Day 38 Sunday February 18 Rest Day in Eldoret

by Henry

To keep things simple, we had the breakfast buffet at Poa Resort restaurant this morning.

After five pretty hard riding days, we were glad for today’s rest. We strolled an easy 2 km to the local mall, where there was a very modern and extremely well-stocked grocery store. We picked up a few items for a light lunch, including some ice cream.


Local bike store seen on the way to the mall.


High-pressure motorcycle/car washes are common in Kenya. There was one at the resort where we were camping. They charged us $0.66 to hand wash each bike (spray, lather and wipe down with soapy water, final rinse). Washing our biking shoes was included in the price. This is all a prelude to re-lubricating the drivetrain at each rest day, because so much road dust adheres to the chain.






Andy’s broken ring finger on his dominant left hand (which occurred on January 18) is doing well. He stopped taping it at four weeks after the injury. There is mild residual swelling, no notable pain, slight ulnar deviation, but no malalignment or malrotation when he makes a fist. He has good grip strength and is able to squeeze the brakes on his bike. He can’t quite tuck in his ring finger completely, but that’s normal for this stage of recovery, and he’s going to continue working on it. He’s glad that he did not go through with the pinning procedure recommended by the Egyptian doctor, and he’s ecstatic with his results at this point.

In the last three days, there have been two broken toes. Jim was letting his tent dry on its side when the wind carried it away, and he chased after it. He stubbed his 3rd toe on a small tree stump. It’s black and blue, but he has managed to keep riding.

Judith stubbed her toe on a tent stake in the dark. It also bruised up, but it’s not preventing her from biking either.

There have been a few episodes of G.I. distress over the last week or so, and today we were all provided additional detergent and disinfectant to wash out our water bottles thoroughly.

Rather than venture out to another restaurant for dinner, I elected to eat again at the hotel restaurant.


Kenyans have amusing “polite notices“ posted around their hotel property, and inside their hotel rooms.

On rest days, there is no rider meeting. We have all looked ahead at tomorrow’s route, and there is going to be a major climb. We will get further details at the rider meeting tomorrow morning.