We left Entebbe early, I think at 5.30 am. The sun came up as we entered Kampala for one of the most spectacular sunrises I’ve ever seen.
John took us to Akamba bus park and we said our goodbyes.
The bus journey to Nairobi was 13 hours. We arrived at 8.30 pm.
The bus journey to Mombasa was 10 hours. We arrived at 6.30 am.
I’m sorry, is this boring you?
Well it bored me too! I cannot explain to you how gruelling it is to be on a bus for this amount of time. Let me explain.
The the buses themselves are fairly nice. It's everything else that is a problem. As you enter the bus you encounter the overwhelming stench of smelly feet, body odour and baby vomit/poo. But after a few minutes your own stink is added to the mix and you can barely smell it any more.
Why do you smell, you ask? You smell because its thirty degrees outside, probably hotter inside, and everyone insists on having the windows closed! Oh my word. It's so hot that the sweat literally pours off you. And even when you do open the windows, it's not a cool, refreshing breeze that finds you but a thick, heavy blanket of pollution.
John took us to Akamba bus park and we said our goodbyes.
The bus journey to Nairobi was 13 hours. We arrived at 8.30 pm.
The bus journey to Mombasa was 10 hours. We arrived at 6.30 am.
I’m sorry, is this boring you?
Well it bored me too! I cannot explain to you how gruelling it is to be on a bus for this amount of time. Let me explain.
The the buses themselves are fairly nice. It's everything else that is a problem. As you enter the bus you encounter the overwhelming stench of smelly feet, body odour and baby vomit/poo. But after a few minutes your own stink is added to the mix and you can barely smell it any more.
Why do you smell, you ask? You smell because its thirty degrees outside, probably hotter inside, and everyone insists on having the windows closed! Oh my word. It's so hot that the sweat literally pours off you. And even when you do open the windows, it's not a cool, refreshing breeze that finds you but a thick, heavy blanket of pollution.
The overnight trip from Nairobi to Mombasa was the worst. Every few seconds there was a loud high pitch beeping sound which could be heard over the top of my full volume ipod. In between beeps, you could hear the shrill cry of a baby, which judging by the smell, was sitting in it's own filth. So we had 'beep, mwaaah! beep mwaaah!' the whole night long. And it was so hot on the bus that despite it being about 27 degrees outside, there was still condensation on the windows. That's crazy.
And it's not like there's much to do on the bus. Other than watching the odd episode of 24 on Mike's laptop, the most entertaining occurrence happened during a loo break at a petrol station. We'd been to the toilet and decided to buy a drink quickly before getting back on the bus. As we're ordering the drinks, I see the bus slowly pull out of the services. “I wonder where the bus is going?” I ask the others. I decided to go and check it out but as I approached the bus it speeded up. Yeah, so it was leaving without us. We were in the middle of nowhere in Kenya, and our bus was taking off with all our luggage on it. I chased after it, furiously banging my fists on the sides of the bus, and eventually it stopped. As soon as I get on, the driver pulls off again. “But what about my friends?” I plead. “Oh. Do you want me to wait for them?” asks the driver. It was flipping ridiculous.
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