Camping in Kenya...

My second bus trip to Isiolo took me through tribal land where people still dress in their traditional clothes and the landscape is dry and harsh. Sitting between a Preacher and armed guard I was in safe hands throughout the journey and learned more of Kenyan politics and life. Tille arrived later that day with the Dutch couple and two Swedish lads that he had been riding with – seeing a giraffe in the wild being the highlight of their day. I was just glad to see them all in one piece and to mark the end of my bus journeys in Africa!

After a rest at the Gaddisa Lodge and close encounter with a hyena (see the film below) we headed south-east over the equator towards Lake Nakuru. Here we spent a wonderful day in the national park with giraffes, rhinos, zebras, gazelle, impala, flamingo, buffalo, pelicans, hogs, baboons, wild dogs and more. The park is set around a huge lake which we circumnavigated whilst spotting animals. From here we headed south to Lake Navaisha where we camped on the edge of another lake, surrounded by monkeys and watched a hippo grazing in the evening whilst enjoying our camp fire.

We are now in Nairobi at the famous overlander haunt Jungle Junction where the bike is receiving some love, I have been washing the desert out of everything that we are carrying (yes, Africa is challenging for those of us that suffer from slight domestic obsessive tendencies!) and we have been preparing for the southern hemisphere part of the trip.

In comparison to Ethiopia Kenya is an easy place to travel and well set up for tourist – sadly the price tag increases with this luxury! One reads of the crime and danger in Kenya and Nairobi in particular, but we have really enjoyed ourselves here and only had really positive experiences. So thank you Kenya and bring on Tanzania and a cocktail on the beach in Zanzibar!

The hyena ate my boot!

A BBC camera man happened to be staying where we were and took this night footage of a hyena circling our tent and playing with Tille's bike boot. In the morning we found the boot about 30 metres from the tent with some chew marks in the top!

Moyale - Isiolo Road (North Kenya)

Shaken and not stirred…

The so-called Trans African Highway provides a route from the far north to the far south of Africa. Thanks to the Chinese who are busy sealing every main road in Africa the vast majority of this is no longer dirt roads, except for the first 400km through Northern Kenya.

We spent the night on the Kenyan side of Moyale which was a dusty town with hardly any water but very good BBQ chicken! Because the road is rough we had decided that I would catch the bus and Tille would ride with a Dutsch couple that we met in Addis Ababa who are also on motorbikes. We had heard rumours non-stop since the beginning of the trip about how rough this road really is, sand, corrugations, rocks, volcanic rocks and deep ruts from the trucks driving through after the rain.

Day one was yesterday and started at 6.30am as instructed at the ‘tree’ where the bus leaves for Marsabit – my first destination. The bus arrived at about 7.30am and we could not board until it had been cleaned, this consisted of a man with a big bucket and a small cup throwing water on the bus in attempt to get the red dirt off. Once this was complete they changed some tyres, filled it with fuel and at 9am when I thought we were finally off we boarded and moved 50m to the station where the tyres would be filled with air – this took another hour.

10am we were finally on our way, by this point Tille and the Dutch had been riding for 2 hours towards their destination of Torbi (half way to Marsabit). The bus was an experience I will never forget – catapulting along a corrugated road in a bus full of locals with a window that did not shut, literally fearing for my life and turning orange from the dust! We arrived in Torbi (having passed Tille and the others about 60km back) which marked time for lunch and the repair of the two tyres we had blown whilst driving over corrugations and rocks at break neck speed! Four hours later the tyres were repaired (if I tried to explain how this was done you would not believe me!) and I was pleased to see Tille and the others arrive, exhausted but with no bike or body injuries! As the sun set my bus set off to complete the last 120km to Marsabit where I would spend the night and wait for the others – the only highlight of this trip was watching the Muslim passengers pray outside at sunset with the desert stretched out behind them. The rest of the trip need not be described in detail – simply put it was hell and I shall forget the experience before!

On arriving in Marsabit I thankfully crawled into my hotel bed and am today having a rest, enjoying internet access that actually works and…. Cadbury whole nut chocolate (!!) and waiting for the others to battle the rocks and corrugations that they face for day two before we complete day three, which will take us back to that brilliant invention called bitumen and into Isiolo!

Just before I posted this Tille called to say that they are going to run out of petrol so I had to find where to buy the canister, get it filled with fuel and then flag down every truck and vehicle going north on the main road until one was going far enough to take the fuel –in the meantime I made a huge number of friends with the locals, all who were willing to help me ‘sister I look after you’ and then suddenly wanted cash, to hold my hand or for me to buy them lunch, playing the ‘but sister, are you not a good Christian?’ card! However, mission accomplished and now I go back to waiting!

Southern Ethiopia…

We could not access blogspot for some reason in Ethiopia so these entries are a bit out of date, sorry to give you much to read at once! Für die Deutschen – die Ubersetzung kommt noch!

We left Addis Ababa and headed south towards Lake Langano, which is nestled in amongst some mountains. The book said it was tea coloured and promised to be the only worm-free lake in Africa that one could safely swim in, sadly the greenish slime on top put us off! We camped for the night next to the lake, admired the stars and enjoyed being away from the smog of the city. We had an interesting chat to the American owner of a nearby restaurant on the state of affairs in Ethiopia, the immense amount of aid and sadly, the corruption. It was comforting in some ways to confirm some of what we thought we had seen.

From Lake Langano we continued south to Awassa which is a college town also on a lake where we celebrated Ethiopian Christmas (celebrated on the 7th of January). It was nice to see families out together on Christmas day and we had possibly the best dinner in months at a restaurant that served stone-oven pizza and wait for it – brownies with strawberries for dessert! For me it is often just about the food!

We said goodbye to Awassa and drove to Yabello – the scenery changed dramatically from hilly roads surrounded by banana and coffee plantations to wide open spaces, flat-topped acacia trees and ever redder dirt. The road wove through numerous villages which had pretty much all joined together and the territorialism of the locals was notable, understandable we guess given the amount of fighting in the past between the tribes here. The village road was often blocked by a piece of rope with some plastic bags tied to it or sometimes a long stick to make a barrier. These barriers appeared unguarded and mostly we could ride over or duck and ride under to continue on our way. We struggled on this road to find a stop to have a break and when finally really needing one were surrounded by about 40 people within minutes of getting off the bike – it all starts friendly until they ask for money, clothes, food or anything that you will give them and then we must jump back on and ride off.

From Yabello it was a long descent to the border town of Moyale where the Ethiopian side suddenly looked developed in comparison to its Kenyan sister town on the other side of the ‘no man land’ strip. Ethiopia has been a challenge – time to see what Kenya has in store.

Impressions of Ethiopia…

It has taken me a week to organise my impressions of Ethiopia. I, like many I am sure, had the famine picture of an Ethiopian child from the 1980s firmly fixed in my head – the reality of course no longer matches this picture.

We crossed the border at Metema and climbed up a few thousand metres into mountains and green countryside to Gonder, a welcome change after three desert countries in a row. The scenery for us was beautiful but the small villages of thatched huts, donkeys, small children yelling ‘you, you, you…’ fanatically at us and people staring as we drove through brought feelings of awe and intrusion on our part.

Nearly everyone in Ethiopia works in agriculture and if all of the children were to go to school the industry would collapse and the people would starve – bit of a conundrum. The roads are covered in people walking from village to village, farm to farm and sometimes judging by the uniforms, to school; this makes driving incredibly slow. The children are responsible for the family cattle, donkeys or goats as soon as they can walk, tiny four year old shepherds using a stick to control their stock. The women are simply unbelievable and from what I can see incredibly hard done by! They walk with no shoes carrying huge loads of fire wood, water, crop from their farms and of course, their smallest child. The ‘carrying’ is just one task alongside the cooking, washing, cleaning, child bearing and manual labour on the farm. They are often in a group of women, but sometimes a man, their husband I suppose, keeps them company but he does not carry anything – nothing like the sight of the man riding a bicycle whilst his wife carries what is probably 30kg of water on her back on a mountainous road.

Aside from the hardship, their laughter, community spirit and general good humour is striking; the colours of their traditional clothes, hairstyles and tattoos that represent their tribe all adding to the feeling that we have gone back in time. This is a country where you can stay at a hotel on a beautiful lake, drink a cold beer and enjoy the local cuisine, where you can ride through a village and feel that perhaps these people should be left un-touched and alone with their mythical beliefs and not be influenced by the west, a country where many children are born into a life of very little to no chance – but a country full of people that smile, laugh and understand the importance of living each day.

I have found Ethiopia and its societal structure confronting, ignoring small children tugging on your clothes and having to sometimes step around someone lying on the footpath begging are not easy tasks, but remind me that it is my impressions of this world and not theirs that create this feeling. Either way, this nagging feeling that what we are doing is a bit voyeuristic is hard to shake.

We are currently enjoying a few days rest at Wim’s Holland House in Addis Ababa which is home to many other overlanders on bikes and 4WDs, people to bring in the New Year with over a glass of champagne and swap plans and experiences to date. When rested we will head south through the lake region and to the border of Kenya where the next chapter of the adventure will no doubt commence….