Exhilarating Stories

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A modern day Icarus

Veit Kessen stops by the side of the road, gets his kit out and goes soaring like a modern day Icarus. He makes sure, though, that he does not fly too close to the sun.

“Two years ago I was on a trip from Kisumu to Nairobi and had just passed Longonot town, when I spotted a little hill just a five minute walk from the road. I was thinking that this would be a great spot to go for a snap gliding flight so got out the car and checked the wind. It was dead south and smooth. Brilliant! Got my kit out, trudged up the ridge and set off. Landed twenty minutes later and felt so elated that I decided to name that little hill after my wife.

Mt.Sophie is just one of the many incredible places that I can go power gliding in East Africa.”

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Adrenaline rush in the sky

My skydiving experience started with a short brief from one of the instructors before we took on the skies at about 3700 meters. After getting geared up, we boarded the airplane for a 15 minute scenic flight and enjoyed the beautiful view of the Kenyan coastline as we climbed to altitude. As we approached the exit point, they securely attached me to the front of my instructor Ingvild, and then we started moving towards the doorway of the plane. The wind was roaring in my ears and my heart was pounding with excitement as I hung your feet outside the aircraft and looked at the ground over 3,600 meters below.

Ready… Set… GO!!

I then experienced an intense rush as I free fell towards the earth reaching terminal velocity at approximately 200km/h. About 55 seconds of pure adrenaline!

At about 1500 meters our main parachute was deployed, and I caught my breath while enjoying a spectacular 5 minute canopy ride back to earth.

Nothing on earth can beat the experience that I had!

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Drift diving with turtles

“Moja, mbili, tatu, go!” shouts the boat captain and on that command I put my regulator into my mouth, hold on to my mask and roll back into the water.

On surfacing, I fin to the front of the boat and join the dive master and the other divers. The dive master then checks that we are all okay before signaling that we should start the descent. I release all the air from my BCD and experience the rush of excitement that I always get as I descend, looking down at a beautiful coral reef below me.

There are soft corals and hard corals everywhere with colourful reef fish swaying in the gentle current or darting in and out of small holes. And then just as we reach the reef a magnificent hawksbill turtle comes out from a small crevice and swims towards the surface to take a breath.

I let out a sigh of satisfaction…

Good to be back diving in the waters off the Africa’s Eastern Coastline.

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Nairobi Mountain biking

‘We choose cycling because it’s powerful. It’s not a sport for cry-babies,’ says David Kinjah. ‘Cycling suits Kenyans because you need to be lean, you need to be smart, you need to endure, and you need to be hardcore.

‘Kenyans are already hardcore because of the lifestyle. We just need to transfer that to the bicycle. There’s no one eating chips or hamburgers in the villages.

‘Some of the kids who come here have parents who don’t value education, so they have lots of time to train. But we don’t want strong, stupid cyclists.

‘That’s why we teach mechanics and IT, because not everyone can be Chris Froome.’

Welcome to the Safari Simbaz Educational Centre, set up by David Kinjah , where cycling is used as a means to uplift children in disadvantaged communities in a positive activity which builds their self-esteem , teaches them life skills and empowers them with knowledge to sustain themselves economically in the future.

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