day sixty five

For many countries around the world May 1st is celebrated as International Workers Day, aka Labour Day here in Kenya, which brings with it two magical words... long weekend! And now that I have a partner in crime (that is, another female mzungu) we decided to let our mischief loose on the fifth largest city of Kenya - Eldoret. 

The Lonely Planet guide is rather pessimistic when it comes to this home of marathon champions and cheese... "for the traveller, there is little to see, and even less to do" mentioning that the only attraction is the Doinyo Lessos Cheese Factory. Well when it costs you almost ten aussie dollars to buy 250g of cheese, the prospect of free tastings and discounted prices is well worth the two hour bus ride to only see the cheese factory. I think the ultimate lesson for this weekend was don't read the Lonely Planet guide.

After a comfortable ride in the front seat of the shuttle we alighted in the middle of Eldoret CBD and went in search of food, specifically Will's Pub and Restaurant which had been described as an "English pub in Kenya" serving western food and friendly service. Yeah nah, not again. Nothing terribly bad, but there are definitely better options. Our first choice of pizza was dismissed as it was not currently available so we ended up consuming chicken sandwitches and chips. Meh.

Now that we're feeling revived with food we headed to the famous cheese factory, dreaming of walking through piles and piles of cheese and tasting several samples before purchasing large quantities of the delicious glory... *splat* that was the sound of our hopes being squashed by the women inside the small factory shop staring at the wazungus asking for a tour. The price list left us confused meaning we both left after purchasing one piece each - R got some hard cheese with pepper and I bought a tub of cream cheese... mmmm cream cheese frosting here I come!

We then walked around town with no real purpose in which we stumbled upon a glorious sight - a cosmetics warehouse! Hair extensions and giant bottles of shampoo and stacks and stacks of nail polish... we spent at least an hour wandering around this place and ended up purchasing superfluous products including nail polish which glows in the dark. 

Our accommodation for the night was in the White Castle Hotel which when safely in the confines of our room we made plenty of inappropriate mzungu jokes. The room was comfortable and the security was great and it was placed centrally which meant we could walk everywhere around town. We headed to Nakumatt to get ourselves some wine and returned to our room to watch crappy tv and drink our very tasty South African Rose. 

The second purpose of our visit to Eldoret after purchasing some cheese was to eat pizza - and after reading some reviews online we headed to Pizza Bistro and finally something lived up to it's hype. Free wi-fi, decent coffee and a menu to drool over. We shared a hawaiian pizza and drank iced coffees... so good. 

Our initial plan was to head to Sam's Discotheque however after a recommendation from a local friend we headed to Club Four One One and instantly knew that was a good choice. Our disco diva nail polish glowed and the Tusker beer flowed and we danced the night away. Oh my goodness, some Kenyan men can dance! PHWOAR they are HOT on the dancefloor! Some of them were also ridiculously good looking also (black skivvy guy? mmmmm). Sure there were some ridiculously creepy old men but mostly the club was full of gentlemen. There were also too many wazungus for my liking - anything more than two in one place has become too many for me. Actually, to be honest, sometimes I forget how white I am. But back onto the club, it was fantastic! The music was so good, will have to source it for myself because I'm getting sick of the repetitive reggae music my host brothers like to play at home. I was fortunate enough to find a cute local who translated the swahili for me whilst teaching me the moves. Can't wait to go dancing again!

The next morning I woke up after only four hours sleep - living in a rural area makes you susceptible to city noises and Eldoret likes to wake up and make sure everyone can hear that they're awake. R and I headed for breakfast and enjoyed fresh fruit, eggs and bread... yeah make sure when in Kenya you ask for your bread to be toasted. After this we headed to what we thought was another shuttle back to Kakamega however it ended up being a matatu, meaning it stopped every five minutes and was so squashed and hot I was sweating more than I did it the club the night before. Feeling nauseous and dizzy with a lack of caffeine in my system didn't help the trip go any faster either - it took three and a half hours to get back when it only took two hours to get there. On top of that the conductor tried to charge us 400Ksh which I said "sitalipa bei- miatatu bob" (I won't pay that price, 300 bob). BAM - I win! 

So that is the story of how we went to Eldoret on Labour Day. I will tell you about the rest of the weekend in another post - stories of being attacked by huge hail stones, flooding, campfires and cows heads, sex education lessons, monkeys and visiting family.... this weekend definitely wasn't boring!