“Let us have wine and women, mirth and laughter,
Sermons and soda-water the day after.”

Planning adventures is much more fun than actually undertaking them: sitting hunched over a map,
dunking homemade cookies in mugs of steaming tea, lost in a happy, heroic daydream. I wanted to cycle through the Democratic Republic of Congo (Zaire). Generally speaking, countries with ‘Democratic’ in their title are not very. I needed hard facts on the advisability of such a venture. The Kenyan phone system is pretty haphazard, but after several pleasant (yet not particularly helpful) misdirected calls to a lady in a bookshop I finally got through to the DRC embassy. They thought that I was mad and basically said, “do not go.” Now I really wanted to go! So I spent an afternoon phoning brave people with hands-
on, personal experience of the conditions in the country. Eventually a hard-as-nails, 8-foot-6, muscle-
bound South African guy said, “it may possibly be a bit iffy there.” For a South African to utter such
wimpish wailings of fear and danger convinced me: if DRC is “a bit iffy” for him, then I’mm off to
Tanzania instead!
But before that I am due some loafing time. Nairobi is a perfect place to unwind after the delights of
Ethiopia. I keep meeting people who came for two weeks and are still here decades later. “Round the
World by Bike- temporarily postponed until retirement…?” Let me give you an idea of why people do not
leave in a hurry:
The sounds of sizzling bacon and popping champagne corks: breakfast on a silent escarpment high
above the Great Rift Valley. (Talking of the famous ‘Cradle of Mankind’, haven’t we done a good job
evolving? Champagne and bacon sandwiches are undoubtedly the result of inspired evolution. Pat
yourselves on the back, humans!)
A good man (I won’t tarnish his reputation as a respectable young businessman by naming and
shaming him) took me for a night on the town, a long trail of increasingly disreputable haunts leading
eventually, and inevitably, to the casino. Miraculously we broke even and stumbled into the night gorged
to a state of amiable contentment on free drinks and toasted sandwiches.
Then a series of lunches / cups of tea / camel treks / excesses of wine and colonial club dinners with a
string of fascinating people: artists, a guy who flew a tiny plane to New Zealand, soldiers, a man
organising a relay race around the world, actors, a camel expert, writers, a lady who crossed the Sudan on
a camel, colonial lion-hunter types and a charming chap who almost punched my lights out for beating
him at pool. People here do not exist; they live.
A group of amusing and mad women decided they should find me a girl. After much entertaining
gossip about the relative charms, availabilities and dimensions of Nairobi’s youth they settled on one
name. Hence I was whisked off on an immediate and painfully contrived shopping expedition to purchase
(urgently) a milk jug from her shop. And so followed the world’s first ever attempt at matchmaking in the
midst of a pottery shop. Memorable, hilarious and spectacularly unsuccessful. This girl was beautiful.
The type so beautiful that the only way to woo them is through a Swiss bank account. Bicycles, T-shirts
(grubby) and flip-flops are a non-starter. It was probably just as well: I found out later that her boyfriend
(who owns a jet and a ranch) has a tendency to beat the crap out of anyone who so much as buys a milk
jug from his girl. Somebody recently went to his father to complain about his boorish behaviour. Father
promptly punched the visitor. Charming family. Kenyan living….
I’mll be back on the bike soon; but not too soon!