The Price of Adventure

They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions. I am not sure about that, but I can tell you for sure that the road from hell is not paved at all, and the buses move quickly. I had heard that the road from Moyale to Nairobi would be one of the worst experiences of your life, but I jumped at the chance to see what I was made of. I wasn't disappointed. I got on the bus at 5:30 am and saw my seat number spray-painted over one of the six seats crammed across the back. I took my seat, and at 6 am we were off.
Three minutes later I was two feet out of my seat, hair brushing the overhead baggage compartment, then back down. Since my bag was where my feet should have been I took it hard on the butt. I quickly learned from my back seat buddies and assumed the position, feet firmly planted on the floor, leaned forward, with a two handed death grip on the seat in front of me. Next we hit a rocking rhythm section, vibrating, bouncing, and swaying. After we had untangled ourselves, the little guy next to me looked at me and said, “Muzungo” (white guy). The look of pain and terror on my face must have been pretty good because he busted out laughing in a voice that could have easily been a Disney character. This got me laughing and started the best completely non-English friendship I have ever had. The next 14 hours would be full of ups and downs… A rollercoaster ride of both the physical and mental variety. There was a mixture of adrenaline induced euphoria and pain induced despair, laughter and tears, contact with the floor and the ceiling.
When we finally stopped it was only for 20 minutes. The road turned to asphalt after that, but the prevalence of speed bumps and poor bridge transitions left me without peace. At 8:30 we pulled into Isolo for the night because the bus can’t drive in the dark due to risk of looters.
I found a guy from the bus who spoke English and we went for some beers and played pool. At midnight I returned to my torture chair for a restless sleep on the bus. We would leave for the final 6 hour drive to Nairobi at 4 am. For most of the drive the view had been almost totally obscured by the cloud of dust that was stirred up as the bus cruised mercilessly down the pot-holed road, but in my mind’s eye I can see it.
An old, jacked-up bus blasting through a shrubby desert with a plume of red dust rising towards a scorching hot sun, a beautiful picture, but not as good as the looks on the adventures’ faces as they get what they came for.