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Today was hell day, and for more reasons than just the mountain to climb!
Started off with driving back along the road we had taken the day before. Only after all the storms last night, it had become impassable to our buses. So with a troop of highly organised women, we built a road out of rocks for the buses to drive over, where the floods had washed the road away. With a lot of laughter, cheering and a hour and a half later, all three buses had crossed our new road!
After more bumps, and cheers we started to climb the hills in the buses. For several moments I started panicking that I had somehow got on the wrong bus and I was taking part in the Tour de France. It was more like the alps than hills! After quite some time we reached our drop off point. A 2000m decent followed by a 2400m climb lay ahead. I headed off through the town, and after negotiating traffic, goats and pot holes, I reached the decent. I went for it, twists and turns like roads in the alps, I was quickly overtaking people and before long was in front getting a lot of speed. About half way down I hit a speed bump quite hard and got some air! From top to bottom took 22 mins, and I have to say, was the best experience of my life!
The only problem is, what goes down must go up! So after 4km on the valley floor, I began the dreaded climb. It was so so hot and I had to keep stopping to pour water over my head. I was just burning up with the climb and the sun. Eventually my body gave up and I went dizzy and started shaking. The doc called a halt to my climb and I had a lot of water poured over me. The water felt like ice, but it was room temp, apparently it felt like that because I was so hot! Considering the last couple of days, I was pleased with how far I had got up the mountain. The pic on this blog shows the windy road way below in the valley where the climb began. After a bus shuttle to the top, it was a quick bite to eat and then off through Inet and onto Eldoret.
It started with yet another climb through Inet, where I just kept on cycling at a slow rate. As I was nearing the top, a man at the side of the road started clapping and shouting out, 'well done, you're almost there'. The guy next to him started clapping, as did the one next to him, then a guy on the other side of the road. Before I knew it, the road was lined on both sides for about 100 yards with people clapping. It was just the boost I needed to get to the top. The road flattened out and I was flying along. Passing Kenya's High Altitude Training Camp, sugar and tea plantations and lots of villages. Everyone lines the roads to watch us all go past, shouting "Jambo" (hello) and "how are yooou?" Kids wave and run along side. Kenya is a very friendly place.
I cycled into Eldoret where the traffic turned crazy. Imagine rush hour in central London, before the congestion charge was introduced, but with no traffic lights or road markings, triple speed bumps, no wrong side of the road, and the biggest thing has right of way. That's traffic in Kenya. Roads are so bad that you arrive more bounced around than Dolly Parton's appendages. That's what they called an African massage! So weaving in and out of pot holes that were more like craters, avoiding vans coming at you on your side of the road, and weaving between motorbikes that seem to end up on all sides of you, I finally reached our hotel.
After I separated the saddle from my behind, I went to find my room as I was filthy and in desperate need of a hot shower. I stepped into the palace that was my room, and quickly realised it was a laugh or cry situation. I'm not expecting 5 star hotels on a charity ride, but even the cockroaches had left this place it was so bad. The bathroom floor was dirty, soap was supplied, however it had been used by the previous occupant. The toilet seat was like a fairground ride when you sat on it, it moved that much. And you had to get someone to open the bathroom door from the outside due to it being broken. These were the good points of the room! The mosquito net looked so filthy, and was not above the bed, so I decided that it would be better to chance it and sleep without it. There was no water at all, and after asking the manager about it, we found out that you had to use a stop c*** rather than the taps! Of course silly me trying to use taps! The bathroom had tiles missing, lumps out above the bath edge, enamel missing a blocked shower head, and I wouldn't have used the cupboard to even store bleach, it was that filthy! However we had one of the posher rooms and finally had a hot shower. Others had slugs on the ceilings, no toilet seat, no water or dirty bed sheets. After lots of complaints and swapping rooms for 'better' ones, we were treated to a meal at the posher hotel opposite. So meal over and off to bed, and that's when the day got really bad. Cue one night of not knowing which end to put on the toilet.
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