Kenya

3 July cont’d – Moyale Kenya!!!!

Well, neither nightmare came true and here we are. There was the std delay – we got to the border soon after 12 only to hear that the immigration officer would only be back at 2pm. Off to lunch and then another wait for another Ethiopian immigration man. Memories of Shahede. Then we heard, not 2pm only 3pm – more memories! Anyway, he arrived at 2:30pm and we were done in 10minutes. Then customs, another 10 minutes and we were out of there. Wow!

On to Kenya….

We filled in arrival forms but once again there was no immigration officer. Wait. Does this seem familiar? While we were waiting we went over to customs. He asked for our carnet and I thought, here we go, echoes of Egypt but how wrong I was. He filled in some lines, stamped the carnet, tore off his bit and said goodbye. He didn’t even SEE the car!!!

Immigration was the same. Even though we had to wait for him, when he arrived, he stamped the passports and said ‘Welcome to Kenya’. I like it here already!

This is a quiet border. Felix and Alfons came through 5 days ago (I saw their names in the book) and since then, one other person came through, until us.

We are camping at the park services grounds. It costs 2USD each but it is great. No facilities of course but absolute privacy and the ability to cook our own food and sleep in our own beds. Bliss!

Well, it started off as bliss but we have now seen three ticks since we got here. Pause to spray tent, mattress and sleeping bags and examine bodies. Hopefully we’ve seen all there were to see.

Tomorrow we head South – in convoy. More info on that once we know what it entails.

6 July – Isiolo KENYA

We made it this far but it has been two days of hell. I cracked about 10km before the start of the tarmac. I was driving but just couldn’t take it anymore and handed over to Scott. The road was sheer hell, terribly corrugated so you have two options – go 5km/hr to avoid shaking or go 60km to avoid it but then risk serious damage if you hit a rock or a hole. Anything in between is impossible – the shaking is totally unbearable and you feel as if the car and you are being shaken apart. I hope that I never have to go through that again. The good news is that we can now get to Cape Town without leaving tarmac – if we want to!

Some details about the last two days. We were up bright and early in Moyale on Sunday to report to the police checkpoint at 8am. The convoy seems kind of hit and miss but eventually we left at 9:30am with a soldier in the back of the car. He went with us for the first 80km at which point we ended up giving a lift to another soldier’s wife and baby the rest of the way to Marsabit. The roads were also terribly bad – Rob was not exaggerating. In the wet it would have been impassable, we saw plenty of signs of really bad churning up of mud which was fortunately dry when we went past. In Marsabit we camped in the Marsabit Reserve grounds again at 2USD per person per night plus this time 200Kes for the car. So far we are not finding Kenya too expensive. We finally met another overlander there too!!! The guy is Dutch, his name is Ronald, and he has travelled overland from India. He bought an Enfield there, a bike built in India based on a 1950’s British design. He came on that through India, Pakistan, Iran, Oman and Yemen. Can you believe it, even Yemen. What an adventure! He has been on the road 7 months and it was great to chat.

There was also a group on an organised tour. Eight people in a humungous truck but they were very insular, they hardly spoke to each other, never mind us. We only spent one night there and then headed South for Isiolo. Ronald left ahead of us and we said that we might meet up there. Well, we didn’t. We met up way before that, his bike had a problem about 80km outside of Marsabit when an engine bolt fell off. We loaded ALL his stuff into our car and he carried on hoping that the reduced weight would help him to get to Isiolo. It did, and here we are together. If it was a rough ride for us imagine what it must have been like for him. We all decided to stay on here for a second night and have a day of R & R. Nice grassy campsites are not that common!

This morning we went into town together and who should we see but Felix and Alfons! What a wonderful surprise it was. They had stopped off for a few days at the Samburu National Park, which is why we caught up with them. It was pretty lucky. They were on their way to Nairobi and stopped off for a cup of coffee and we just happened to see the kombi on the side of the road as we drove by. They are looking great but say that the car now needs fixing in each – poor vehicle.

We did some shopping in town, changed money and got the car washed. Then back here, for not so much R and R for poor Scott. First he fixed the shock (one fell off on the road from Moyale) and then to fix the windows – electric windows are not the best idea for a trip like this. Yes, the roads really took their toll. From Moyale about 100km out, we heard an odd banging noise. We stopped the car and had a look only to find a shock hanging on the ground. Good thing that we had had double shocks fitted – it was money well spent. Then yesterday, Scott’s window kind of jerked to a painful death and mine looked to be following suit. The shock got a running repair and miraculously lasted the 200km here. It was in desperate need of a real repair which it got and so did the windows – need a repair but though he spent ages trying it, the plastic runners are too badly damaged so from now on we open doors to open windows!

Tomorrow we cross the equator (I hope!)

This place is great. It is not a true campsite but we can use a room to shower. It has 2 chalets but is really a kind of day-tripper place with nice gardens, restaurant and bar. At 200KES each it is a true bargain. This price includes hot showers and flush toilets – wow!

8 July – Lake Boringo

Interesting couple of days with only short bits of driving – mornings only really. We left Isiolo yesterday morning and drove to Nybaruru (Thompson’s falls) where we decided to spend the night. We drove past the Abedares Park, which Liesl said she really, really liked but we gave it a skip. At 27USD pp entry plus 10USD pp camping it seemed like a gyp because it is really pretty tiny. We drove the entire length of the park (on the main road outside) in one hour. We got to T falls at lunchtime and decided to stay the night and relax rather than push on to Nakuru or the lakes and end up driving until 6 or 7 pm.

It was a wise move. It is the highest town in Kenya (2360m) so gets pretty cold at night but is really quite nice. Liesl hated it but I thought it OK. Again a local hangout and very popular but with a huge grassy site for campers. Again there were two tents but we couldn’t even see the other one! It was an Australian couple bussing it but there was a matatu (Kenya’s version of mini-bus taxis) strike on so they were stranded. We gave them a lift into Nakuru this morning and while were there, another couple begged a lift off us of us to here. This Matatu strike is turning into a call for a nation-wide strike of ALL shops and services to force Moi to resign. Sounds potentially nasty so I think that tomorrow we will head into Uganda. It is one of those things that can blow over in a couple of days or equally turn into something quite serious. They are already threatening to stop all transport on the roads including private vehicles. Best to get out we think. Uganda is beckoning anyway!

This place (Robert’s camp) is quite nice. It is 200KES pp to camp and is our first true camp site in a while. Today for the first time in ages we found yoghurt and milk – both pasteurised. The yoghurt was our lunch along with chips and chocolate biscuits – what luxury. Tomorrow for breakfast we’ll have Cornflakes (also bought today).

In this place we have already seen about 5 crocodiles! It is pretty cool to see them only a couple of metres away. Tonight we hope to see hippos. Apparently they come into the camp site to graze. It should be pretty exciting.

We have crossed the equator 4 times in the last two days so are still in the Northern hemisphere. The first time was quite exciting. It was a major milestone on our journey South so we stopped and took a few pictures. It is quite a spot – there are a bunch of tourist shops there – 30 to be exact. They are numbered, I didn’t actually count them! We have bought plenty of junk in Kenya already – some nice cards, a hair clip, 4 bracelets and two alabaster things – a kikuyu vase and the obligatory egg but this time with the world painted on it. It’s actually very nice.

With all this can you believe that we found no postcards! We saw some at T-falls lodge where we stayed but the shop was closed at the time so we may end up leaving our most-touristed country yet without buying any postcards. How sad that would be. Oh well, sad but not a disaster. The place here is great, it holds the world record for bird spotting – 300 species in 24 hours. I don’t think I could identify 300 species full stop. We can however hear 250 of them right now, from fisheagles and loeries to hornbills and piet-my-vrou.

Brief moment of panic – we want to leave really, really early tomorrow so the idea of Cornflakes for breakfast was nearly discarded. I managed to persuade Scott however that it would be faster than buying food on the road so the Cornflakes stand. I can’t believe how much I am looking forward to it. Today at breakfast I drank Milo and that was another wonderful treat. Amazing what becomes luxurious. Kenya is clearly an ex-British colony, there are many shared brand names here and even campsites etc look familiar. Almost Zimbabwean in fact which means a lot like SA but with a more colonial feel. Kind of nice after Sudan and Ethiopia but also a bit like living in a time warp.