I was still pretty tired when I woke up. I didn't get to sleep till gone 3 as I was making the most of the wifi and trying to reply to all the great messages received whilst I was away in no mans land. I also had a headache so I didn't really start in the best nick to add to the official 6000miles on Nigel's odometer that I achieved yesterday.
Breakfast was good though, one sausage and a spoonful of scrambled egg was all that was cooked for me but I made up for it in Weetabix. They serve the cereal with warm milk which I found strange. They also serve warm sodas as well which I definitely can't understand. I had 2 weeks over Christmas and New Year drinking warm liquids, the last thing I want in this heat is a warm fanta if there are refrigerators in the building!
I left the hotel just after 9 and hit the morning traffic head on. I also hit the headwind and so I knew from the first minute, I was going to have my work cut out. I did appreciate the "cycle lane" however. It wasn't as well tarmacked as the road and there were sections that fell away, turned to gravel or consisted of huge speed bumps but it was better than yesterday.
Cycling through Kenya is so exciting. Just like when i was cycling through Egypt expecting to uncover hidden ruins on my ride, I'm expecting to see wild animals around every corner. All I'm getting at the moment is cows! I thought if I was a lion I would move north if I wanted an easy kill, cows are about as mobile as a rock compared to a hungry lion.
The cycling was tough today. On top of the head wind there were constant climbs that felt a lot steeper and longer than the descents, I was definitely going up hill most of the day. I did enjoy the burn though and as always, I knew there was going to be a downhill to enjoy at some point.
During the constant up and downs I ended up crossing the Equator! Much to my disappointment I wasn't on the road with the famous "Equator" sign so if I hadn't of spotted "Equator primary school" and then checked my position on my phone, I would've happily cycled across it unknowingly. I think I ended up cycling along it for a while which was why there was no definite sign on my road. I can now join most of the Kenyans in the area and say I have cycled from my front door to the Equator.
I got to a junction near a town called Molo which is where I wanted to stay the night. I had put a real shift in and got myself 40kms from Nakuru. It was too late in the day to keep going and my legs were burning out. Annoyingly, Molo wasn't on the main road like most of the towns are, it was 4km away down and up a horrible rocky road. I just had to suck it up, Nigel had to too and unfortunately he took a few hits that caused a few unwanted noises.
I dared not check his status, I just wanted to find a hotel and relax. Nothing really caught my eye hotel wise and normally when I wander through a town I get a good feeling about one. No such luck today and I ended up at a hotel around the back of a pub where the lovely drunk regulars all came out to greet me.
The presence of a very hands on drunk man and a drunk lady asking for money soon turned my mood from just tired and ok to not in the mood and fed up. They tried the old double the price of the room tactic but unfortunately for them despite him being very annoying the drunk man was honest and told me it was 300 not 600.
I had to wait for the manager with the keys so I asked her and got an honest answer. What I didn't get was electricity, water out the tap or a dry floor. The room was a right dump so I was moved to a cheaper room that had everything I needed! I didn't exactly know why they were charging more for a much worse room but at least I had found a half decent place to rest my burning legs.
The hotel saga of drunk people and changing rooms lasted longer than my blog lets on and by the end of it I just wanted to chill out. I went for a walk down the main street and found a nice looking place that was showing the football. Perfect, all I needed now was some decent food and I would be happy again. "Can I have the menu please" "ummm our chef is away so we have chicken or beef" nice, another great selection. I ended up with chicken and ugali and chips. The chicken though was fried for so long and such poor quality, when I found the minimal meat on the crumbling bone it was like eating plastic. I ended up thankful for the ugali and wolfed that down as if it was my favourite food and I was back at the police camp!
Football was good and the satisfaction of a good hard day on the bike set in. I had teed myself up perfectly for a nice day tomorrow where I was going to have a rest day as Nakuru has a big national park and there were animals slightly wilder than a cow to be seen!
I am now in the Southern Hemisphere! I don't know if this means I need change which end of the bed I sleep at but ill be checking how the water flushes for sure. Not much point though, I've forgotten which way it went in the north!
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