People here are so clever and life is certainly more practical in some ways and extremely unpractical in others. However, currently in mind is a scene we witnessed while on the way to Kijabe. Since bicycles are wonderfully efficient and fairly affordable, many people ride them here. Some are so talented that they can ride the things with tremendous loads of wood, eggs, construction materials, chickens, rocks, etc etc…pretty much anything you may imagine.

Anyhow, based on their pervasive presence, it is not at all strange to see a bicycle heading down any of the highways here. The problem comes when going up a hill with a large load on the back of this two-wheeled mode of transportation. As we were driving to Kijabe, going up a hill of course, we looked to see a large bus truck with a new era of hitchhiker on the back. A fellow was on his bicycle and holding onto the back bumper of a bus. The bus was awfully smoky, no doubt causing unpleasant breathing and near asphyxiation, but he seemed to be enjoying his effortless ride up the long hills of the Great Rift Valley.

The cleverest notion of it all is the simple fact that people do whatever is necessary to get around. If that means holding onto the bumper of a bus, being pulled by a donkey or riding a top a load of pineapples, so be it. I fear that laws prevent this sort of novelty in the states but with any luck one day we will see the rise of bicycles in the US once again.