Day 163-166: Kimana to Nairobi

March 14, 2025 to March 17, 2025

Something weird happened from the north of Kili – the clouds that had obscured the mountain from view in Moshi cleared. Maybe it’s always like this, but the mountain was spectacular in the morning from the north. We were meant to be looking forward when riding, but it was hard to not look over your shoulder.

We did get a bit of a distraction pretty much immediately after leaving town – some zebra by the side of the road, and then popping their heads up, some giraffe as well.

We had three reasonably long days (for us) on this stretch. And it was hot. The cloud cover had abandoned Kili and also us. We did manage to find a place to camp along the way (which was a relatively quiet and cool place to finally get some rest), but the furnace continued for all three days. We are only slightly comforted by some of the locals looking withered and also complaining about the heat.

Nairobi has an international airport. And we very nearly bought a plane ticket out of Africa after this stretch. But not quite, we’ll soldier on just a bit further hoping the weather will change soon.

We entered Nairobi on a Sunday. Probably the best day to avoid the famous traffic. We didn’t really want to see anything in particular in the city, and now that we have two new drivetrains in the panniers, we didn’t need to buy anything. We only spent a few hours in the city centre having a look around. Something we didn’t even realise we missed was yoghurt and supermarkets. We found one within one of the other in the city and scoffed it on the street. Supermarkets are pretty rare between Zambia and Kenya. Now they’re common again. We stayed with Joerg and Gaby and Julian (warmshowers hosts) in their place in northern Nairobi. The place was in a gated community, lovely gardens, a pool, and most importantly – quiet. We only stayed 2 nights – just enough time to meet the family, just scratch the surface of how UNICEF operates in Kenya, then pack everything again and move on.

Today's ride: 263 km (163 miles)
Total: 8,397 km (5,215 miles)

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