Chapter 12 - Road to Nairobi

Kenya would be our second country on our East African tour.
We would be travelling by couch by first we had to plan our tickets and get the rest of our things in Kampala so we returned to Kampala from Fort Portal for the weekend. Our first priority was to get bus tickets to Nairobi.

We had initially planned on taking modern coast, but after reviews and comparisons to a cockroach wildlife tour, we decided to give Mash Poa east Africa a go.
We had read a review in the diary of a mzungu and she seemed to praise its service, not to mention we were promised a hook-up by a family friend, but the only hook up she provided was telling us they only travel at night.

We called the bus call centre to enquire and reserve our seats.
William (we would learn) answered the phone so nonchalantly, that I had to double check I had called the right place.
After a couple grunts of acknowledgement and confirming the evening bus time, we asked to reserve seats for the following week.
He advised that we send him our names and passport numbers and arrange for payment ahead of travel, so we made a promise to come in on the Monday.

After some faith that our tickets were booked, we set off for Muyenga an area of Kamapala, where we would be staying for the weekend.
We had planned to stay with Caz's cousin; James, and despite him being called out of town, we jumped at the chance to have his place for our own! It would be the first time we'd be alone since our four-day tour of west Uganda.

We had to wait for James' trusted boda driver to not only deliver the keys, but to also take us to his place. Caz had never been and directions are a nightmare, especially at night.

Hillary arrived impressively without getting lost just as the rain was starting.
We thought he might have issue travelling in the rain, so we checked in to make sure he was happy to get on the road, to which he replied cooly...maybe it’s a problem for you.
It was neither a question or answer, more like a challenge.

We jumped on the Boda and made our way to Muyenga.
We were glad to be getting out of the house and getting some alone time.

The journey was longer than expected, which impressed us more about Hillary.
The rain didn’t persist and before long, traffic was our main issue.
Although getting gridlocked between cars and taxis gave us a chance to take in our surroundings.
It was in a whole different part of town

and had a different feel in the air.
We passed bustling mini markets, industrial estates, swanky hotels and the train tracks before we had even got to our side of town.
We both continued to take note of landmarks, as we would for sure need it to direct a Boda or food delivery man.

By the time we got close to the house, it was dark and we had navigated a few windy dark lanes and could only hope for the best.

By the time Hillary got us in, it was already 10pm. We were hungry and aching from the boda ride, so were keen to just head back out.

We had made plans to meet up with our firecracker friend IVY, that we had met on a couple times at our fav Mexican spot Que Pasa.
When she told us about the Halloween party at kingdom, we were keen as we wanted to go out, and this would be our last chance before setting off to Kenya.

Flash forward to then, our enthusiasm had waned and when she didn’t respond to our text, we took that as a sign to go local and get some food.

We were lucky that the uber found us, after circling the area and trying to find street names that either didn’t exist or match the maps.

We went to Ggaba road, which was busy and had multiple options.
We went straight to a Turkish place that was known for food and live music....but not that Friday night.
Before we even exited our uber? We could see that the place was dead! And after being told there was no food, we headed for the nearest bar with music.

The second bar was more alive, but sadly only had a plate of dry looking chips to offer.
We drank up our Tusker lagers after people watching and the stare downs and decided our only option was the massive obviously western diner.

We walked in with intention to what looked like a closed restaurant. But they said that they were still open and for us to take a seat. We made friends with one of the waiters, Simon, who was local to the area. He said that the restaurant didn’t close until there were no more customers. We spoke about the difficulties in getting a job locally and that some companies request payment before you can start working for them as a bribe. We were both shocked by this but unemployment and corruption are both pretty bad in Uganda. Our new friend waiting for us to eat before coming back over to chat some more.
It was quite late before we started to leave but not for the first time our travel bank card wouldn’t work using the restaurants card machine. So, our newfound friend walked us to the nearest ATM so we could drawer more cash. Simon, then called over his Boda Boda friend to take us all home. It was the first time that either of us travelled with two other people on a motor bike! We had travelled three persons, but not four! It took us a little while to find our place, but we were soon heading back to the flat and thanked Simon and the Boda ride home.
Our stay at the flat flew by and before we knew it we were once again on the move. We had to head to the coach station early to make sure our ticket was paid for and fully booked, but didn’t want to have all our things all day, which meant travelling into two town twice that day. We knew the traffic could get really bad and didn’t want to miss our coach so set out with a few hours to spare in case the famous Kamapala traffic was already pretty bad.
Once we got there we soon realized the coach wasn’t quite as spacious or as comfortable as we were hoping from the website pictures! The seats were pretty cramped, and we made a promise to ourselves that the next journey we would pay the extra for the upgrading VIP seat! We are both very tall, so the more leg room the better for an overnight 11-14 hour journey! Mark was upset that he made such a schoolboy error of drinking beer the day of a huge coach journey, even though he had left plenty of time it was going to be an uncomfortable ride!
The coach was very warm, and the air conditioning was not working. We were both struggling a little from the heat and a quick look a round confirmed that there was no toilet on board, oh oh Mark said. A few times in the dead of night the coach stopped but only to receive new customers and there was little communication about whether it was a comfort stop or how long we were stopping for. We were both wedged into our seats with our things and it wasn’t easy to run off quickly, Mark seriously thought of running out to relieve himself into a ditch but then the coach spun off leaving some one behind! Luckily the coach stopped when people shouted but this happened all night, where the drivers left without checking if anyone was onboard. We were both frightened of being left in the middle of nowhere without any positions, or working phone in the middle of the night, it was either that or using the toilet, not a nice option after waiting for 8 hours plus by this point.

At the border we both thought, this is it, there must be toilets. It around 2am at this point so we were both very tired. We had read that border health guards checks for yellow fever certificates, so we were glad that we had them. The queue was long, and slow, we had to fill in a health form largely about Ebola before proceeding to the Visa control desks. Strangley the Uganda visa control officer was sat next to the Kenya Visa control officer and we had to go through the same process twice. Our fingerprints, a photograph, a check of our passport and questions about our stay. It was easier for Caz being Ugandan.
Mark was confused as to why we had to do the same process twice, some sharing between the two countries could really help with speeding up border entries! After going through the checks, we realized we were the last ones and were desperate to find a toilet. Our coach was already revving up when we got outside, and just there was a sign saying a ‘Toilet’. We both smiled at that point and rushed towards it hoping the coach wouldn’t speed off without us! The toilet however, had lots of attendants outside saying we had to pay. Marks heart sank, all our money is on the bus, do we even have any Ugandan Shillings left? But Caz just busted past them promising to get money off the bus, Mark did the same, “we will get money, we will get money” he shouted before running into the bathroom. Relieved and happy we ran to the coach, and realized the driver was not going to wait for us to grab money and started to drive away. We

sat down only mildly guilty of not paying 500 Ugandan shillings for the pleasure of using their toilet.

Once we passed the border it didn’t take that long to notice that Kenya has quite a lot more money then Uganda. Most of the roads are of higher quality, it is generally cleaner and more of the houses use more modern styles. We were both shattered by this point and drifting in and out of sleep. We realized that we had been travelling for 12 hours and still hadn’t arrived in Nairobi, and that it was freezing! We were quite high up at this point and the air temperature outside must have been close to freezing point. Although in the UK we are used to the cold we had been in high temperatures for some time, so the sudden chill was a major surprise! Finally, we were on the outskirts of Nairobi city after travelling for some 14 plus hours in a cramped bus. We were both grumpy and very tired at this point. Getting off the coach in the centre of Nairobi after a long journey can be a little unsettling. As traveller we have grown accustomed to people grabbing our attention for taxis or selling us something. But people actually came onto the coach to ‘help’ us, by helping it was grabbing our stuff and promising to help and where do you need to go etc. Barely being awake this is awkward and its hard to have your wits about you. We got all our things, spoke to one local driver – Brian, who we seemed to trust, and he promised to take us to get something to eat and get to where we were staying. We needed to get to Karen Museum which was on the other side of town. But we

had no local currency, so we asked Brian if there was an ATM and a café close to the museum, we could get coffee, food and money and be rested before meeting our host for the next few nights. Having got used to Uganda shillings we had to re calculate everything again for Kenyan Shillings!
Caz was very happy to get coffee; Mark was very happy to get some food and some local tea. Brian agreed to wait for us, we knew the price would be quite high for our taxi but at that point we didn’t care too much. Brian dropped us off and was very relaxed about how much he wanted for the ride, we gave him what we thought was fair and waited in the shade for our host.