In your dialect of English . . .

Do you say ‘Ass over teakettle’ or ‘Ass over applecart’? Either way, you can get an impression of how my bike ride went this weekend. I have decided against taking pictures of the bruises I have suffered, but I keep finding more, which makes me sort of sad inside (and more sad outside, I am having troubles finding a comfortable position in which to sit in my chair this morning). I thought I had found all of them yesterday evening when I got home from our little adventure and jumped in the shower, but there are new ones this morning L.

It turns out graceful is not a modifier you can add to my name. I am not a huge cyclist, I own a bike in PHX, but the trails I go on are relatively well kept and I don’t bike in places where I am forced to ride alongside trucks and buses with no escape path. But I am a sucker, and when Aine said, “Hey, there is this fun cycle adventure thru Masailand, let’s join,” I thought, well why not. I am a sheep in the end, and since a friend of mine told me I was such a voyeur a couple of weeks ago, I have been out there doing vs. watching.

Context: To say this was the most disorganized outing I have ever been on would be a stretch, but at present I am unable to think of a situation where it was worse. I am sure it will come to me in time. Example: We were supposed to be picked up by the event coordinators at 6:20am, they arrived at 6:45am. They had approximately 10 stops planned across Nairobi, and they sometimes didn’t know where they were going. Some people ended up waiting 2 hours because they were told they were going to be picked up at 7:15am, and we got there at 9:15am. Second example: we were supposed to be checked in and on our way at 9am. We arrived at around 11am, and didn’t get on our bikes until 11:15am. We have rules back home since it is a desert and when it is ok to be out in the sun doing activity. Generally speaking, you want to be out of the sun between 11am and 3pm. And where we started, Ollorgesaille, is in the middle of a desert. I cannot tell you exact temperatures, but at least 85 degrees on up. I am sure it hit 95, since Joe had told us it is the hottest place in Kenya.

So we biked, and I was in a sort of ‘be on my own’ mood, so I feel behind the rest of the group, stopping to talk to small children, let them ride my bike (once you let one ride, all of them have to ride – and by ride I mean they got on and I pushed). Fully enjoyable time. Anyway, I am going along, and down the road comes a matatu. It is on its side of the road, I am on mine, so I think that there is no cause for alarm. And all of a sudden he must have seen a pothole or something because he swerves towards me and starts honking his horn. So I freak, and swerve as well, which is off the road, where there is a drop between the pavement and the dirt, front tire sticks, and voila, ass over applecart. I got up, a bit shaken, but looked at myself and didn’t see too much blood, so I thought I was ok. A scrape on my leg, one on my hand, but all in all, still in one piece. A bit shaken up, I decide my morning ride, since I am sweaty and gross, is over. Luckily, there was a bus (which there were not too many of picking up people – even though it was promised), which picked me up and took me and some other passengers on to Magadi.

The rest of the weekend, well, the summary is not enough water at certain points, not enough buses to pick people up when they needed it, poor estimation of distances (aka 1 African KM is not the same as 1 US KM), dinner very late, spoiled food . . . you get the drift, poor planning and organization. It was a total blast in spite of everything, and I would still get back up on that horse (actually, a horse would be a lot of fun too, but I suppose I mean a bike here) and do another trip similar in Kenya. The area was beautiful, supposedly the last scene of The Constant Gardener was filmed there. It reminded me a lot of AZ. I loved the camping piece, there was a full moon at night and we left the top uncovered by the rain tarp, so I could sit there and look up at it, which was very calming. Thanks go off to Mike for setting up one of the tents (he thought that we were already at camp when he arrived after biking in the dark for an hour). I will have to recruit individuals to go off on weekend camping trips, I enjoyed it that much.

Hopefully not too many days ahead of icing down my backside . . .