Hot and sweaty is the current atmosphere in Nakuru, especially if you walk down the noisy bus stop where the former Kenya Bus Services used to make their stopovers.
In the evening, you start breathing in air with smells of fried chicken parts, notably the gizzard and liver parts. But one thing is rather trending of late.
Very busy traders carrying transparent buckets filled with groundnuts have become familiar sight.
Most of these traders walk around the town during the day, and will position themselves at strategic points along the bus stops in the evenings, only to leave behind busy clients inside waiting matatus chewing with concentration the addictive njugus, such that jaws tighten making one look even more unfamiliar especially after brushing lips against their palms to wipe out the sticky coatings.
Woe unto you if a matatu you board happens to stop by such a street. The traders, with the agility of a cheetah, will rush towards your open window and sweet-talk you into buying njugu.
In fact, there is little time for bargaining because they are already packaged in plastic bags in sizes proportional to the price, normally starting from 10 to 20 bob.
Before the matatu leaves, especially if it plies along Mzee wa Nyama or Free Area, here is when one starts laughing off the chewed njugus.
These old matatus start to rattle as the driver tirelessly positions to enter the major road linking to the Nairobi-Nakuru highway.
It is such moment that you begin to wonder as though there are some parts in the matatu that are about to come loose, because they produce noise similar to the shaking a tin full of old coins.
Again, passengers are stalled to allow oncoming like-minded matatus at full lights have their way.
The driver at this moment first empties his wrapped njugus before turning the ignition key a few times before it starts off again.
This has now become the nature of Nakuru's evening rides.