Day Two - Field Camp to Highway Camp

Distance: 87.65km
Ride time: 7:05
Climb: 625m

This was a pretty grinding day. I woke up after a couple of hours of sleep to find out that it was raining. I decided to wait it out and see if it stopped, but by the time I absolutely, positively had to get up it was raining even harder. Plus, everyone was already up and standing around the truck so they got to watch my inept attempt at a rain takedown of my tent. It was not a resounding success.

Anyway, no breakfast then on the bikes. Sand and corrugations where the order for the day. This wasn't too bad. For the first 300m. Then I hit the real bad roads. The bad roads, constant incline and rain made for a pretty miserable time on the bike. Since we were going uphill, the best place to ride was often the stream of rain water coming down the hill. Needless to say, our bikes are pretty knackered now. I've also got Ethiopian Shitting Sickness, so I was off the bike pretty often. Stripping off the jersey and bibs in the rain and sand is an unforgettable experience.

Eventually I caught up with some riders going as slow as me. This was kind of good, because I got some company riding along at the glacial pace I was going. And it wasn't people that I would normally talk to. First Dana, who has some pretty well thought out plans for post-ride life. Then Steph, who was as angry as usual, but has some good stories.

The riding got a bit better after lunch. The Chinese are busy building the road from Isiolo out to Marsabit. We had about 20km of not quite road, but built up road bed and newish detour roads. This was awesome. Instead of sand and corrugations. We had hard pack with massive puddles. Deep enough to come up to our knees as we rode through. Did I mention that our bikes are screwed?

Finally, after a very long day, we made it to the camp on the side of the new highway. Because of all the rain, it was pretty muddy everywhere. The quick guys had managed to grab a shower with the water collected in the tarp. Slow pokes like me had to make do with washing down using muddy water out of puddles on the road. Being in Africa for this long is a bit like being drunk - you are going to do things and eat things that you normally wouldn't do.

The campground was pretty spectactular. We had views from the escarpment we were on across the plain to the next set of hills. Really cool.

In rider meeting, we were told that we had 25-30km of unpaved (but under construction) road until the pavement. This would have been ok. Then, whlie we were sitting around talking crap, some honkies in a 4wd pulled up to say hello. They told us that there was only six or seven kilometres to go. I didn't want to get my hopes up, but this sounded sweet.

Dan's Camping Tip: When you are doing a rain take down, you don't have to methodically fold up your poles while your tent inner gets soaked on the muddy ground. Unless you are the bumbling comedy relief for the tour. Then go ahead.