How to survive a long road trip

We rode in one car recently during a trip to Busia; hubby and I and our close couple friend, the Kungu’s. I thought my village was far – it usually takes us four hours from Nairobi - until we made this road trip that took us an incredible 12 hours.

The sights, sounds and scents of Kenya are worth that long haul trip. You will not only learn how to say hello in another’s mother tongue but will also be a pro at long-distance trips. As a self-titled veteran of long-distance trips, allow me to share here, for free, what I should be charging top dollar. 

For any drives longer than four hours, please take them with another couple. If we had made this trip alone, Hubby and I would somehow have found ourselves in the middle of a fight two hours later.

Being enclosed in a humid, clammy car, he usually gets impatient, and steps on the pedal and I inevitably get triggered and hit the roof. We fight about speed, the air conditioning even about The Handshake. But this time, four hours on, perfect peace, harmony and good feeling prevailed.

A four-course meal 

Carry a snack. The other wife in the car, Mrs Kungu, had carried a whole four-course meal. One hour into the trip, she unleashed a cute food dish and offered her husband a salad. Hubby, who was driving, could only ask about the munching going on at the back, to which Mr Kungu responded by sharing his slices of apples and avocado.

Thirty minutes later, Mrs Kungu pulled another surprise by unpacking and laying out a whole chicken meal in peanut sauce and spiced potatoes in rosemary sprinkling. We all dived in.

They say a hungry man is an angry man, and therefore anger had no room, which should explain why we are just mad people when on a long haul trip. 

Ladies, boots and skinny jeans are not for road trips. A lovely free light cotton frock and Maasai sandals are your best bet. Trust me on this one. When you have consumed gallons of water because the heat and humidity demands, you keep hydrated, bathroom breaks in the middle of nowhere are inevitable. 

Never pass a bathroom

“Never pass a bathroom. That’s what an elderly gentleman once told me,” Mr Kingu said during our 15th bathroom break.

Your husband or, at most, your closest girlfriend should be your choice of a travel companion.

When you learn that the next petrol station is an hour away, and your bladder is on the verge of bursting, you will have to stop by a bush. Only a husband or a true friend can act as your shield as you hide behind a two-centimetre twig and empty your bladder.

Even your husband asking; “Kwani, you have a three-litre bladder?” will not annoy you because you will be wondering about the never-ending stream and whether you have a tap somewhere there with a faulty valve.

Stop and smell the flowers. Learn to say hello in the dialect of the people. For long-distance trips, you will pass through different counties. Learning to say hello in each of their languages is not just a neighbourly thing to do but a spiritual one.

Day earlier 

You should have left a day earlier if you are in a mighty rush. Okay, that does not come out as good as when said in Swahili by a Kenyan on the coast when they find you impatient on the roads. It is always better late than never when you are on the road. 

If you want to shorten the 12-hour journey to six, take a flight, please. Road carnage in 2020 alone, during the year of lockdown, is still higher than that visited by Covid-19. In other words, the pandemic causing the death of Kenyans is on our roads. Someone somewhere is sleeping and letting the blood of innocent lives flow unabated.

I learned how dangerous it is to do a drive-in on our roads during that road trip. You will experience tens of near misses, and Kenyans extremely tolerant of bad behaviour.

You will experience buses on high speed coming at you and throwing you off your lane, matatus abruptly stopping in the middle of the road to pick a passenger, private cars with children held at the front by a belted adult and people littering left, right and centre. Be the sane, responsible one. 

Karimi is a wife who believes in marriage. [email protected]