Day 30 – Marsabit

28.01.2012

Jules writes:

We were now a third of the way through Hell Road, but before we could move on, I had some work to do. At breakfast, we started chatting to Francis, who had moved up from the Southern end of the country to manage a local technical school just around the corner from the place we were staying at. He suggested that we bring the bike around to the workshop, and he would see if they were able to fix the tyre.

I followed him to the school, where I met two of the teachers, but, being a Saturday, there were no students to be seen. They were happy to help, but to my slight dismay, they were unfamiliar with the specifics of changing a bike tyre, and seemed happy to take my lead. The closest I had come to changing a tyre was watching Peter in Malawi work on Dad’s tyre, but I managed to remember enough to get the wheel off, although we broke an allenkey trying to detach the brake unit. With the wheel off, it was a relatively simple matter to take out the tube, find the puncture, and patch it. The challenge came when we tried to put the wheel back on, but after about 15 minutes we were tightening the last axle bolt, which was an unfortunate time indeed to notice that one of the brake pads had slipped out, and so everything was once again taken off, and after a frustrating few minutes, we managed to get everything back on, and I was on my way.

We had been hearing from several sources that Moyale was not a safe place at the moment. It seemed that there had been outbreaks of violence between two tribes in the area within the last couple of days, although the exact reason for the conflict was unspecified. While we were assured that their animosity was purely reserved for each other, we were warned that they do sometimes rob people traveling along the road, taking money and any other valuables. We headed to the police station to find out what we would need to do to organize a police escort through the area.

I don’t think I have ever seen so many people carrying large rifles as I did in that police compound, although possibly it was a combined army operation as well, as everyone seemed to be dressed in camo tops, but traditional robes instead of pants. I walked into the reception office to try and find someone to talk to, but all I found was an empty desk, with two prison cells attached to the side walls, with actual prisoners in them. When Shan came in with a camera, they happily smiled for the photos, and when asked why they were in the cell, told her “We took things”. Good thing they keep these dangerous criminals behind bars.

We were advised by the police that it would be prudent to have a police escort, but that we should meet up with them in a town called Turbi, about 100 km from Moyale. However, we would have to arrange a vehicle for them to travel in, and if they arrived too late, we would have to pay for accommodation for them as well. A strange thing, considering that it is the job of the police to keep the country safe. When we got on the bikes to leave, my bike (always my wretched bike) chugged listlessly when I turned the key, the went silent. With the help of a lieutenant-colonel, we managed to push-start the bike, but clearly things were not well.

We drove into town, although I use the word “town” with great generosity and

found a place to eat called “Mum’s Milk Bar and Cafe”, although at no point did I see any milk, or a bar for that matter. We did manage to get a meal of rice and stew, with meat so tough that even a hyena would have had to approach the task of eating it with some determination. While we were eating, to our dismay, “No-Problem” Abdul spotted us and started rambling on. He had a bag of green leaves that he was tucking into, and when asked, were informed that it was “nicotine”. We can only speculate, although during the course of the day we saw many people with the tell-tale green slime between their teeth. He clearly had amorous intentions and spent all of his time trying to talk to Shan. We had also met a guy called Jamal at Mum’s and at one point, Shan looked around to see him actually licking his lips while looking at her. With options like these, clearly Shan is only single because she has unrealistically high standards. She has been breaking hearts all the way through Africa.

After asking around, I found a place that might be able to sell me a battery, and so I headed over with Dad. The owner of the shop, Mangia,  was still out at lunch, so we sat down to wait. When he arrived, he turned out to be an absolutely fantastic individual, who quickly set about helping us, going to a friend to source some batteries for us. The batteries, while 12 V, had a much lower current, which in essence means that they will work, but will not have as long a life-span. Considering that my current battery was giving up the ghost as we spoke, this sounded like a good option, and so with a bit of creativity in getting the smaller battery to fit in the casing, we managed to get everything fixed up, even touching up some other minor problems on the bike.

We finally left there after 6 o’ clock, but with a functioning motrorbike. When we got back to the campsite, we met a couple of fellow bikers, Hans and Rolf, who had flown in a few days earlier from Germany to Mombasa with their bikes, and were planning on driving up to the Middle East, although their schedule was slightly less punishing than ours. They were seasoned bikers, having travelled through many places in North Africa and Europe, and they regaled us with fantastic stories of their travels. They were also traveling through to Moyale the following day, and so they decided to ride with us. Even our warning that we were leaving at 5 AM was not enough to dissuade them, and so we headed to bed for an early night.