The Road to Kisumu

I boarded the Easy Coach bus, for a fare of 800 shillings (about $11.50), on Wednesday, January 10, for the trip west to Kisumu, the 3rd largest city in Kenya (behind Nairobi and Mombasa). Even though we had not heard positive reports about the bus ride, I, along with two of the Columbia grad students, Elizabeth (who is a Kenyan national) and Patricia, decided to take the bus in order to see the countryside and, also, to check out first-hand a part of Kenya’s infrastructure. Naturally, an important aspect of any potential investment decision into Kisumu will be the ease and efficiency with which goods and people can be transported to and from there. The road leading from the port town of Mombasa on the Indian Ocean, northwest to Nairobi, and onward to Kisumu on the shores of Lake Victoria, is Kenya’s main artery. We wanted to see it for ourselves.

Well, improvement should be made, to say the least. The “highway” is merely a two-lane road, with not a single painted line that I noticed, the last portion of which turns into dirt. There are so many potholes that caused the bus to bounce around like a jumping jack and me not to be able to read a single magazine article the whole way there. A drive that, according to the distance, should only take 3 hours, took 7. Our bus driver randomly pulled over on the side of the road at least a dozen times. We did not always know why. A few times it was so he could talk to another Easy Coach driver passing on the way back to Nairobi. Once it was so men could hop on and sell their vegetables, carrots and cabbages. The other times, well, there were a few police pullovers, a few bathroom breaks, but hard to know exactly why each time.

But, at least, on this particular journey the road was passable. In times of heavy rain, like they have been having, unusually so, here in Kenya, parts of this main thoroughfare flood, so traffic must be diverted to other roads, adding even more time to the journey. Also, we had a relatively safe driver. He swerved a lot to avoid the ruts in the road, but maintained a sane speed. A Harvard Kennedy School student took the bus to Kisumu a few days later (she is doing an urban planning study there) and described a death-defying, high speed, roller-coaster of a ride that made even the Kenyans on the bus scream out at the driver!

The scenery made the trip worth it. We passed through the southern portion of the Rift Valley – that great continental fault system that extends 6000 km from Jordan to Mozambique and is considered to be the birthplace of civilization. The valley is spectacular, boarded by rugged escarpments and dormant volcanoes, and dotted with lakes, such as Lake Naivasha and Lake Nakuru. Closer to the road, we watched people who lined it the entire way, whether selling oranges, potatoes and carrots, or walking home from school in neat school uniforms, or lounging under thorn apple trees that seemed illuminated by the midday sun. We also passed many fields for sugar cane, rice and tea, able to grow in the very fertile Rift Valley soil.

We made it to Kisumu at 8:00 p.m. that night and headed straight for the hotel, the Imperial Hotel, where I stayed until the following Tuesday. Most consider the Imperial to be the nicest hotel in Kisumu (with a special MDG rate, my deluxe room cost $50 / night) and its restaurant, the Florence, to be the best (my dinner of avocado and tomato salad, chicken Kiev, a Tusker beer and coffee that night cost $11). It has an old-time, Art Deco, slightly past its prime feel to it, but with great atmosphere and staff. Both the dining room and the Shalimar Lounge on the top (5th) floor buzz with nonprofit, government and UN workers. The Center for Disease Control has a large campus in Kisumu and I met a group of CDC workers from Atlanta staying at the Imperial for 2 months while studying malaria. It will be where I stay when in Kisumu, and by the end of my week there I was on first-name basis with most the staff. I quickly experienced other infrastructure problems that first night in Kisumu: the electricity went out several times during dinner and the toilets do not flush well because of a poor water and sewage system. But, its a nice place nonetheless.

Oh, right, the following Tuesday, I decided to fly back to Nairobi.

(Pictured: Looking out back window of bus, at the main "highway" leading to Kisumu; Men who boarded the bus to sell carrots and cabbages.)