to visit the department boss, but he was out at lunch and meetings, so we had to come back a few hours later. When we finally got to meet him the boss was very nice, and had the splendid name of Benson Wakhule. He had previously been based at the embassy in London and seemed to enjoy reminiscing about the UK with us. After hearing our (mild) plight he agreed to arrange it so we could get the visa when we left Kenya, which would lead to the strange situation of being stamped in and out of Kenya on the same day (and, for Rebecca, after being in the country for 5 weeks already). We appreciated this, as it was perfectly within his right to insist we got the Kenyan visa. He said he’d type up some letters that we could use at the border and/or to placate any police or hotels that might question why we weren’t legally in the country yet, so we had to leave and come back for a third time whilst they were typed up. By this point we were very happy we’d chosen a hotel right next to the immigration offices.
In between visits we were rearranging our bags back at the hotel. Over the next couple of days we were riding a loop out of Eldoret, so we’d decided to leave the majority of our stuff at the airbnb we were going to stay at when we came back. During this rearrangement I discovered that Rebecca had had my SIM card case all along, which meant that my quest to reset the PIN in Lokichar had been completely pointless. In the evening we took a taxi to the airbnb and back with our stuff, with a very friendly driver called Mr Vik. We had a nice chat about Kenya with him, although Rebecca almost stole his bag of mangoes, mistakenly believing it was one of my shopping bags and taking it out of the car.
The rest of our admin involved buying things, which was majorly aided by the discovery of a proper supermarket*, the best since Cairo. I bought food for my journey to Kampala, plus a load of unnecessary fancy snacks which almost certainly won’t fit into my panniers, plus a load of unnecessary cakes and pies from a bakery. Rebecca also bought a load of unnecessary cakes and pies from a bakery so we were well served for greasy things over the next couple of days. I also picked up some Bluetooth headphones so I can finally listen to music and podcasts again. The options were all suspiciously cheap and made by brands I’d never heard of so I got two different pairs as insurance.
*Called Tuskys like some kind of Tesco/elephant mashup
The hotel had a buffet breakfast, the first in ages, which we enthusiastically ravaged to get our energy up for a day of admin. Kenyan ex-president Joseph Arap Moi died overnight and there was wall to wall coverage in the tv and papers, but I couldn’t stop pronouncing his name in the French way in my head, which led to some interesting headlines like “world sends in tributes to Moi”.
Our first job was to go to the immigration department to finally get stamped into Kenya, as there was no border post on our route from Ethiopia. Nobody seemed sure what to do and we were initially directed to the “Investigation and Prosecution” department. Eventually someone got us the paperwork for a Kenyan visa, but this was no good as we wanted the East Africa visa (which also includes Uganda and Rwanda) to save some money and further border admin. They didn’t have this visa and were stumped, so the woman told us to visit the department boss, but he was out at lunch and meetings, so we had to come back a few hours later. When we finally got to meet him the boss was very nice, and had the splendid name of Benson Wakhule. He had previously been based at the embassy in London and seemed to enjoy reminiscing about the UK with us. After hearing our (mild) plight he agreed to arrange it so we could get the visa when we left Kenya, which would lead to the strange situation of being stamped in and out of Kenya on the same day (and, for Rebecca, after being in the country for 5 weeks already). We appreciated this, as it was perfectly within his right to insist we got the Kenyan visa. He said he’d type up some letters that we could use at the border and/or to placate any police or hotels that might question why we weren’t legally in the country yet, so we had to leave and come back for a third time whilst they were typed up. By this point we were very happy we’d chosen a hotel right next to the immigration offices.
In between visits we were rearranging our bags back at the hotel. Over the next couple of days we were riding a loop out of Eldoret, so we’d decided to leave the majority of our stuff at the airbnb we were going to stay at when we came back. During this rearrangement I discovered that Rebecca had had my SIM card case all along, which meant that my quest to reset the PIN in Lokichar had been completely pointless. In the evening we took a taxi to the airbnb and back with our stuff, with a very friendly driver called Mr Vik. We had a nice chat about Kenya with him, although Rebecca almost stole his bag of mangoes, mistakenly believing it was one of my shopping bags and taking it out of the car.
The rest of our admin involved buying things, which was majorly aided by the discovery of a proper supermarket*, the best since Cairo. I bought food for my journey to Kampala, plus a load of unnecessary fancy snacks which almost certainly won’t fit into my panniers, plus a load of unnecessary cakes and pies from a bakery. Rebecca also bought a load of unnecessary cakes and pies from a bakery so we were well served for greasy things over the next couple of days. I also picked up some Bluetooth headphones so I can finally listen to music and podcasts again. The options were all suspiciously cheap and made by brands I’d never heard of so I got two different pairs as insurance.
*Called Tuskys like some kind of Tesco/elephant mashup
Comments
Post a Comment