Rained all day. Web and diary day.

Leaving Thompson Falls and Nyahururu behind us we were heading for Nakuru on our way north to spend the night at on the shores of Lake Baringo.

South of Marigat and noticing that Lisa’s chain adjuster had come loose we pulled over to inspect the problem. The end had come loose and been smacked hard by her sprocket, tearing a chunk out of the adjuster and bending the long bolt that fastens the adjuster to the bike.

Strange but not unusual; the two passers by who’d stopped to watch when I sat down behind Lisa’s bike had miraculously become twenty when I looked up next. ‘Bloody hell’ I thought where do these people come from. I’d been asking that same question since we entered Africa and am still no nearer an answer. People just magically appear from nowhere. Are they part of a Union?

The group was now thirty, (I know because I counted) and all good humoured and pretty eager to help. Twenty minutes later and with the help of one the guys, we’d ridden into the nearest village and found a bolt of similar dimensions to the one that Lisa had broken.

With thanks paid to our support team we were soon back on the road and riding the last few miles to Lake Baringo, swerving on and off the road, into scrub and river beds where recent rain had washed away the tar.

Enjoyed a nature walk with Marcus (Exodus truck) and his clients in the morning and a boat trip with Ninkas clients.

The bird life here is overwhelming, with goliath cranes and brightly coloured birds of all descriptions nesting everywhere.

The high point of the day however, has to be sighting and photographing the African Fish Eagle, which I managed to film as it fished, only seconds before snatching a fish from the lake.

Today’s prequel:

Well we’re both knackered thanks to a couple of complete to**%”s last night who can’t handle their drink.

At 6pm a couple of guys turned up (two Brits, Mike and Will) in an old 4X4, pitched their tent and started drinking. By 10:30pm they were still in full flow and by 12pm had got louder and rowdier, in spite of being asked to ‘keep it down’ by several clients from the 3 over-landing trucks that had pitched tents and who were now trying to sleep in readiness for a 5:30am departure.

Lisa and I were beginning to brew. We were both tired. I asked them a few times to keep the noise down and was told to ‘F”*^k off’. By 3am it was getting beyond a joke.

At the point of passing out they had somehow mustered the energy to get into the 4X4, start it up and intended to go looking for beer. Lisa and I were up in a shot. The 4X4 was parked close to the bikes and if they'd hit them, there’d be blood spilled. 30 minutes later and Mike (the driver) was so pissed that he couldn’t get the jeep out of reverse and into first; and so had hatched a cunning plan…”aAahH HaAA, iiLLL Zzust Werversssse threwWW Zee camp ZZZzzit”, Mike slurred.

‘O’ there is a God. I know this as a few minutes after initiating the ‘cunning plan’ they’d brilliantly REVERSED OVER THEIR OWN TENT. And yes it was bloody funny, and yes we laughed a lot, and yes we hoped they run over it a few more times! What was worrying was that they’d now managed by some miracle to reverse 10 metres and were now heading for a group of tents with the occupants still inside. By now Nicky (the new trainee from Marcus’s Exodus truck) had come to lend a hand and so between Lisa, Nicky and myself we persuaded Mike and Will to abandon their plan, get out of the 4X4 and had encouraged them back to their semi-crumpled tent. Mike was still telling me to ‘F”*^K OFF’ a lot.

I’d taken enough of this shit. It was now 3:30am.

Mat a client from Exodus had now joined the land of the awake and very upright people and so with my new partner we set about pushing the 4X4 to one side, opened the bonnet, stripped the electrics and unplugged and removed the battery, which was then thrown into the thickest, thorniest bush we could find. We needed to vent some more and so noticing they weren’t carrying a spare tyre and having searched the 4X4 for an air pump, which they didn’t have, we let down the front and rear right side tyres…it seemed like the right thing to do! With our retribution quota reached we said goodnight to Nicky and Matt and finally got to sleep around 4:30am

Quote of the month: “Come with me now to sort this problem and bring your bow and arrows…”!!! Marcus shouting at a campsite security guard after being frustrated at finding the guards asleep. And yes they really did have bows and arrows as their weapons of choice. Still at 3am it was bloody funny...You just couldn’t make this stuff up.

Packed away and on the road by 9am and heading deeper into Kenya’s central highlands via the staggering Rift Valley. Back down to Marigat and we were looking for an easily missed turning right onto the C51 heading for Kabarnet and Eldoret.What an awesome ride! The reasonably intact and twisty C51 cut up the escarpment steeper and steeper leading us to the small town of Kabarnet, perched on the Kamasia Massif- the slab of the Rift country also known as the Tugen Hills, that remained upstanding on the brink of the Kerio Valley when the rest of the Rift sank. The town was smaller than we’d imagined in its role as ‘capital of the Baringo District’, but the location is nothing less than breathtaking.As the Tambach Escarpment Road continued our excitement built as we left Kabarnet and dove into the Kerio Valley, a dive of 1000 metres in a distance not much more than the same. We loved the rolling and twisty road as we crossed the old bridge at Chebloch over the Kerio River.The steep ride up to Iten kept the bikes rolling left to right and Iten itself rewarded us with unobstructed views across the valley. A couple of thousand metres below the valley floor spread like a grey-green carpet haze and disappeared into the distance.With a short break for a bite to eat (Chicken Gizzard Stew at a local roadside stop!) we were soon back in the saddle (bloody hell, sounds like John Wayne…ye hah!) and making our approach to Eldoret under the weight of a deluge of rain, which without out our Gore-Tex liners soaked us to the skin and left pools of cold rain soaking into our crotches…mmm nice. Cold and wet we rode through Eldoret as bemused pedestrians looked on and then rode the last 18km out to Naiberi River Campsite, as suggested in our Lonely Planets Guide. Marcus had also sung its praises. By mid-evening we’d met Raj, the owner at the bar and were already making ourselves comfortable by the open fire. As tonight’s only guests we enjoyed the peace and quite.

The last few days have been a little different; heavy rain in the afternoon limiting the outdoor activity, but we’ve managed to get up to date with the diary, upload some new stuff to the web site and being given the grand tour of Raj’s huge factory in Eldoret, which produces everything from blankets to knit-wear for export nationally and Internationally.

And so with a few new friends made and a few jobs complete, tomorrow we’re setting off for the Ugandan border and country number 34.