My last three attempts at a perfect holiday have been unsuccessful. And when I narrated to my neighbour the ordeal I went through during my botched tour of Lamu Island, he sympathized with me and in the spirit of consolation and remaking good times, offered to take me to a posh restaurant in town to watch a football match.
By Felix Achanda
From the onset, that sounded like a perfect time out. I agreed to the plan and we left the house for town. However, mood took a dip after my team lost a crucial match. There was nothing in the restaurant that promised to revive the jovial mood.
We got into the parking lot, entered the car and drove off. Before we exited the parking area, I tipped the guard for keeping an eye on the automobile (especially for ensuring that side mirrors had not been stolen).
We began our journey home but upon reaching East lands Nairobi, a saloon car plastered and splashed us with dirty water. Annoyed, my friend stopped the car.
We got out of the car and occupants of a car behind us also stopped, prompting other drivers to slow as they sought to know what the problem was. That slowed traffic and just like that, a massive snarl-up ensued.
My neighbor, now occupying driver’s seat mumbled something about the now building traffic jam. He also started complaining of a backache. We joined a group of in overlapping to get home quickly.
But the situation only got worse after the grid lock became bigger. A chap ahead of us came with what seems like a brilliant idea: to ease the traffic by diverting to a sub-way on the left. We followed him and the other drivers behind also followed.
Everybody appeared relived and the problem solved. Twenty minutes later, we arrived at a gated compound and the subway ended. The leading driver stopped, stepped out of his car, opened a gate, returned to car, and drove into a compound.
It then dawned on us that that was his home. We were all left in disbelief. The sub-way was not wide enough to allow us to make a u-turn, which means we had to reverse. We notified the drivers behind of the situation we had gotten ourselves into and requested them to co-operate.
Driving in reverse is disorienting and bound to cause disaster. After several hours of team-work and co-ordination we got to the main road and found the traffic jam had eased. Since then I am hesitant to take short cuts or diversions when driving for whatever reason.
