Whyteleafe, Surrey UK to Cape Town

We are in Addis Ababa, after a ride through the ever-changing scenery from Bahir Dar, and an overnight stop at a pretty smart hotel in Debre Markos.

View of Lake Tana from hotel room in Bahir Dar.

Many birds of a colour were pecking around in the hotel gardens. And fairly tame at that.

We obtained Kenyan visas in Addis, the three-month variety, so that will be helpful.
We also have three-month visas for here in Ethiopia. But at the border we could only get one-month customs permits for our bikes so we have to move on.
And there are reports of rain further south.

We have arrived in Isiolo, northern Kenya, after five entertaining days on The Great North Highway.
And a lot has happened since sitting in an email café in Awasa, Ethiopia.

Marsabit to Isiolo.
Travellers say this section is even worse than the previous, Moyale to Marsabit. We were keen to find out. Well, we had no choice really.
It started off OK, as it did when leaving Moyale.

Reasonably comfortable.

With little villages and tea houses again.

We headed south-west from Isiolo into the Rift Valley and its many lakes.
There's plenty to see and do, not the least zig-zagging across the equator about five times in ten days.
Our first sight-seeing stop was Nyahururu and Thomson Falls, a scenic Rift Valley water fall. A few days later we arrived at Lake Boringo, to the north, and Robert's Camp located on its shores. Both had been recommended to us quite a few times.

After leaving Lake Naivasha we stayed in Nairobi for six days working on the bikes, in particular Beau's starter mechanism. Internet there is pretty expensive, and now we are at Tiwi Beach on the Indian Ocean coast, south of Mombasa.

We are back in Nairobi after a couple of weeks on the east coast. But internet is even slower, so an update with photos will follow later.

When we first arrived in Nairobi a few weeks ago, Bodo and Sabine, and Kathy and Jonathan were also here in their trucks, so we had a session of comparing and swapping photographs.
Mainly photos of the Trans East-African Highway, the Moyale to Isiolo 'most-discussed road in all Africa'.
So here's a selection of their photos:

Huila and Eva service their bicycles in the campsite in Addis Ababa before the long trek to the Kenyan border, and THAT road.

A couple of weeks ago we left Nairobi for Tiwi Beach on the Indian Ocean coast, south of Mombasa.
The road there took us between two National Parks, not completely fenced, so wildlife sightings can be expected almost anywhere.

About halfway to Mombasa a herd of zebra seem to live permanently by the roadside - they were still there when we returned a week later.
And a little further on something large was rummaging around in amongst the trees on the right hand side of the road.

It's the middle of the day here at Jungle Junction and I've just made some tea in the kitchen with the help of a torch.
This is now the serious rainy season.
A noisy thunder storm is circling overhead blocking out all the daylight, the power has gone off, and there is no mains water.

It's still raining here, so I'm still biding my time.
And have found that it's quite a lot of work trying to organise and back-up all my photos, in addition to the ones that Caroline left with me and others received from fellow overlanders.

So here's a few of those, just to make use of them.
And some recent photos of the English weather here at Jungle Junction.

Now the flood has receded from the driveway, I can almost reach my bike.

That's about the third day in a row I've said that, so I left Nairobi this morning for the ride to Kericho, in the direction of the Ugandan border.

At the Kericho Tea Hotel my repaired tent worked fine, and it hardly rained while I was there. But the ground everywhere is so waterlogged and muddy that camping isn't a very comfortable option so I found a very nice small hotel in town where I've been for a few days.

A few friends and acquaintances have asked, What news of Caroline and Beau?

As well as the sad news about Les recently there's been much happening with my daughter and son-in-law.

Take a deep breath -
About two weeks ago Caroline had an interview by telephone with the British Council in Khartoum, for teaching and examining English.
They offered her the job straightaway - "Can you start Monday?!" crackled down the phone wires.
They realised that was a bit impractical and it became Monday week.

I'm in Bungoma, near the Ugandan border. It's another ordinary town, a bit like Kericho but a shade bigger, and not even in my guidebook. So that's good.
The sort of place I usually end up staying in for a while.
I've wandered around, and like Kericho, saw no other white faces. There's nothing for tourists here.

I suppose both towns could be considered the Kenyan version of Caterham, about the same size more or less as Caterham, Caterham on the Hill, Warlingham and Whyteleafe.

After quite a few days in Kericho with its pavement tailors, I continued with my plan to stay at the Naiberi River Camp near Eldoret as it comes highly recommended. The sun was shining on departure, so here are some photos of the tea estates around the town.

Crossed the border into Uganda yesterday, all straightforward. But difficult to get used to all the zeros on the money. About 2700 shillings in a pound. I lived almost half my life with twenty shillings in a pound. It doesn't matter how often you hear "Eleven thousand two hundred shillings," - when the word "shillings" reaches your ear, your brain is immediately unable to process any number higher than twenty. A bit of a problem.
The corridor between the border and Jinja, a big resort area, looks fairly prosperous compared with the more down-to-earth towns in western Kenya.

A couple of days ago was Les's funeral. I was in Bungoma, thoughts in Henley on Thames.
And my research for my way south to Lake Malawi and thence Zimbabwe reminded me of another anecdote from our regular meet-ups.

I was in Zimbabwe for a short visit in 2001, but didn't see the Great Zimbabwe Monument. I want to ride there this time because, I think, it gives the lie to what was taught in English schools (at least mine) in the 1950s about British colonialism in Africa.

Or: Moyale-Isiolo Meets The Equator.
Arrived in Kampala a few days ago, where there are at least three possible onward routes.
North to Murchison Falls (probably hot and steamy); east to Fort Portal, with gorillas, (but US$500 to see them and still their numbers are dwindling), chimps (becoming habituated to humans they say in the guidebooks) and also hot and steamy; or south west to Kabale and Lake Bunyonyi which sounds more my sort of place. It also provides a straightforward route to Rwanda on the way to Lake Tanganyika.

Or: The Road To Malawi.
I'm now in Kabale, on the edge of Lake Bunyonyi. Haven't visited the lake yet, probably tomorrow. It's about two miles away.