Day 58, 2011/06/28 Nairobi to Isiolo

Day 58,  2011/06/28 Nairobi to Isiolo

Day 58, 2011/06/28

After having to wait for over an hour at the insurance brokers to get my COMESA 3rd party insurance sorted, David and I eventually hit the road. It is almost 10am, and we hopeful that traffic shoo,d be a breeze. And how wrong we were. The A2, leading north, is under construction, and leaving Nairobi, is nothing less than a nightmare! How anyone negotiates in any of these African big cities without a GPS, god only knows! Because of all the construction work, there are major traffic detours which, are of course not on the GPS! The detours are not your standard detour we are all use to, oh no this is detour African style. I.e. There are thousands of mad drivers just pushing and forcing their way so they can get there before you. In addition, the one detour actually physically routed us onto the oncoming carigeway into oncoming traffic. That would have been fine if there were barriers between the different streams of traffic, or if the oncoming traffic did not decide that your lane was actually quicker for them and hence came flying towards you at speed!  Hell, and they tell me Cairo is worse! I can not believe that. I guess seeing will be believing! The toad construction continues for over 50 km, through the slums of Nairobi. There are continues diversions off the tarmac,where everyone is just pushing and trying to get ahead. Trucks also do not believe that because they are slow moving traffic that, they need to keep to the left hand side of the road, so we are continuesly having to dodge between cars and slow moving trucks. Eventually, the road clears and we are able to finally adopt a more chilled riding style. The road is fairly nice and the scenery lovely. Just like mount Kilimanjaro, mount Kenya is covered in cloud so, we are unable to take any pictures for posterity. Perhaps next time! The altitude is also impressive, and we spend most of the day way above 2000 m, even peaking at 2700 m. The decent into Isiolo is steep, and within 20 km, we are down to 1200 m altitude. The landscape here is so different to the rest we have thus far experienced in Kenya. It is very, very dry, suchlike the Northern Cape. Not that we are complaining since, it is a welcome relief to that wet miserable weather we have had to endure in Nairobi over the last couple of days. Once again the GPS guides jato our overnight stop, a place called Gaddism Hotel and campsite. With the desire to get up and going early, we decide to take a room rather than camping.