Monday, February 07, 2005

So driving in Nairobi is all together a not so bad experience, even quite enjoyable if you choose to die swiftly but rather painfully. You really have to have some cojones or be blind drunk to navigate the streets....and that's just for pedestrians. Drivers are on something entirely different and I wanna know where I can get it.

I flew in at night so my first experiences on the main highway was relatively tame. Not much traffic, the lights weren't working but then again, who wants to be at a stop light at midnight in any African city. I wish I could say people respect your right of way when the lights don't work: you know person on the right (or is it left?) has the right of way. Here, not so much a rule, suggestion or guide line. It's a first-come first-served sort of mentality. Actually, if you can squeeze your car into a roundabout (very popular here) then you better be aggressive or you'll be circling until the maasai take their cows home. (Incredibly, the maasai do take their cows home...through some parts of the city.)

What I've noticed with the traffic lights is they are encased in these solid ugly steel cages, I guess to deter them as being used as target practice. The lights do work during rush hour in the morn. and eve. and are enforced by the brave men in blue who work at these intense roundabouts and busy intersections. After those hours, you're on your own and good luck. I would recommend renting a dinged/beat up jalopy as you will enjoy much freedom of movement among the virtual show room of Discovery, Mercedes, BMW and sad to say Explorers here and there, being paraded through the city. Trust me, no one will come near you.

Case and point: My choice of vehicle is the matatu, a minivan that is supposed to sit 12 but in the past I'd seen many of these battered, colorful (and always advertising their fave soccer team) with more backsides hanging out of windows than seats, meaning the seats were already occupied. Well, new government regulation requires they sit the maximum alloted space and everyone has to wear seatbelts. These vehicles tend to circle around pick-up locations for minutes on end trying to get passengers and will even come as far as apartment complex which isn't permitted as they make too much noise, to pick up people. I'm not complaining as I'm using them but once I'm certifiable to attempt driving here, I will be honking, cursing and screaming just as much as the next person forced to share the road with this vermin....but for now, they get me from A to B. Anyway, where you get dropped off is not the same place you get picked up to go back. You have to walk toward the seedier part of town to a huge bus terminal, formally a parking lot and garbage dump for the city and find your matatu and this is the only place I've seen them to be very organized. They line up all the matatus that are available and will put a board that states the route number and destinations (48 in my case) and once they have the required amount of passengers, they're off. Oh, damn, it's rush hour again. Did I mention AC is a foreign word? Along with deodorant....

I will sign off with the funniest thing I've seen so far. I need a digital camera very badly to show you all what I see. I was on a highway, off to yet another afternoon function and this pick-up truck passed us, loaded with furniture and on top of that two mattresses and on top of that, two gentlemen who'd agreed to have themselves lashed to the mattresses and furniture, belly down cruising along at about 80mph. They were totally lounging, smiling at us, even waved.

Oh, potholes? Yes, plenty, crater sized in fact. I know there are quite a few cars sitting under the city right now, just swallowed up. It doesn't even have to rain for sink holes to appear. Just watch the damage the huge trailers rolling through the city from S.Africa, Ethiopia or even Namibia, and you'll understand why you're driving through Grand Canyon.

More later as always.

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