30JAN2007 "...and our first drive home from Mombasa"

The 55km drive home was a nail-biter. Not only were we in a 1993 stick-shift Subaru which we had never driven before, with people and bikes all over both shoulders, but we were supposed to drive on the wrong/left side of the road! Luckily, everyone uses the entire width of the road as they barrel towards their destination. I wonder if they think they are on a go-cart track, only letting off the gas in order to slow down, saving the brakes for all but the most critical maneuvers. The traffic on the road varies from double length tractor-trailers hauling coral blocks, to men literally pulling trailers of supplies (I want to say carts, but full on trailers is really a better description). The road itself is just wide enough for a Land Rover and one of these tractor-trailers to pass each other without breaking off the side mirrors – not an inch wider.

Of course, the entire process is even more dangerous because most of the road between Mombasa and Kilifi is more pothole than road. I am not talking about your suburban oh-pooh-I-spilled-my-Starbucks pothole, and I am not talking about a single NYC 65mph-traffic-stopping pothole – I am talking about dozens upon dozens of adjacent pot holes, ranging in size from 1-6 feet wide and (no exaggeration) 3-8 inches deep, all with abrupt edges. Sometimes the safest bit of the road is the unpaved shoulder. I drove along at an average speed of 40-45kph (maybe 30mph), swerving from one side of the road to the next, trying not to bend the tire’s steel rim on the edge of one of these beasts, often with super quick shake-and-bake moves that would make Barry Sanders proud. Wendy really did paint the picture best when she said: “it is kind of like a video game…” It was a little surreal and every once in a while I would look at Wendy (actually my eyes really, really never left the road) or she would look at me and ask “how did you do that?!,” as I deftly swerved the full width of the road and somehow glided through an especially unbelievable minefield of obstacles, both holes and oncoming traffic. Of course there were also plenty of times when we both physically winced, squinting, and groaned out loud when I did not deftly dodge a pothole and we got reminded audibly that we were in a 13 year old station wagon.

SOME PARTIALLY "FIXED" POTHOLES
The locals repair the potholes by filling them in with crushed coral...is there a difference? ...not so much...



When we finally got all the way back into Kilifi (80 minutes later, but safely in one piece), I felt wasted – my neck and lower back were sore and my hands were even a little stiff from gripping the steering wheel. I’ll take the crazy DC beltway commuters any day! We will happily take Kalachu’s offer to have a KEMRI driver drop the paperwork off at KRA once we get the missing document, rather than drive down again ourselves.

Oh yeah, when we pulled into the compound that night we learned that our ascari (Swahili for night watchman) carries a bow and arrow!