17.09.2007, Nanyuki (Kenya): We are leaving Addis southwards. Strange, but the rains are never catching us while biking :-) We stop for a day in Awassa - for us the most relaxed city in Ethiopia. Afterwards it is really going for business. It is extremly hilly (physically exhausting) and for several days there is no minute (we have checked on our watches) without ten to hundred children "you-you-youing" and running after us (psycological exhausting). Anyway, people seem to be much less aggressive here than they were further north. Not a single stone was ever thrown after us! On the last three days before the kenian border it becomes dry and fairly unpopulated - oh gosh, how relaxing! Crossing the border is easy. Driving on the left side now and the asphalt stops. 534 kilometers of dirtroad ahead - that is the "Trans East African Highway"! Big gravel, fine gravel, big stones, small stones, sand and dust. Almost impossible to drive on that stuff. On our worst day we had an average of only 6 km/h and just 50 kilometers done in the evening. In addition to the roadconditions we are facing heavy headwinds, hundreds of Tse-Tse-flies are always around us and the desert heat of more that 40 degrees. Only a few villages on our way where we can get water, basic food and can sleep at missions and schools. In the middle of the track we reach Marsabit. We are stopping for two days and relax our legs. Then we hit the bumpy path again. After altogether 10 days we reach Isiolo and the asphalt starts again. People are friendly along our way and compared to Ethiopia it is almost a holiday to pass through villages. We skip our idea to climb Mt. Kenia due to the permanent bad weather on the mountain - heavy rainfalls every day - and keep heading south. At Nanyuki we cross over the Equator. From Northcape to here it is 15.000 kilometers :-)