I wake up on Sunday morning, not knowing I’m going to walk in Dedan Kimathi’s footsteps today. Or is it ride in Dedan Kimathi’s footsteps? Dedan Kimathi was an English teacher at a school in Ol Kalou, history teaches us. But he was excessively violent with the students, and his teaching career was axed. He eventually landed where his excessive violence was appreciated: among the Maumau fighters hiding in the Aberdare forest. This is just a colourful way of telling you that I’m going to ride my motorcycle from Ol kalou into the Aberdare forest. I also have no idea that my bike will refuse to start in the middle of the forest where there will be no one, and lots of elephant dung lying around. And no phone network! I will tell and show you the whole story…
It all begins when a friend, an alumni of Moi Forces Academy, Lanet, asks me to escort her from Nairobi to Nakuru. She has been riding for just a couple of months, still building up confidence on the road, but yet daring and brave in every way, with that dash of youthful abandon. I oblige. I, however do not want to attend the event she is going to, and have no idea what I will do till she is done so we can ride back. (Well, she rode back alone.) I pack my drawing tablet, maybe I can settle somewhere and do some drawing…
We meet on Waiyaki way about 8am, greet each other, insult each other a bit like good friends do, and start our trip. Sunday morning traffic is already getting busy.
“Why are we so slow?”
“What? I was doing 110!”
“Huh? We have not done 90 anywhere!”
“Seriously, I was doing 110!”
Stock factory speedometers lie.
We reach Nakuru, and she gets off her bike, and does this little weird dance. I thought she was just stretching, but turned out she was pressed.
Edit: “Both,” she says, when I show her this story before publishing it…
We finally get to her destination…
I grab a quick breakfast as I pore over google maps…
I finally decide to take the road from Lanet to Ol kalou, a road I have never used before, then find my way from Njabini to Thika. I had heard of a nice recently tarmacked road going to Thika, and was eager to see it.
At Ol kalou I stop and have some fruit. Note how healthy those bananas are, it’s important to this story, you will see…
It’s a quick, uneventful ride to Njabini, save for a police stop that did not prove any fruitful. To them.
My occasionally untrustworthy pal has told me to turn left at Njabini and I will find a nice road that goes to Thika. I remember it being unpaved, but lots of roads have been paved of late, and I’m glad to hear that this is one of them. He is occasionally untrustworthy, and that’s why I turn left, and run into a really rough unpaved road.
My immediate instinct is to turn around and look for the other good road, or just use the roads I’m already familiar with. But I find myself not touching the brakes and stopping. A kilometer passes, then two… The adventurer in me wins. I want to do this rough road. I stop and ask someone if this road will get me to Thika. He says yes… But it goes through the forest.
“Is it muddy?”
“Nooo! There’s no mud.”
“Are there wild animals?”
“Noooo! There are no wild animals there!”
“But it’s a forest,” I think… “The Mighty Aberdare!”
I ride on…
I run into an electric fence with an open gate. This is my first sign of trouble ahead. I’m very sure this fence is not to keep humans out, but rather to keep something in there, and I’m wondering whether going in there is a good idea. I consider turning around, and asking at the Forest Service office whether it is safe to go ahead. But I get the feeling they will say no, even if it is. Modern human is overly cautious to being sued, everyone walks on eggshells around everyone. I pass through the gate and go on…
It’s quiet in there, and breathtakingly beautiful!
Trouble starts… The road within Nyandarua county is paved with stones. They are rough to ride over. I have to stand on the pegs and gas it sometimes. I also fear for my computer in the top box, and try not to be too rough. I would not have brought the top box had I known I would do this. Then come the puddles on the road, and mud…
It gets really beautiful. I stop for a little break…
As I start to ride off, I realise that all this time, someone was quietly watching me. He is with two women working on a farm, and they have not made a sound for about the ten minutes I have been there. I greet him, and ask how far I am from the end of the forest. He is friendly, he tells me about seven kilometers. That’s a lot with the mud, and it turns out to actually be about nine.
It gets really slippery, I stop to reduce my tyre pressures even further. The downward slopes are the worst.
I meet no one on this side of the range. The downhill slopes are treacherous. I’m afraid if I slide into a ditch wheels up, I will not be able at all to get the bike upright, and even if manage that, I may not be able to get it out of the ditch, and may have to walk a long distance (and back) in boots to get help. The plan is simple: don’t fall! The execution… not so simple!
I decide the best option is to use engine brake, since keeping a foot on the rear brake is proving difficult. So engine off, slip the clutch, coast downhill slow, steadying the bike with both feet. This means every time I finish a downhill slope, I have to hit the starter to get the engine running. My bike’s starter solenoid does not appreciate that hard work, and communicates that displeasure in a short while…
The starter solenoid is mad at me. I hit the starter button, and just hear a rasping sound. My voltmeter shows the battery is good, and I know about this problem, it has happened before. My bike refused to start in similar fashion once at Sarit Centre, I had to get a pick up to ferry it home. I checked it and found nothing obviously wrong with it. After touching and poking here and there, it worked again. That was back at home in Nairobi.
Now it has refused to start in the middle of the jungle. I have seen dung and felled trees, evidence of elephants somewhere in the area. It’s awfully quiet. I have never wished so much to see another human being, much as I insist that “I don’t do people.” I check my phone, and get even more concerned to realise there’s absolutely zero network. I briefly put it in airplane mode, hoping it will catch a signal from a nearby mast… Nothing. The decision to ride through the forest was a spur of the moment one, no one knows I’m here. I saw an antelope a while back, and monkeys. I’m not ruling out the presence of carnivorous predators.
Is this how stupid people die?
“In the news tonight, a lone motorcyclist gets trampled by an angry elephant in the Aberdare forest…”
Facebook comments: “What was the idiot doing there?” “These bikers are idiots, I told you. One zoomed past me yesterday on Thika road.” “They have no concern! One made noise for me as I was eating Pizza at Pizza Inn, them and their loud exhausts!” “Nduthi idiots! Motorcycles should be banned!”
Is this how stupid people die?
I push the bike to a spot that is less muddy, so I can try to sort it out and get it going.
I open the side cover and check the connections to the solenoid. They look fine. Just like last time. I check the fuses. All good. Just like last time. I touch something somewhere, and the bike roars to life. I switch the bike off, happy. I push the battery back in, and bolt back the side cover. I try to start the bike… Nothing!
It’s been about 30 minutes now since I stopped. It’s quiet except for the sounds of the jungle. I have taken off my helmet and earplugs. My ears are on alert, listening for anything moving through the forest. Birds make noise when there’s a creature around, right? I can hear the din of road traffic from afar. I later learn what I was hearing was about four kilometers away. I’m getting a good understanding why this was a good hideout for the Maumau fighters, and why the British, instead of going into the forest after them, chose to drop bombs from aircrafts. It did not work.
I remove the side cover again. Poke, poke. Touch, touch. The bike starts!!! Ok, now the bike should never go off again. Never, till I reach a town. We will have to just slide down muddy downhills using a different strategy.
A little later, I hit a milestone. My engine, which I acquired with 42,000kms, hits 100,000kms! (The rest of the bike has clocked over 200,000, I’m sure. I lost count.) An epic ride to mark an epic milestone.
Remember those nice looking yellow bananas? I liked them so much, I bought the rest of the bunch to take home. Now, I don’t know if there’s anyone out there who sits and wonders, how would bananas look if you put them inside a motorcycle topbox, and went riding through the Aberdare? Well, if there’s anyone, here is the answer. This is what the nice yellow bananas looked like four hours later. You’re welcome.
Special thanks to all our forefathers that agitated for our freedom, that we now can ride our motorcycles everywhere freely in this country. Well, we can ride freely almost everywhere, except in certain spots that have not been reached by civilisation, like Nairobi CBD.
THE END.
This story was first published on Facebook on May 27th 2019.
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