There are two parts to this page: the
Travel Facts section, and the
Diary section.
Key Travel Facts - Details that other overlanders might like to know
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Visa is issued quickly at the Moyale border. 50 USD for Brits.
Vehicle road tolls are paid at the border.
Carnets are recognised, but if the vehicle is going to stay in Kenya for more than seven days (ie transit) then a 40 USD per month charge is made. ‘Seven days’ is taken approximately, so our nine-day stay was considered ‘about one week’, and we didn’t pay.
DIARY - How we're getting on, and what we've been up to
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Nights spent sleeping in proper buildings: About half.
Number of punctures: None. But plenty of other car worries!
Number of cock-ups: None.
Treating ourselves: Christmas at Marsabit Lodge. Nice.
Slumming or Adventuring it: Removing grub-worms from Gina’s feet.
KENYA
THE WORST ROAD IN THE WORLD. EVER.
Arriving in Kenya we thought the worst of the roads were over. How wrong we were! …
We set off from Moyale (Kenya) after an incredibly easy border crossing. We could hardly believe we were through, and paused to encourage the final police barrier to check our paperwork. They insisted on waving us through with only a salute. We were heading for Marsabit National Park to spend Christmas there.
The road was shocking, and not far from Moyale we ground to a halt as an alarming crunching sound told us that our exhaust had fallen off. A passing truck told us they had seen it back a bit, and we retrieved it only a couple of kays up the road, slung it in the back, wired up the remaining exhaust, and carried on. A little further and the bar that holds the rear shock-absorbers onto the chasis snapped off. We were alerted to this by the loud banging of the bar against the fuel tank. This meant that the next 120 kays was covered at 20 kph. Tedious to say the least, though we were certainly kept alert since this stretch in Northern Kenya is probably the most bandit-prone section of our route. We arrived safely in Marsabit at 9pm, our only blessing being that we spotted a very large mongoose / janet cat (something nocturnal) on the way in.
Our first day in Marsabit was spent at the garage. The shock-absorber bar was welded on, the exhaust re-constructed and attached, the radiator removed and leak soldered, an exhaust gasket replaced, oil changed (and filter), and the fuel filter switched. This all cost us a staggering 35 pounds.
CHRISTMAS BREAK!!
Now it was Christmas eve and time for us to head out to Marsabit Lodge in the national park and completely relax!!! We had done our Christmas food shopping, and this included picking out our chicken from the family that pecked around the market stalls. We had gone for a lively brown hen, and were keenly trying to erase all memories of its happy last few hours.
The lodge was as perfect as we had hoped. Our room looked out onto a lake where buffalos grazed, and their was a short drive up to Paradise lake for when we felt like an excursion. We did not see a lot of game, but we loved the break. We even succumbed to paying their chef to cook our meals for us – at 2 pounds for a Christmas roast this seemed like good value. He even washed up.
We persuaded them to leave the generator running a little extra to allow us to finish watching our Christmas film (King Arther) on the laptop.
And Gina spent Christmas Morning picking out a grub that was buried under the skin on her ankle. Nice!
WORLD’S WORST ROAD (CONTINUED)
By Boxing day we were feeling well refreshed and ready to head on towards Nairobi. First however, there was a stretch of hard dirt road to Isiolo from where the tarmac would begin. If I was religious I would swear that some divine force was set against us getting there.
At Laisamis, about forty kays from Marsabit, the shock-absorber bar snapped off again. Fortunately our guide book told us that the Missionary had a garage with welding equipment, so we looped back and headed there. OK, so it was a Sunday in the festive period, but surely the Father would not be too busy to help? Indeed he was not, and soon the welder was fetched from his house and the bar was back in place. We enjoyed cheese and bread with the Father whilst the work was done. It was good to observe again how the churches in Africa do so much good work, and will work across religious and cultural divides. We saw the Father advising tribes-people on financial concerns, and local muslims on marital questions.
Soon we were on our way again … for twelve kilometres. Then the bar snapped off. With a slightly nauseous feeling rising we turned round and crawled back to the Missionary. The mechanic agreed that the following morning he would complete a more secure job, and that we would camp in the missionary compound for the night.
We left the missionary for the second time at about lunch-time, and enjoyed a trouble-free drive for another forty kays or so. Then the exhaust fell off the engine block at the manifold. Would we ever get to Isiolo, let along Nairobi?!!??! Cape-Town seemed too far off to even contemplate.
The next two-horse town provided a welder to put the exhaust back on and we finally made our way into Isiolo where we joined the tar. We stopped for the night slightly south.
Approaching Nairobi we again became concerned that we were lost. Had we somehow arrived in Chester or Norfolk? Suddenly there were Road Signs (we had not seen any proper signs since Genova), real petrol stations with forecourts and shops, properly marked roads, and everyone was speaking English.
NAIROBI
Arriving in Nairobi, we headed straight out to camp at the National Park Services campsite south of town. Although difficult to find, once there it looked like a good spot to relax… and sort out some car problems. We would leave the roof-rack to be reinforced with more brackets added whilst we went off to Uganda, and a chance to replace a broken suspension spring and stabiliser-bar link. Now, if you are bored READING about car repairs, spare a thought for how we feel about SORTING OUT car repairs. Oh, and we switched the rear tyres with the front ones since the rear-drive tyres were getting completely shredded. And nothing happens quickly in Africa.
We were to set off to Uganda to trek and see one of the Mountain Gorilla families. First, on advice from all the Old Boys at the campsite, we would phone through to try and confirm the booking. Payment had been made (in full) one month earlier, but we would wait and see whether they would have any record. Eventually our booking was matched to our names, and we were pleased to learn that they had switched it from one park to another, since the original reserve was currently ‘gorilla-less’, the resident family having popped across to Congo as they occasionally do.
The only problem was that the office was to close at lunchtime today, and not to re-open until the 3rd Jan. And we were currently 500km away in Nairobi. We were of course pleased that they would treat themselves to such a long New Year break, but this would cause some problems for us. We were planning to trek on 4th Jan. Using some of the Old Boy’s contacts we arranged for someone to pick them up for us in Kampala, and finally (one and a half days late) set off towards Uganda. We are yet to find out whether the permits were collected on our behalf or not (update – they were not: see the Uganda section).
ON TO UGANDA
Heading for Uganda we spent a night at Lake Nakaru where we checked into a slightly nicer than usual hotel under the guise of ‘checking it out for Brenda’s visit’ (Gina’s mum). Playing the line of ‘we plan to come back next week with a group’ we got the upgrade to the executive room that we had been angling for, and relaxed to enjoy the swimming pool. The ‘executive lifestyle’ faded rapidly as we set about setting up our camp kitchen in the hotel room. Felt pretty stupid, but since we had spent a fortune buying special stir-fry ingredients at the supermarket, they were not about to go to waste. It was good!
The next morning only a little time was wasted searching for Gina’s sandals that had been snatched overnight by a rogue dog (note the evidence: dogs are horrible), before setting off on a long day’s drive to Jinga, Uganda for a New Years party. The border crossing went smoothly, and we were in Jinga in reasonable time to crack open some beers.