We figured that it was ~40km, based on the average of our various maps and guidebooks, and decided that we could easily make it in 3-4hrs of riding. Based on those calculations, we packed lots of water, but very little food, figuring we would grab food in Watamu when we got there. The roads were pretty obvious and easy to follow all the way to the machine-cut coral block quarries, but we found that they quickly turned into a maze of walking paths when the need for truck traffic disappeared.
We followed along the coast as best we could, picking the most traveled path that generally kept the ocean on our right. This led to lots of dead ends, U-turns, back-tracking, head scratching and second-guessing, but rekindled my adventure racing spirit. I kept pushing forward when the seemingly obvious and well-traveled trail dwindled into nothingness. When things got desperate, I bravely asked a couple of locals we passed – ‘Is this is the way to Watamu?’ - figuring that people walked their goods towards that part of civilization at least occasionally, but I only got surprised looks in return. “Kilifi is that way”, they said, pointing over our shoulder. A few that believed we were serious told us to go to the main road and take a matatu! (Upon later reflection, most of the coastal Kenyans here had probably never been to Watamu, much less on foot. A journey on that distance would only be by Matatu and for a very special occasion.)
‘based on the size of the snails, we weren’t sure who was making better progress…’We got tired of bumping up (and then back again) the small, jagged paths paved with sharp coral, and eventually decided to continue along a smooth, well traveled dirt track, which of course led us back to the main tarmac road. We asked some people waiting for a matatu along the road how far it was to Gede (the turn off for Watamu). They shook their heads and replied ‘over 40km,’ as they stared at our bikes in disbelief (or maybe just our bike shorts & helmets!). We then asked how far to Kilifi and got an identical response...this of course made no sense, as there are maybe 50km between the two! At this point, we were very hot and very hungry and oscillating between stubbornly wanting to make it to Watamu (Patrick) and wanting to cool our sore butts in the pool back home (Wendy and a little bit Patrick). We set out north towards Watamu riding on the shoulder of the road in an effort to really find out how far away we were from our target before giving up. We soon realized that although we had ridden nearly 25 miles along the winding coastal roads, we were only ~10 miles from home (via the main road). We stopped for some rejuvenating sprites and cookies (only 1 shillings each!) before turning around and slogging home.
The ride home along the main road quickly reminded us why we did not like riding anywhere near Kenyan traffic. We both got almost blown off the road in the wake of lorries careening by. At one point, I nearly got taken out by a young boy (maybe 10 years old) carrying palm fronds on his head that were 3x longer than he was tall – he heard me biking up behind him and turned curiously to look at me, swinging the palm fronds with his gaze and nearly whacking me off my bike. We pedaled right by the Miami Beer Garden (strangely enough) in our hurry to get to our pool. We arrived home happy, tired, and added ~35 miles onto our Kilifi mountain biking total. We will have to re-evaluate our route and rest up for our next attempt!
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