Overland Part 2

From the first days of the second part of my overland trip from Cape Town to Cairo:

Day 1: left Kampala at 6PM and arrived in Nairobi, Kenya at around 8 the next morning.

Day 2: Caught a taxi out of "Nairobbery" to Isiolo via Nanyuki (where, in the shadow of Mt. Kenya I demonstrated my water purifier to 15 men and one psycho woman who kept shouting, "I love you Jesus" while simultaneously covering her face with streaks of charcoal like a jungle warrior, offering sex and blowing me kisses). Isiolo = sketch-as-hell. Caught a private 4x4 out of there headed to Moyale leaving at night to avoid daytime banditry in the north. Paused from 1-4AM for the drivers stomach problems.

Day 3: Watched the sun rise, a red orb right out of the earth, just after one of our fellow passengers laid out his prayer rug and sang into a westerly wind in the baron Kenyan landscape. Magic. This is what I came for. Made Moyale, the border town by lunch and stayed the night. Prevailing Islamic influence, half the town is Somali, the rest... not. Another world, finally.

Day 4: Caught a 6am bus out of town. Bus ride was hellish (seats designed by a pious midget, i.e. not fit for an atheist giant... knees and back = fucked). Stayed in Aswa.

Day 5: Yesterday. Made Addis! Part of my journal entry from yesterday: Dirty streets. Foul. "You!! You!!"-s shouted at us from everywhere. While a man grabbed my wrist, asked for the time over and over despite my repeating "No watch!! Not a watch!" another guy spit on Brian and went to wipe it off focusing far too much attention on the wallet area. Sketch as hell. Left them in the dust and nearly ran head-long into a gnarly looking homeless guy, pants dropped to the floor, stinking to high heaven and doing the happy-dance in front of five police officers who, for money, couldn't have cared less. After finding the hotel, we trekked off to Addis Ababa restaurant which looked too rich for our pockets but dazzled us with the incredibly delicious and inexpensive food, tej (a honey-wine (meade?) that had us buzzing and euphoric by the evenings end. On the way home, I felt a tug on on my bag and quickly turned around o find a thief still attached to the zipper. I whipped around and cuffed him square across the face. *WHAM!!* And down he went. Looking down on him and pointing I said, "Don't fucking do that!", turned and walked away. No protests from he or the surrounding crowd. I returned to the hotel with a buzz - part tej, part mind-blowing food, part adrenaline, part coffee (ethiopian crack), and part thrill of this life in general.

Off to the walled city of Harar in two days. Back to Addis and then off to Lalibela and the Eth. Highlands to pet the Planet Earth badass cliff-dwelling baboons. Sudan is almost definitely out due to them (a.) sucking and (b.) George Clooney telling them a bit too publicly that they suck.

Will likely fly to Cairo which'll save us travel days and give us more time to explore Eth., Egypt, Israel and Jordan.

Damnit it all. I wish all of you could experience this. Wish you were here. I really do.

More to come!!

Thanks for reading!

I love you all (but especially you, Michelle!)

Devon.

P.S. If you haven't already read The Diary of Anne Frank, read it. Damnit the world lost a beautiful mind with that girls passing. Huge bummer.