I was able to close a gap in the rift valley between Kajiado and the Magadi road.

A few pictures at the blog.

It would be hard to imagine a more fun place to map. There are tons of roads that need mapping, lots of scenery and the people are great.

Another fun mapping day at my blog. I was able to get past the mud because it had not rained for a couple of weeks.

...has its perks. Public roads are together with wild animals. Not far from the main highway through Kenya you can find just about every wild animal. I had some fun returning to Lukenya where I mapped before

There are a couple of videos on my blog

Getting stuck in traffic can really be a pain. But when you are inching along, it gives you a lot of time to update all the POIs along the road.

osm.org/browse/changeset/4604327

It has been raining most nights lately. This has created a lot of mud. Unfortunately that has kept me from a site and some roads that have continued to elude me. The story and pics are over on my blog. http://zastoupil.org/zblog/2010/04/26/matope

Sometimes when I am using my maps, I get a bit frustrated about how much of the Nairobi area is missing. Especially out west where the Yahoo imagery stops. (Thanks to @bo_robert_pedersen for doing so much of that work.)

However, when I am mapping, it is a joy to be able to get so much good new stuff so easily. I had a few hours yesterday to ride around and fill in some blank spots on the map. Had a great time doing it as well. People wave a lot more outside the city.

osm.org/browse/changeset/3648272

I went to a conference over in Jinja and spent a few days working in Entebbe. I took my GPS with me where ever I went. Some people probably thought I was a bit crazy.

One the way out to Jinja I tried to map every fuel station on the road. I think I got at least 90% of them. On the way back I was able to convince my ride, along with his family, to take another road back. Knowing it was dirt most of the way, I thought it might cost us some time, but it was probably less than 5 minutes slower since it was shorter.

Entebbe still needs a lot of work. I wish I had more time there and my bike (which is here in Nairobi).

osm.org/browse/changeset/3623686

I have been working on Nairobi for quite a while now and I always check the RSS feed of changes to the Nairobi area. I have been very excited by all the activity in the area since MapKibera did their import. Thanks everyone, Nairobi is coming along.

I was headed out to get some new tracks on my motorcycle. I needed fuel, so I stopped at the nearest petrol station where I waited and waited. No one was helping me out, so I remembered there was another station mostly on the way in Nairobi Dam. I headed there fuelled up and decided I did not want to cross Langata Road again, so I thought I would follow a road on my OSM map that ran very near to the bypass road that I was going to take.

I headed for it and ran into a gated estate and decided to go around, it was only a few hundred meters to the road. I found a nice foot trail and followed it up, but ran across a large stream. It had been raining, but I think it may have been a broken pipe somewhere. The ravine the water had carved was almost as wide as my front wheel, and at least .5m deep. I looked for a way around, but got stuck where the ravine ran right next to a wall.

With no way to cross, I had to get off my bike and walk it backward down a steep slope and only a tiny space between the wall and the ravine. Being very near Kibera, by the time I got down far enough to turn the bike around, I had quite a large audience of women hauling water and laundry and lots of kids. Fun times!

At the end of the day, I was able to grab a whole new dirt road up in Kabete. It is always refreshing to see a new road in a blank part of the map.

I live in one of those fun places where getting tracks can be hazardous to your health.

I was headed out to continue mapping the western Nairobi bypass road. When I crossed Ngong Road, two well dressed men signalled for me to slow down. I was on my motorcycle so I pulled in the clutch, down shifted and kept the RPMs high so I could dump the clutch if things turned ugly.

I noticed one of them had a very nice two way radio, so that put me a little at ease. They said they were police men, and asked me where I was going. I told them I was mapping and that I wanted to continue up the road. The suggested I go another way because, "there are some bad boys up there." They were very nice, but also very convincing, so I headed out. I did go through Kibera on the way home, I guess I needed my risk quota for the day.

Not sure if I will ever get that road.