I cycled 100km across Kenya in one day :D

And actually can't believe it. It was AMAZING. Seriously one of the best things I have ever done.
We headed to Naivasha the night before, sleeping in the cheapest hotel we could find, having dinner in a nice little place with good food, a TV showing the hideous spanish-dubbed-into-english soaps they show over here, and a mouse or two running around for us to laugh at. An evening of inexplicable hyperness occurred, with lots of hiding in a cupboard and leaping on beds for no reason.

On Saturday we got up at 6am, aiming for a very early start before it got too hot, but getting slightly delayed by a) Nick's inability to get out of bed and b) A long matatu ride to get to the place we were hiring the bikes, which was half an hour outside Naivasha, around the other side of the lake. We all just sat looking out the window at the endless dusty roads passing us by, thinking 'OH my god, in half an hour we're going to have to cycle back along all of this'.

We got to Fisherman's Camp, a campsite we were hiring the bikes from, and despite many phonecalls to these men previously, when we arrived they asked 'Are you going to Hell's Gate?' Sadly not. Hell's Gate is 3 km from this place. We replied 'Errr...nooo, we're cycling to Nakuru' and they laughed at us until they realised we were actually being serious. They kindly (well, not so kindly considering how much we paid them) provided us with a van to follow us, taking photos and carrying our water and food for the day.

And so off we went :) It was 25km from the bike-hire place to Naivasha town, and nice and flat, so we all cycled along whooping and cheering and wasting precious oxygen by singing the Sound of Music songs. An hour later and we had reached Naivasha, picked up some hitchhiking kids in our van, and eaten half our food already. We thus stopped, bought more food and continued.

At this point we realised quite what we'd let ourselves in for. We'd used most of our hyperness in the first bit, and the signs saying '69 km to Nakuru' were not entirely encouraging. We'd been under the impression that the road was flat and soon discovered that a) this was a LIE and b) signs saying 'climbing lane 150m ahead' are the most evil signs in the world, as they basically mean an immensely steep and painful hill is coming up. The road went down ('WHEEEEEEEEE') and then UP (OOOWWWWW) then down then up then down then up. I was so glad I had my i-pod as I was able to put some motivational music in one ear and didn't have to listen to the monotonous sound of my bike chain slowly going round as I struggled up a hill.

Basically, it was so difficult, and although the downhills were amazing, whizzing past zebra and golden hills and thinking 'I'M ACTUALLY CYCLING 100KM!', the uphills were so painful. We stopped every 5km or so for water and after we were halfway (i.e. 50km in), everytime we got back on the bikes we were all swearing and shouting in pain because our bums hurt so much. Oh, and the fact that the roads were lined with small children going 'how are you?' when you went past, clearly rather preoccupied, and chasing your bike, was sweet on downhill stretches, bearable on flat stretches, and hugely irritating on uphill stretches.

BUT, we all knew that we were going to do it, and the sense of achievement as Ben and I rode onto the road leading into Nakuru, seeing hills that we recognised and places we'd been, was amazing. The last 18km or so we only stopped once, just pedalled and pedalled and pedalled, whooping and cheering again, until we'd reached the border of Lake Nakuru (5km outside the town of Nakuru, thus making our total 100km). We just couldn't believe that we'd cycled 100km and we'd DONE IT, despite the fact that everyone we'd met on the way didn't believe we could.

The last 5km was also rather funny, as we'd managed not to really crash for 95km, and then as we got into Nakuru our friend Olympas appeared at the side of the road. We all turned around, waved, I screamed 'OLYMPAS' and in the excitement forgot to watch ahead and so before we knew it, my bike was entwined with Rebecca's in front of me, and all five of us had piled into each other with a lot of laughter.

So far, I've raised 440 pounds, and we spent Sunday watching films until the rainy season finally arrived with a literal bang, lightening hitting the aerial and breaking the television. We therefore just lay on the sofa, with aching bums, playing card games and chatting :) It was a really nice relaxing day. Oh, and we didn't go out on Saturday night as planned, as me and Rebecca got home, our maid was like 'come and see how to make chapati!', we sat with Gigi screaming in our ears, half asleep, watching her cook 20 chapatis (these take SO long) and finally realised that as we were struggling to stay awake to eat our lentils for dinner, realistically we were not going out. So we chatted and fell asleep watching desperate housewives (i bought season four for a pound!) So everything is very very good here :)