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Route:
Tenduet
We woke up in the morning with tumultuous stomachs. Rocky was in much worse shape than me. (I had only recovered from my previous stomach issues a few days before.) We ate a breakfast of rice, avocado, and chai with the Kalenjin village administrator we stayed with. Then he walked us to the road and sent us off.
It turned out that we had again run too near the forest yesterday evening. In order to avoid it, we would have to go off-road again to traverse a few valleys west. We started to understand the topology of the landscape. Most roads and valleys ran north to south. Therefore, it was much harder to run west, over the valleys, than to run north along the valleys. That’s why we kept overshooting north.
We started onto small trails connecting farm fields and asked farmers for directions on dropping into valleys. Rocky stopped constantly to use the bathroom but somehow managed to keep up. After hiking over two or three big valleys, we finally made it to a road system that looked like it connected to our day’s objective on my map.
We stopped to do some yoga before running. As we stretched, villagers again gathered around us to watch. I guess we had made it to a region that doesn’t see many, if any, white people. Maybe I’d have to get used to being watched the way safari tourists watch big cats. We started running on the hilly road and eventually turned to do a big climb. The road seemed to go up forever. We got to the very top of the ridge, where we saw some charming traditional farm cottages and green fields. We asked for directions to the next county north and were directed to a trail along the ridge-top. We ran along what felt like the roof of this picturesque farm country until the trail took us down into the forest.
The trail was not the work of forest rangers but rather villagers coming into the forest illegally to harvest resources like firewood or grasses for cows. We followed the trail over 10km without seeing another human, crossing chocolate (muddy) rivers and overgrown fields.
Finally, in the early afternoon, we emerged from the forest into more rolling hills of lush farmland one county over. We crossed a river and climbed up through the farms to reach the road. I noticed Rocky was going really slow. I asked if he was okay. He told me he had no energy. His stomach continued to bother him. Luckily, the nearest shops weren’t far. After about a kilometer on the road, we arrived in the tiny village center.
The restaurants here are called hotels, an interesting mistranslation? I ducked inside the first hotel I saw, desiring to avoid the inevitable crowd. Soon enough, the hotel filled with men. Most didn’t order any food. They just stared at me. Kids gathered outside and stared into the shop. Jeez, is this what famous people have to deal with? Imagine what they’d do if we had enough New Jersey Jews to make a minion… (if you know, you know).
On the one hand, I have to remember that I came to Africa to make cultural exchange and help people in need. I can be grateful that folks are so eager to meet and interact with me. On the other hand, “Nobody likes a suck-up!” (One of my favorite lines from my favorite movie, The Cat in the Hat.) This is no excuse for cutting off my conversation with locals, but selfishly, it makes me feel better.
After a leisurely lunch of bread, beans, and chai, we made our way out to the road, ready to run. We were done traversing west across valleys and forests for the day, so now we’d get to run straight along a road. The road traveled along a high ridge with tea farms on one side and forest on the other. As we went up and down each crest and trough of the ridge, I thought, “Okay, now this is the new best run of any of my human-powered adventures.” The views were mind-melting (to steal a phrase from the great Dave MacDowell), the air was clean, and the temperatures were cool.
During our first water break, Rocky struck up a conversation with two older farmers—a husband and wife. He has an exceptional talent for making friends wherever we go. They asked me to take a selfie with them. I was surprised they knew what that was, and I obliged. I wondered if they’d ever seen a selfie of themselves before. (We’re not that deep into the woods, but older people tend not to have smartphones.)
I set off running again. The combination of the flowy rolling hills and enthusiastic locals in the land of the world’s greatest runners energized me. I raced up every hill. Then came a really massive hill, full of students who had just been dismissed from school. I doubled down and ran up it as fast as I could. It felt amazing.
At the top appeared a junction with a paved road. My heart sank. I thought we’d be on dirt roads until Eldoret, but the route I mapped had us on this road for the next 75km. I waited for Rocky and ate a banana. (I’ve come to believe that my muscles LOVE bananas—no extensive research to back this up.) We talked at the top and decided to keep running down the paved road.
Though our pace was quick, everything else about running on pavement was worse. Louder noises from engines, fumes from the vehicles, and the hardness of the pavement made my joints ache after moving pain-free for 40km on trails and dirt roads. All that said, the run was still magnificent. School children chased us for miles, or more accurately, they ran past us, waited for us to catch up, and so on and so forth.
We ran until just after 6pm when we arrived in the small town of Tenduet. Determined to find housing before a crowd swarmed me, I blitzkrieged the townspeople with requests for directions to the local guesthouse. The owner needed to retrieve the key. We took down his phone number and went to dinner at the best restaurant yet since we arrived in Kenya. I got ugali and beans with some meat, avocado, and the classic maziwa ya Lala (yogurt). The Kalenjins serve maziwa ya Lala with charcoal dust sprinkled into it—“traditional medicine.”
After dinner, we waited for the man outside the guesthouse. Rocky called him, and the man said, “I’m here!” Rocky said that couldn’t be possible because we were here. He said okay, I’m coming soon. An hour went by, at least. He never showed up. I wish I could say I was surprised, but this sort of thing seems to happen in Africa a lot.
A nice mama who owned a small hotel (chai and bread restaurant) advised us to get a motorcycle taxi to a bigger town with another guesthouse. We were freezing. I checked the altitude again, and we were at 2600m (8666ft!!). We squeezed onto a motorbike and chattered our teeth for 15 long minutes as we drove to the nearest big town.
Finally, we arrived at an upscale guesthouse with hot water. The cost was 1500 KES ($11.72)—typically we pay between 300 and 600 KES. At the eleventh hour, we were just glad they opened the gate. I took one of the hottest showers of my life—I had to shut on and off the hot water heater periodically to keep the water from scorching me. Every time I flipped the hot water switch with my wet hand, sparks flew (African electrical work is a bit of a wildcard). Warm for the first time all night, clean, and exhausted, I went to bed.
I finally had a moment to read this one... the ups and downs are compelling. And of course I loved your tribute to "The Cat in the Hat."
Made me smile! XXXOOO
This amazing run for life and adventure is beautiful Ollie! Thanks so much for sharing your journey with all the ups , downs and sideways twists. This is a story I can't walk away from! Namaste and Happy Trails Brother! DM