Nairobi, Kenya - Polarsteps

A bit of background on this move: We conceived of this trip nearly a decade ago (and it's been almost that many years of working, saving, and frugal living to get us here; we've been asked more than once on the road if we have really fancy jobs, to just be able to drop everything and do this... we do not). Cycling in Africa was always part of it; it's an entire continent that gets skipped entirely on a lot of round-the-world bike trips, which is fair-- it comes with extra considerations around vaccines, malaria prevention, treatment of drinking water, and route-planning around areas of political instability. Everything we knew, though, about the iconic well-trodden cycling route from Cairo to Cape Town suggested it would be 100% worth the effort, and we'd initially set our sights on all 10 000+ kms of it. We struck Ethiopia from our route first, having read about other cyclists' difficult experiences there and especially not wanting to take ourselves to areas where our presence as outside visitors may be unwanted. Egypt started feeling difficult when, about a year ago, bike travellers started reporting that south of Luxor the police were stopping them and turning them back around towards Cairo, sometimes detaining them for hours and sending them out onto a highway in the middle of the night. And finally, Sudan entered a period of instability that has just recently become devastating and critical; we're watching and hoping for resolution, for everyone living there. So we'll be cycling from Kenya to Cape Town, probably for the rest of this year, not in any way via the most direct route. We've spent the last few days holed up in a little hotel in the Central Business District of Nairobi, gathering supplies and spare bike parts in the city, putting the bikes back together (Kini) and figuring out the first bits of our route (me). We've been warmly received here and are finding our way through the chaotic, crowded streets, and we figure if we're doing okay in this mega-city we're going to have a pretty amazing time when we get outside of it. I've been trying to work out a more road-focused adaption of the Kenya Bike Odyssey (originally called the Trans-Kenya Bikepacking Route), a very recently developed bikepacking route that tours through a huge variety of landscapes, heads into the Great Rift Valley, and offers from-the-bike wildlife viewing that we didn't realize was actually possible here (the big predators are kept to fenced parks, but we can expect to be riding with giraffes and zebras this week, and there's one elephant-dense section that calls for the same awareness and care we had to exercise in bear-and-moose country back home). The route is suited to mountain bikers much more lightly loaded than us, so we're trying to figure out when to ride on it and when to go around it to avoid steep, rocky bike-hiking. So we'll be heading north for a short bit and crossing over the equator before turning south again. We're going to cheat our way out of Nairobi a bit and catch a cab about 15km to the outskirts to start cycling; the traffic is intense in the city centre, and driving is on the left side of the road here-- we're in the wrong area to start adapting to that. Preparations-wise we played the long game and organized our series of travel vaccines on the east coast before we left Canada, and have been carrying about seven months' worth of anti-malarials since then, too-- wrapped in several layers of ziploks, travelling thousands of kilometres in our bike bags. Our water filter that we've been carrying from the start-- and had used once in BC and a couple of times in northern Ontario-- is getting a workout and is about to be an essential tool. We're glad and grateful to be here with our bikes; flying with them is stressful, and its something we'd love to avoid doing wherever possible (wishing for more boat options; the next time we hop continents we'll do a deep dive trying to make that happen). In the midst of boxing everything up for travel, we messed up our Kenyan visa application timeline and almost didn't get our visas in time, and in the very midst of that we dealt with a bedbug infestation in our Istanbul hostel; it was a rough exit. We also paid our first bribe to a corrupt official! At the airport in Istanbul, pushing our pile of luggage around, Kini lost their backpack and, when they realized it was gone, ran around to the lost & found and information booths, then got directed to a security guard who started by "joking" about a 10-euro fee, then quietly and seriously said, "As a gift. Do you understand?" and directed Kini to meet him outside the bathrooms, out of range of the security cameras, to do the deal (we've since reported this to the airport, but in the moment, time ticking on our window to check our bikes in, there wasn't much else to do. Here we are in other parts of the world). Also in the photos: we walked ourselves to the National Museum of Kenya-- which houses extensive exhibits on local wildlife, prehistoric history, colonial history, and current arts & culture-- and the adjoining Snake Park, where we saw lots of snakes and Kini held a baby crocodile. Also, the buses! We love them. Each one is decorated with a unique theme; a small sampling of the ones we've seen include: -Godzilla Bus -Pirates of the Caribbean Bus -Saint Thomas Aquinas Bus -Drake Bus -Mafia Bus -God Is Number One Bus ~Sara

Country Guides:

Kenya