Cycling to Kenya: Crossing No Mans Land, Part 2

RICE AND RED ONION BURPED IN THE OLD BLACK POT, an ugly dinner as always. I 
dropped in little mounds of salt and forced down big spoons hidden amongst the sand dune prison.
Occasionally my eyes flicked up to the crown of sand around me remembering where I was.

I was on edge, but I was happy. Kenya was tantalizingly close - I could see it across the desert - mountains that glowed blue in the day now loomed along the ashy horizon. 
This crossing into Kenya had poked me with worry for a while. But now I was actually in it, still, resting, the heat faded into bliss; I had the chance to appreciate where I was. This was a beautiful, crazy sleep.

*

Then the desert darkened and a fear bloomed. My twitchiness felt of a different character to ones my mind had conjured up in the past, something felt very wrong about sleeping here and nothing in me could relax.

Any border area in the world isn't best for camping, but here, was honestly scary.

I scribbled in my diary and flicked through photos and scraps of paper I had hauled with me for miles, probably for some comfort, and heaped sand on the fire to stop a flame catching an eye across the dessert. And tucked under my mosquito net on a warm bed of sand, I lay in the weightless void of luring deep sleep and innate paranoia. 

*

A sound leapt across the land, I shot from sleep and snapped to my elbows. Staring out to the skyline I listened hard; a throbbing tribal singing grew, a continuous humming rhythm sailing across the open silence. 

I tried to cool my nerves - it must be coming from a village I passed earlier on; a huddle of trees and huts somewhere back in the distance - "must be having a party" I assured aloud to myself.

An unfunny, sarcastic narrator seemed to play in the back of my mind in worrying moments, detaching me from the reality of the disaster I could fall into, probably a consequence of solo travel in unfamiliar places.

A little hop and the noise expanded, or at least I thought so - "maybe its a war chant, do tribes still do that?". I stared through the holes of the mosquito net: land rolled in a monochrome sea to a giant sky deep with a billion stars, bending over the dessert to every horizon and my tiny gathering of life a stranded speck in the middle. The river I crossed that morning lay somewhere along the skyline running south into Kenya and the faint singing rose from behind the dyke where distant yet huge echoes of belching hippos bellowed up to the stars. 

Something was happening out there and I stared through the holes of the mosquito net as if something was nearing. Listening, hoping and looking for the morning like never before.

  

*

My eyes peeled open to a pale sky. Clouds like thin sheets of white fabric rolled out to the east where the white sun rose. It was very early and it was time to go.

The cool air was heavenly recalling the rage of yesterdays sun; my hands had been exposed all day and the skin looked scratched and sore. I packed Allen slow and mopey and pushed back towards the tire tracks with a moan for the day to come - "oh I hate bicycles".

Then a voice on the wind caught me, I swung around - a blur of men appeared across the sand, five in the group and running straight for me, their dark slender figures swinging casually slow yet the desert turned under their feet at pace. I waved an innocent ‘hello’, evidently my defense in any situation, and swung onto the saddle and pedaled hard, stamping up and down like I was angry at Allen and slicing through the sand.

I looked back, the men were gaining on me - an image printed in my memory - and I pelted for the horizon in a blur of pedaling panic. I looked back again; they were closing in, I pedaled harder, like I had my own motor attached, fear finding strength I didn’t know I had. I half glanced back over my shoulder a final time to see the bobbing heads falling behind the rolling sandy swells and I knew I was escaping.

Maybe I cycled for an hour, maybe twenty minutes, but time and desert passed and out of the dunes appeared an army soldier, climbing out from underneath a low wooden shelter. He swung his gun to his hip and smiled. A very red man with hair glowing like the sun appearing out of the desert with a bicycle must have livened up his morning stag duty and he walked me through the dunes to a huddle of trees.

Dozens of drooped cloth tents flapped in the wind and soldiers stood around brushing teeth. I was introduced to a colonel who handed me a Kenyan beer - usually a bit early, but today was an exception and I took a big swig of the fizzy nectar. It was warm, but good. 

Supping on a bench the colonel told me about his 70 man troop stationed out in this harsh, arid spot to control the problems between warring tribes. He nodded me towards a group of men stood with pots in hand waiting for breakfast, a skinned goat hung by its hooves from a tree as the butcher worked. I grabbed my own pot and joined the queue, telling the troops my story.

Mumbling in passing about the chase on the way in, unsure if I was in any real danger, I looked up to woops, wrist flicks and bouncing laughter: the army had been out that night to halt a tribe that had entered Kenya along the river, waging war over land with another tribe.

I do wonder sometimes with a shudder - what if I'd slept another minute? Part of me thinks they were just very keen to say hello, after travelling for months and only ever meeting good people, my tendency was to trust.

But chances are it would of gone badly and how terrible it would of been to have Allen pinched when Kenya was literally in sight. Or perhaps it could of been a worse. 

So disputed land between countries and enemies, not the best place to go camping after all. But after 9 months on the road I had finally made it - not quite in the fairytale fashion I had dreamed of - being chased into Kenya, but at least I got there a bit quicker. 

.