It’s Sunday, the day of travel. Am up pretty early for someone who was too excited too sleep in the first place. I still have a few hours before my bus leaves so I take my sweet time getting ready doing some last minute packing and all. I get a message from a number I don’t know telling me that my bus is leaving in a bit, where the hell I am! My hell breaks loose. See I have to be in Loitokitok by this evening or I get myself explaining to do. I call back immediately and start haranguing the guy... long story short I’m booked on another bus- someone was kind enough. I ask when the bus is leaving and that is the funny bit. Its still coming from Loitokitok, nobody knows where it is or when it arrives. So it’s better to hang around. After the call I haul myself to the booking office and start the WAIT. Luckily I have company, I hardly notice three hours drag by.
The bus finally arrives. And everyone boards, everything is loaded in exactly 15 minutes, but we do not leave for another 30 minutes. When we finally do its 1400Hrs which means we will be getting to Loitokitok by 2000Hrs or thereabouts. The conductor is kind enough to inform us that we will have two stops, the petrol station for fuel, and Emali for lunch (30min). Nice, I think to my self. At least we won’t waste time stopping at every bus stage to pick more passengers.
It’s slow getting out of the city, but then we get to Mombasa highway and the pace starts to pick up. The journey is rather uneventful and past Mlolongo I start dozing off. The sound of the rain pelting my window wakes me. From the gentle slope I can tell we are in Salama. It’s a small town but pretty busy for its size, with lots of trucks stopping over. There is a road diversion just out of the town which is causing a traffic snarl up. Our driver is behaving like he would like to beat Loitokitok town to Loitokitok town I instinctively reach for my dirty seat belt.
Its 1730Hrs now and we are in Emali. Stop number two. We stop in front of a hotel and I expect people will get out to relieve themselves, stretch and what not, but alas its loading part two! men and two three mamas with kids strapped on their backs start streaming in and in no time the bus filled up to double capacity. They support themselves by holding any thing from the hand rails on the matatu ceiling to peoples head and shoulders. I thank God I got the window seat.
We take a right after Emali town (how I wish the bus was going straight to coasto). The lady next to me is awoken by a Massai who was lounging on her shoulder. We laugh about that and she tells me her name is Taiko. We start chatting about the weather, drought/famine, and the rains expected Turkanas, and moving swiftly to Maasais -my current pet subject. I ask her when this road was constructed, because I used it in mid-July and it was one of the roughest I've been on and she tells me, it’s just a small stretch, and I should brace myself for some rough road (I’ve been on worse but I don’t tell her). We are being driven very fast and Taiko is wondering when how long this overloading is going to tease common driving logic. In Merweshi we get a puncture, and a tyre has to be changed. It’s an opportune time to stretch. As soon as there is some space on the corridor to step out I get out.
20 minutes later we are on our way again, and I have quashed all hopes of watching the premier episode of Sakata. Its okay, I tell myself. One more thing not to get used to. Tarmac ends and we are on rough road. As we drive through kalesilwa I notice the whole area is strewn with black rocks of all sizes, a result of volcanic activity in the past I wager. I ask Taiko if there is a myth to this phenomenon and she tells me she doesn’t know. The only vegetation is little clusters of dry acacias and I spot three beautifully camouflaged elephants browsing on them.
Dusk was approaching, and the pink eastern sky was bidding the setting sun good bye. We passed through Embonjo, which I was told means a swamp - explains the green stretch on the further out my window. Come Siineti and almost everyone who boarded the bus in Emali alights, including two guys on opposite ends of the corridor who had been talking to each other like they weren’t separated by almost fifteen people.
We reached Kimana well after dark, Taiko’s final destination. She told me she will crush at her daughter's place because it wasn’t safe to walk at night because of elephants. We exchanged numbers, and promised to keep in touch before she alighted. It was pitch black out side and my eyes were tired of peaking into the dark. The road was rough I could tell from the way we were almost being tossed from one side to the other, and the bus almost tipping over side ways.
I started musing at everything around me. The Maasai guy who had alighted a minute ago and disappeared into the darkness (there wasn’t a sign of a homestead anywhere...). The beaded lady standing in front of me (I wondered if the beadry on her meant anything).
And soon we were in Loitokitok. Horn blasts, whistles and shouts from conductors (the number had moved up from one coming out of Nairobi to more than seven hanging out of the bus door by the end of the day) announced Promise's arrival to Loitokitok.
Taiko called to find out if I have arrived in one piece. Such a nice acquaintance. So does my sister and Mother.
The bus finally arrives. And everyone boards, everything is loaded in exactly 15 minutes, but we do not leave for another 30 minutes. When we finally do its 1400Hrs which means we will be getting to Loitokitok by 2000Hrs or thereabouts. The conductor is kind enough to inform us that we will have two stops, the petrol station for fuel, and Emali for lunch (30min). Nice, I think to my self. At least we won’t waste time stopping at every bus stage to pick more passengers.
It’s slow getting out of the city, but then we get to Mombasa highway and the pace starts to pick up. The journey is rather uneventful and past Mlolongo I start dozing off. The sound of the rain pelting my window wakes me. From the gentle slope I can tell we are in Salama. It’s a small town but pretty busy for its size, with lots of trucks stopping over. There is a road diversion just out of the town which is causing a traffic snarl up. Our driver is behaving like he would like to beat Loitokitok town to Loitokitok town I instinctively reach for my dirty seat belt.
Its 1730Hrs now and we are in Emali. Stop number two. We stop in front of a hotel and I expect people will get out to relieve themselves, stretch and what not, but alas its loading part two! men and two three mamas with kids strapped on their backs start streaming in and in no time the bus filled up to double capacity. They support themselves by holding any thing from the hand rails on the matatu ceiling to peoples head and shoulders. I thank God I got the window seat.
We take a right after Emali town (how I wish the bus was going straight to coasto). The lady next to me is awoken by a Massai who was lounging on her shoulder. We laugh about that and she tells me her name is Taiko. We start chatting about the weather, drought/famine, and the rains expected Turkanas, and moving swiftly to Maasais -my current pet subject. I ask her when this road was constructed, because I used it in mid-July and it was one of the roughest I've been on and she tells me, it’s just a small stretch, and I should brace myself for some rough road (I’ve been on worse but I don’t tell her). We are being driven very fast and Taiko is wondering when how long this overloading is going to tease common driving logic. In Merweshi we get a puncture, and a tyre has to be changed. It’s an opportune time to stretch. As soon as there is some space on the corridor to step out I get out.
20 minutes later we are on our way again, and I have quashed all hopes of watching the premier episode of Sakata. Its okay, I tell myself. One more thing not to get used to. Tarmac ends and we are on rough road. As we drive through kalesilwa I notice the whole area is strewn with black rocks of all sizes, a result of volcanic activity in the past I wager. I ask Taiko if there is a myth to this phenomenon and she tells me she doesn’t know. The only vegetation is little clusters of dry acacias and I spot three beautifully camouflaged elephants browsing on them.
Dusk was approaching, and the pink eastern sky was bidding the setting sun good bye. We passed through Embonjo, which I was told means a swamp - explains the green stretch on the further out my window. Come Siineti and almost everyone who boarded the bus in Emali alights, including two guys on opposite ends of the corridor who had been talking to each other like they weren’t separated by almost fifteen people.
We reached Kimana well after dark, Taiko’s final destination. She told me she will crush at her daughter's place because it wasn’t safe to walk at night because of elephants. We exchanged numbers, and promised to keep in touch before she alighted. It was pitch black out side and my eyes were tired of peaking into the dark. The road was rough I could tell from the way we were almost being tossed from one side to the other, and the bus almost tipping over side ways.
I started musing at everything around me. The Maasai guy who had alighted a minute ago and disappeared into the darkness (there wasn’t a sign of a homestead anywhere...). The beaded lady standing in front of me (I wondered if the beadry on her meant anything).
And soon we were in Loitokitok. Horn blasts, whistles and shouts from conductors (the number had moved up from one coming out of Nairobi to more than seven hanging out of the bus door by the end of the day) announced Promise's arrival to Loitokitok.
Taiko called to find out if I have arrived in one piece. Such a nice acquaintance. So does my sister and Mother.
Before after
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