February 23rd – 26th, 2022

Today would be a bit of what we refer to as “adventure road,” the term we use when the drive is not quite certain. We had been in contact with Richard Barnley of Barnely’s guesthouse who had confirmed the route was practical. The plan was to at least reach Marich Pass and perhaps camp at the Marich Pass Field Studies Center, but perhaps make it all the way to Barnley’s. 

As we started out from the Bushbaby Campsite in Baringo it was easy going, with a fairly new tar road heading north, the B4. It was not long ago that the B4 was no more than a rugged dirt track, but a lot of effort is being put into upgrading it. Arid country passed by us out the windows. Kids herded goats, men sat in the shade, women carried water and firewood. This is typical rural African countryside. We saw some ostrich with cute little ostrichlings wandering across the road, comically all trying to head in a different direction but also being unwilling to leave their group. 

After the road veers northwest away from the lake it’s not too long before we climbed the Kito Pass. This pass was at one point very steep and rough, but now on the new tarmac we rapidly made it to the top, totally alone on this remote road. 

A dozen or so kilometers after that the road finally does turn to dirt, but still a huge swath has been bulldozed, with preparations for the tarmac to be extended. We bounced around the roadworks and pushed deeper into this remote part of Baringo county. 

There are scenic mountains, but they were somewhat obscured by haze. Improbably tall termite mounds started appearing, some 20’ tall, it was incredible. These reminded me of what my old project in West Pokot was focused on, the complex treatment of visceral leishmaniasis, also known as kala azar. The disease vector is the sand fly, which nests in termite mounds in this same arid climate. Typically it is contracted by the herders that sleep in the bush within 50 meters of these termite mounds. A village, that will naturally have cleared away these mounds, is not in danger. 

Kala Azar is rare, only endemic in a few areas, including northern Kenya, South Sudan and eastern Uganda. A different leishmaniasis is present in Iraq and India. It presents initially with malaria like symptoms and is thus frequently misdiagnosed. Left untreated it leads to death. The treatment is a long series of painful injections for 30 days. The research being done by Doctors Without Borders (usually noted by their French initials, MSF), the Drugs for Neglected Disease Initiative (DNDI) and the Kenyan Ministry of Health has lead to new treatment protocols, reducing the treatment to 12 days, quite a success.

Free of sand fly bites, we continued on. The bulldozed swath had ceased and we were on a proper bush track. In the village of Kolowa we took a wrong turn. The GPS sneakily rerouted us and at first we didn’t notice, being focused on the village and people outside and not on the GPS. After almost ten k’s or so we noticed our error and backtracked to the B4. The Kolowa road would have eventually got us there, but the B4 goes right up to the western wall of the valley and we wanted to see the scenery there.

NGOs were at work in Kolowa and surrounds, and signs for Woldvision and other projects were here and there. A few signs noted boreholes put in by this charity or that. Another sign instructed on the negatives of FGM (female genital mutilation), in both English and Swahili.

On the way towards the western escarpment we crossed a small Bailey bridge that had seen better days, and not long after some camel herders armed with automatic rifles. Indeed we were getting a bit deeper into the bundu, but two of three of the menacing herders gave us a wave and a smile. The third scowled, holding out his hand for something, but in a moment we were around the corner and away. 

The village of Tot is tucked up against steep mountains. The land is a more fertile than the arid central valley and there is a mango growing scheme here. Mango trees abounded and the villages and huts became a bit thicker. We bumped down the track receiving friendly waves from locals. 

After a stop for lunch, miraculously alone, we continued on and soon ran into the other end of the roadworks of the B4, working its way towards the middle I suppose. We saw more survey markers and bulldozed trees, heavy equipment pushing earth here and there, and as is common in the road projects in Africa, a Chinese supervisor wearing a wide brimmed straw hat, inspecting the work.

The villages of Lomut and Sigor passed by. These were also villages that our mobile health teams and public outreach educators had been dispatched to identify kala azar patients years ago. They would go on market days, to reach the widest audience, and collect potential patients to bring back to our specialized clinic for testing and, if necessary, treatment. 

After Sigor the B4 finally ties into the A1, just after crossing the Turkwel River. Here at the river we saw people at the back breaking work of panning for alluvial gold. We asked Richard Barnley about it later. He said gold dust is collected by the laborers, panning all day every day in the gravel and sand of the river. Once a week a buyer comes and weighs out the gold; most panners can expect to earn 200 to 300 Kenyan shillings a day for this work. The exchange rate at the moment is about 110 Kenyan shillings to the USD. 

Just north of the junction here is a campsite, but due to the tar road over the Kito pass we had made very good time so we decided to push on to Barnley’s, which we knew from our last visit in 2018. 

I was half temped to turn right instead. The A1 to the north heads to all kinds of mysteries. The Turkwel Gorge, the Lake Turkana Nature Reserve, Eliyie Springs on the western shores of Lake Turkana. Eventually the A1 goes to Lokichogio, or “Loki” in the aid worker parlance. Loki is the last outpost before South Sudan, and many a convoy of humanitarian goods heads this way. 

These are explorations we’ll leave for another day. Instead we turned left, up the Marich pass. The A1 here is a narrow tar road that has been resurfaced again and again over old broken tar. This gives it an initially smooth appearance, but it is something of a roller coaster to actually drive. For a while the road follows the river, it is all very scenic. 

Somewhere after Ortum it opens up a bit. The mountains to the east are impressive, though again conditions are hazy and we were robbed a bit of what would be truly spectacular scenery. 

After Ortum the traffic picked up a bit, matatus and boda bodas, trucks and tractors all sharing the road. The road brings us to Makutano, a town I’ve been to many times from my work in 2008/09. This was the closest real town to our clinic, and I was stunned to see how much it has grown up. There are fuel stations, of which there were none before, and even a supermarket. A supermarket! Unbelievable. Later Richard Barnley told us the new governorof West Pokot was doing a really good job of putting resources to work, compared with the old governor of Trans Nzoia, the next province south that includes Kitale, the biggest city in the area. Richard was disgusted with the Trans Nzoia governor, but had high praise for West Pokot’s. 

Finally we rolled into Barnley’s Guesthouse, which also has camping on a wonderful green lawn. Barnley’s feels like a tiny slice of England, a brick farmhouse with smoke curling up from an ivy coveredchimney and a well kept garden outside, surrounded by a green lawn and wonderful tall trees. But England it is not, for black and white colobus monkeys are jumping from tree to tree and the colorful Ross’s turacos, along with many other birds, reside here too.

Richard came out and we re-introduced ourselves from our last visit. Richard is an old white Kenyan from one of the families that stayed. His family’s farmland has long since been sold off and now he is the proprietor of this small campsite and guesthouse with a few bungalows. We had a wonderful welcoming chat with him as we settled in.

He was keen to hear our plans. We hoped to drive some of the “famed” (in quotes because hardly anyone knows about it) Cherangani “Highway,” (quotes again, as highway is an exaggeration in the extreme). Also we intended to visit the Saiwa Swamp National Park just south of here, which is a convenient day trip. 

Barnley’s is in the highlands and it is cool. A light rain pattered down and after wonderful hot showers we had a fire in the evening. Firewood is provided, on a bed of dried maize cobs. These burn surprisingly well and the fire was perfect to keep us warm and dry. Even better there is a high tin roof over the fire pit, so we weren’t even getting rained on.

A Day Visit to the Cherangani Highway

Richard invited us up to his house to review our route for the Cherangani Highway. His living room is another slice of England. Wingback chairs, flower print upholstery, drawings and prints on the wall and a huge brick fireplace. Teapots, a comfy sofa and china plates all made the scene. 

Soon we were armed with invaluable information on what route to take for a scenic drive in the Cherangani Hills, along with some local political commentary, old war stories of adventures working for the Red Cross in Somalia and DRC as well as all manner of other interesting tidbits.

Apparently the president has some dairy farms up in the Cherangani Hills, and this means that some of the roads up there are now being tarred, remarkable for this rural out of the way area. As we headed up the A1 we turned off as instructed and found ourselves on perfect new tarmac. This robbed from the romance a bit, but I have to say it was pretty nice. 

It’s a steep grade to climb up into the Cheranganis and I was appreciating the tar as we went up and up. Up we went, past the villages with wonderful names like Chepkono, Kaibichbich and Kapsait. Tiny farms cultivated on impossibly steep hillsides are everywhere, a patchwork quilt of fertile land draped every hill. Maize, beans, potatoes (?), with sheep and goats and pied dairy cows. The hills are lush and every tone of green is represented. 

At Kapsait we turned northeast, and not far past Kapsangar we turned off the tar. Many of these villages have no signs indicating their names and it was hard to figure out where we were. Richard’s notes were more detailed than any of the many maps we have, but did hinge on knowing the names of villages. Fortunately many of the villages have a boda shed, which is a covered parking area for the boda boda motorcycles to wait out of the weather for their next job, whether it to be deliver people or goods. All of these boda sheds are labeled the same way, “Kapsangar [or whatever village you are in] Boda Shed – built by such and such local government.” This was the only sure way to know where we were. 

Of course we could ask someone, but miscommunication is far easier than you’d think. 

On this narrow dirt track we started our trip back down the hills. This is very steep countryside, just off the road the hill drops away dramatically. If there was any problem with our brakes or transmission we’d be over the edge before we knew it. Naturally the Land Cruiser was up to the challenge and we engine braked our way down down down the winding narrow roads, bouncing over rocks and occasionally slipping on clay wet from the rain.

The vistas and views were around every corner and we stopped often to take it all in. Clear streams ran down the mountains and I remembered reading about trout fishing in the Cheranganis. It would be wonderful to camp up here. Maybe next time we’ll ask if Richard can organize it for us. 

On this stretch we also encountered for the first time children that were scared of us. They seemed to be walking home from school and would get a panicked look in their eyes when seeing us. One girl had nowhere to go, as the road was so narrow, and simply froze, turning away from us and staring at the ground until we passed.

This is so completely opposite of everywhere else we’ve been, where usually kids wave and smile and sometimes shout, “MuzunguHowAreYou!?!” as loud as they can, even running after the car. Here it was the opposite, though to our relief when the kids were in a group they seemed to be more comfortable. In a group, when one broke the ice with a smile or wave they’d all get in on it and start chattering on in Swahili and waving at us, saying who knows what. 

At the very end the road dropped us back onto the A1 and from there we were in another world, busy roads and back to Barnley’s. Again Richard stopped by to chat and we shared the fire with him. Sadly both his mother and sister passed way the year before and he seemed a bit lonely. We were certainly happy for his company.

Saiwa Swamp National Park

Saiwa Swamp was the next order of business. Saiwa Swamp is the smallest national park in Kenya, only 3 square kilometers. However it hosts the rare sitatunga antelope, numerous bird species and is a unique wetland.

Against the desires of one of our party we got up very early. The birding is good at Saiwa, but really it’s best early, so we figured if we’re going to do it we may as well do it all the way. After 30 minutes on the road we arrived, the coffee and tea had barely cooled enough to drink. 

After paying our park fees (credit card and Mpesa accepted) we parked and got right to it. We weren’t entirely sure how this was going to go, so in typical fashion we did it all wrong. First, we didn’t eat anything, didn’t finish our morning hot beverages, and didn’t wear enough clothes. Even though we were close to the equator it was quite cool out, it being near 2000m in elevation here in the highlands.

The swamp is tall and narrow and a trail goes around most of the perimeter, with boardwalks in places over the swamp. Along the trail are various viewing platforms to look out into the swamp. Pretty much right away a local asked us if we’d seen the sitatunga. We hadn’t, and he said he just saw them at one of the platforms and he gave us directions. So off we went, and sure enough we got a glimpse of the sitatunga. 

This rare and sought after sighting wasn’t quite so special for us, as we’d had better sightings in Zambia a few months ago. Also, frankly, it’s not terribly different than the much more common bushbuck. Hopefully the devout will forgive me for saying so. They are cool, and they have very interesting feet, adapted for their semi-aquatic habits, but these are hard to get a look at in the swamp. 

The sitatunga disappeared into the reeds in short order, so after that we were left with birding and monkey viewing. I saw the relatively rare De Brazza’s monkey, but sadly Jenny missed it. I confidently declared we’d get a better view later in the park, but we didn’t.

The rest of the trail around the swamp is seven kilometers, more strenuous than we had imagined, but it felt good to get walking and the blood flowing. We did not do all that well on the bird viewing, which I’m going to blame on the cold, not because we were too cheap to hire a dedicated birding guide.

Back at the vehicle I stupidly backed the Cruiser into the park’s HF antenna arial. Catastrophe was, just, avoided. After that debacle we went to the Saiwa campsite for breakfast. The campsite is huge and lovely, with a great view over the swamp. Really if Barnley’s hadn’t been so good we’d camp here. Barnely’s was quite a bit cheaper too. 

We’d ticked the two big goals here, Saiwa and Cherangani. We dedicated the next day to logistics. Uganda was next on the docket and we needed a PCR test. Our provisions were also running low, so we headed into Kitale to take care of everything. 

Kitale is less than an hour’s drive, with everything you could need in a surprisingly hectic city center. Roadworks in the middle of town made everything a bit of a mess, but we managed.

The regional hospital sorted us out for a PCR test for only $10 USD.

There are a couple supermarkets here and we went to Richard’s preferred market. He asked us to pick up a few things for him since we were headed to town, so we had his shopping list as well. 

By the time we left Kitale we had our noses swabbed, the Cruiser fueled and food was all topped up. Back at Barnley’s, in return for shopping for him, Richard kindly gave us some of his honey, just harvested from his bee hives a couple days ago.

Mount Elgon National Park

Our last Kenyan stop was Mount Elgon National Park. Mount Elgon sits southwest of Kitale, and straddles the border of Kenya and Uganda. The national park is not often visited by foreign visitors, it’s just too far out of the way for what is not a headliner park like Amboseli or the Masai Mara. 

It has high mountain forests, peaks over 4000m, some wildlife and caves. The caves are interesting. In the early colonial days the colonial officers thought they were man made, as the walls of the caves bore tool marks of the being dug out. They ignored the actual explanation from the locals,that the elephants use their tusks to dig out the soft walls of the salt rich clay, using it as a salt lick.

After saying our good byes to Richard, and promising to send him updates on the status of the roads, for he keeps his finger on the pulse of all these details, we went on our way. We took the wrong road out of Kitale, but it was still scenic, across the lush farmland that lies at the foot of the mountain. 

The air was thick with some sort of medium sized flying insect. For many kilometers they were swarming about, and we weren’t quite sure but it seemed like the kids on the side of the road were trapping them, building little stick enclosures on the ground. We couldn’t quite figure out how it worked. 

At the park gate we asked and the ranger explained they were a kind of ground termite that comes out after the rain. The kids trap them by building a little stick “net” over the holes they’re coming out of and then bring the catch back to mom. These are then eaten, usually by mixing into the staple food, ugali (maize porridge). She laughed and said they taste like peanut butter, and offered to get us some. We politely declined and she laughed some more. 

With the termite mystery solved we paid to enter the park. We were only going to spend one night so we decided to camp inside the park, and the next day it’d be off to Uganda. The ranger consulted on road conditions, giving us the worrying assurance, “You will be okay in this vehicle,” patting the Land Cruiser. Meaning, you will not be okay in some vehicles, so conditions clearly weren’t perfect. The roads up Mt. Elgon are known to be slippery and muddy and we didn’t want to get stuck on the edge of some steep hillside half way up the mountain. 

We had lunch at the Rongai Campsite, which was recommended by the ranger at the gate for where we should camp tonight. It is a huge campsite, a grass lawn clearing in the trees on a fairly steep slope. There is a fire ring, cooking tukul, ablutions and water tap. But no flat ground, and it’s bit more developed than we prefer. Some sykes monkeys kept an eye on us during lunch, and we thought we’d use this as our fallback campsite if the other one didn’t work out. 

Mount Elgon National Park is known for its caves, the Kitgum cave being the most well known. After a drive through thick forest and some impressive trees we parked on the road side and made the short hike. It’s maybe 10 minutes walking to the cave. The trail is sign posted and well worn.

Kitgum cave keeps things interesting with its history of deadly disease. Uh, what? In the 80’s, on two separate occasions, people contracted Marburg virus, likely in Kitgum cave. This is a similar situation to the tourists who contracted Marburg from a cave in Uganda that used to be pitched as a side trip for people going gorilla trekking. The Kitgum cave Marburg case was written about in Richard Preston’s The Hot Zone. The Ugandan cave Marburg incident was written about in David Quamman’s Spillover, and Quamman derides Preston’s accounts as being wildly over dramatized and alarmist. So if you need some reading on hemorrhagic fevers I’d recommend Quamman’s Spillover or Ebola instead of The Hot Zone.

With this on our minds we resolved to not spend too much time in the cave, and not to touch anything. 

The entrance is very dramatic looking, a nice mysterious looking place. To get into the cave we had to run through a tiny waterfall, dripping from last nights rain. Inside we found the soft dirt floor of the cave had satisfying elephant and buffalo prints and droppings. It seems they are still making visits to lick the salt of the cave. 

On the cave walls you can easily see score marks from the tusks. Jenny was starting to explore these with her hands, but I reminder her, “Don’t touch!”. It seemed sort of silly, that maybe Marburg was right here, but on the other hand, most things seem innocuous right up to the moment that they are not. 

We brought headlamps and a flashlight, and as we went deeper into the back of the cave we could hear the twittering of bats roosted back somewhere in the darkness. That was good enough for me, I took a few snaps and we decided to take our leave.

Not well signposted is the trail for a second cave, Making’eny Cave, which has a spectacular waterfall cascading over its mouth. Or it did in the photos we’d seen anyway, so we went to check it out. 

There are elephants and buffalos in this park, potentially very dangerous animals to those on foot, but it tells you something that the park does not require a guide to walk the trails. They are clearly pretty confident that you won’t see the big wildlife. Still, walking through the forest and seeing their spoor you can’t help but think about it, adding a nice undercurrent to our walk through the forest.

After splashing through a stream and ducking under some foliage Making’eny Cave hove into view. The waterfall wasn’t roaring, but it was falling over a roughly twenty foot wide section of the enormous half moon opening of the cave. To get up to the cave you approach from lower ground and it is an impressive sight climbing up towards the opening, which is maybe 80 meters wide.

We found more signs of elephant and buffalo here, and more tusks marks. Bats too. I totally forgot about Marburg and started bracing myself against a rock, no doubt covered in bat droppings, to take some photos. Jenny was off in some other part of the cave, and wandered back to give me a raised eyebrow and a, “what about the Marburg?” admonishment. Shit! I’m sure the risk was infinitesimal/non-existant, but nobody actually knows do they? 

I washed thoroughly in the nearby stream and then used a healthy dose of hand sanitizer, being careful not to touch my face in the mean time. I suppose we’d know in a few weeks. (Spoiler alert, I survived). 

After the caves we decided to drive up the road to the highest drivable point, which is the trial head for those hiking to the summit. Or at least we’d give it a try. 

The road climbs and climbs through the forest. The trees are particularly impressive, massive straight hardwood trees, trunks that were rippled columns, reminding me of the pillars in a French cathedral. I have no idea what kinds of trees they were, but they certainly impressed. 

Further up the road you get above the montane forest and into the bamboo zone. This transition area is about where our other camping option was, Mutamaiyo camp. This was not recommended at all by the ranger at the gate, but she said it was allowed to camp there. This of course increased its attractiveness to us.

It’s down a short rough track that is clearly not driven often, two faint ruts in high wet grass. Just a couple hundred meters brought us to a nice clearing in the forest and a campsite under a huge tree. It looked pretty great to us. There were some derelict long drops and even a half way decent shower enclosure, bring your own water. There was a fire ring under the tree.

The road to the summit trailhead ascends through the bamboo zone into heath and moorland, not unlike Aberdare. Mt. Elgon is after all at roughly the same latitude and altitude as Aberdare, so it makes sense that conditions are similar. There is no gate or sign indicating it, but the road  actually goes out of the park for a while, before going back into the park at the trailhead. We could see one hut in the distance and a few cows grazing, but otherwise the land still looks unspoiled. We kept thinking how great it’d be to ask those herders if we could wild camp up here on the moors just outside the park.

The Honey Badger complained a lot about this road, and we finally reached the end of the road, achieving a personal record in the Cruiser at 3457m elevation. Up here the fuel mix is too rich and if you put your foot down the exhaust smokes and the engine sounds rattly. 

We drove back down to the Mutamaiyo campsite, at about 2900m elevation. After much struggle starting a fire with wet wood we had a wonderful evening in camp. Dressed in puffy jackets and wool hats we stayed close to the fire, cooking chicken over the coals and Jenny made french fries on the stove. At night it rained a bit, but by then we were tucked in and warm in the tent. 

The next day would be a long one, we planned to enter Uganda and drive all the way to The Haven in Jinja. Here we would regroup for a bit and then set out on a loop through northern Uganda. 

With that plan in order we rose predawn. It was quite cold and we drove down the mountain  more or less in the dark, with the heat cranking, wanting to be at a particular lookout for sunrise. Sunrise was great, and after checking out of the park we drove the short distance to the border.

On the way we reflected a bit on Kenya. We had a fantastic time here, and I particular enjoyed getting to know the country better. When I was working in Kenya in 2008/9 There was no time for traveling this amazing country, now I felt I had a much better feel for things. 

Jenny and I both appreciated how easy it is to talk to Kenyans, much more so than Tanzanians. It is hard to put a finger on why this is. Part of it is practical, that more Kenyans learn English in school. In Tanzania it seemed like many Tanzanians entered into any interaction with a pre-established notion that they were somehow subservient, some legacy of colonialism perhaps? I am generalizing, it is certainly more complicated than that.

In Kenya it felt like it was much more common for people to speak to you as equals and on their own terms. They asked questions, genuine with curiosity and warmth. We enjoyed all of our interactions and discussions with Kenyans of all strata of society.

If Kenya has a downside it’s that the driving can get monotonous at times, while still being intense due to the amount of traffic. This just makes for tiring days of driving. The monotony on lonely roads in Namibia or Botswana is much easier going.

I was also impressed with the incredible diversity of sights in Kenya. Amboseli is nothing like Tsavo, which is nothing like Aberdare, which is nothing like Samburu, and so on. And there is so much more to see! 

If you are reading this and thinking, “But they didn’t see [favorite spot]!” Not to worry, we will be back.When you find yourself at a fine restaurant you can’t try all the dishes in one sitting, no matter how good they are.

The Nitty Gritty

Baringo – Barnley’s: 263 km, 8h 55m, (with much stopping and one instance of taking the wrong track) 

The B4 pretty much will take you all the way to the A1. They are working on tarring the B4, but some of it retains its previous bush track status. Sometimes these projects stall, so it could be completely tar by the end of the year, or stuck in its current status for who knows how long. 

We found it a scenic and worthwhile route. There were armed herders present, though I think this is less and less so. Richard did not think they presented a threat, though if any was insistent I would certainly offer some food or water.

Richard insisted that many maps, including T4A, are incorrect in labeling the town on the A1 as Kapenguria. Kapenguria is the administrative center of West Pokot and lies about 1km off the A1. The town on the A1 is correctly called Makutano, but due to their growth they have blended together. If you’re in the area you’ll hear both names used. Makutano is a very common name, many villages throughout Kenya and Tanzania are named this (“meeting place” in Swahili, I think?).

There is a well stocked supermarket in Makutano (we added it to iOverlander) as well as several fuel stations.

Barnley’s Guesthouse is excellent. Camping is 800 KSH pppn, firewood included, hot showers and ablutions all are near the tent. The best part is Richard himself, who is initially a bit gruff in a likable sort of way, and he’s full of local knowledge and great stories. 

There is some road noise here, though not too bad. Richard said back in the day the main road to the north was actually west of where the current A1 is. He said they are in the process of rebuilding and taring that old road, and when it’s done much of the traffic, especially the big trucks, will take that road. This will make the already very pleasant Barnley’s quieter. 

Down the escarpment from Makutano is where my old project, in Kacheliba, is. The area is reasonably safe for exploration, though ask around before going there for updated information. There are some beautiful kopjes down there, along with the Suam river. Richard said that he used to wild camp down there on the banks of the river, but now there are too many people down there and the Chinese have put in a tar road all the way to Amudat, the northern most open border post between Kenya and Uganda. 

Richard went on to say that you can have totally unmolested wild camping north of there, on a track labeled E364 on T4A, at approximately N2° 29.228′ E34° 58.509’. We didn’t go there, but he said it’s a beautiful spot and nobody will bother you there for days. Why might that be you ask? Because it is in tribal disputed territory between the Pokot, Karamojong and Turkana, so all the tribes stay out of this area. I’m not sure of the wisdom of camping in such disputed territory, but in any case tourists would not be a target in any disagreements and it has the Barnley endorsement.

Barnley’s to Barnley’s via the scenic Cherangani Highway – 139km, 6h 2m

The Cherangani Highway is stunningly beautiful. If/when we do this again we’ll figure out where to camp up there. There are more roads than what we drove, you could spend a lot of time getting lost in a wonderful way in those hills. People were friendly and welcoming, even if the kids were a bit alarmed.

Kitale is the regional capital. You can get anything you need here. Ricard prefers the Quickmart Supermarket, but I think I would favor Khetia’s or Transmatt myself.

Mt. Elgon NP to Suam border post – 37km, 1h 0m

We really enjoyed Mt. Elgon National Park. We were in the park for less than 24 hours and had a fantastic time. Another day would not go amiss, but after that unless you were going to do some serious hiking I think you’d run out of stuff to do. None of the camping outside the park seemed that great, we were happy to camp inside the park even if it was a bit expensive.

Fees at Mt. Elgon are $26 pppd, camping is $20 pppn. The bandas here are $40 per banda, meaning you can sleep in a banda for the same price as camping. They looked pretty nice, but we opted for the wilderness experience. A detail of all fees can be found here.

There are four (five including Amudat) choices of border post to cross to Uganda. Busia, Malaba, Lwakhakha and Suam. Busia and Malaba are very busy. In 2009 I crossed there and the line of trucks was seven kilometers long (private vehicles can cut to the front), and reportedly covid had made this much worse. Lwakhakha is the quietest of all these and Richard highly recommended it. We crossed at Suam. Suam is also quiet, but we did have a few issues crossing there that I’ll detail in the next blog post. 

The C45, from Kitale to the Suam border post, is new tar all the way. They are in the process of building a one stop border post at Suam. 

When we started to lose track of how many days we’d been camping at Kembu Cottages that seemed like it was a good indicator that we should get going. The next stop was the Masai Mara. In 2018 we visited the Mara and we were looking forward to returning. Andrew Nightengale, the owner of Kembu, consulted on our route and we settled on taking the C37 through Narok. 

With laundry done, the vehicle serviced and cleaned, provisions loaded and relaxing done we could think of no more reasons to delay. At the turn of the key the Cruiser’s straight six diesel rumbled to life, eager to get going.

The road was in great shape and my coffee was tasting especially delicious. As we drove towards the wilderness through the cool climes of the Mau highlands we were happy. 

The road between the towns of Mau Narok and Narok is brand new tar and was very easy going. It’s not quite finished in a few places but importantly they have not yet had time to put in all the speed bumps. What luxury. There was also no traffic and I couldn’t wrap my head around why there was this new beautiful road and nobody driving on it.

As we sailed along the crisp highlands we looked out at vistas of farms blanketing the hillsides. We also put on an appropriate podcast, Radiolab’s episode on the Mau Mau rebellion. Some archives have been recently declassified in England and lead to new information about the Mau Mau and this made for good listening as we trundled our way to the Mara.

In the busy hub of Narok we topped up on fuel, but we were otherwise ready for the bush so we kept going. The road from here isn’t quite the empty pristine tarmac we were on before, but it’s still pretty dang good and we continued our fast passage. 

This brought us to the Sekakani gate of the Maasai Mara National Reserve. Here we explained that we were staying in the Triangle and they gave us a two hour transit pass for free. We would pay our fees at the Mara Bridge, the entrance to the Conservancy side of the Masai Mara. These little details, knowing that such a pass exists (thanks Andrew Nightengale), are the tidbits that make it practical to travel here without a guide. 

The Mara greeted us warmly, zebras and impala were grazing not far into the reserve and the grass was fresh and bright. Puffy cumulous clouds were forming, that looked nice now but brought with them a concern of thundershowers. It had clearly been raining recently, the hills were a carpet of green grass.

It was about an hour and a half drive to the Triangle side of the reserve, so we did stop for a little game viewing, but there was no time to take any divergent tracks. Still we saw good birdlife, elephant and many antelope and warthogs, all looking fat, sleek and happy with the good grazing on offer.

At the Mara Bridge we crossed into the Triangle. There is a small parking area, picnic site and ablutions here. Since it was midday we saw no need to rush and we had our lunch first, to delay our ticketing time as long as possible. This would allow us extra hours on the last day we had to head out of the park, as permits here follow the common East Africa rule of permits being valid for 24hrs from the time of entry.

Often we are advised to hire a guide when entering game parks. It is easy to pickup a ranger or freelance guide for the day, for $10 or $20 dollars, and many have excellent success with this. On this day at the Mara Bridge there was a guide who couldn’t pay his client’s entry fees, because he’d only brought cash. In the Masai Mara they only accept Mpesa or credit card, and he had neither, and he and his clients were at something of an impasse. We ended up paying his fees for him on our credit card and he gave us a useful top up of USD, so all was well in the end. I share this just to say that hiring a guide does not necessarily save you from all travel snafus.

In our 2018 visit to the Maasai Mara we had stayed at the Eluai camp, more or less centered in the Triangle side of the park. At the time this was a bush camp with no facilities and it suited us just fine, so when we checked in we paid for three nights at the same campsite. 

The game sightings had been very good on our last visit and we had the general lay of the land. There is something about visiting a place when it doesn’t feel like a “once in a lifetime” chance that takes the pressure off, and less pressure makes it easier to enjoy.

The campsite was nicer than our last visit, with the grass trimmed back a bit. There also two long drop toilets and a shower enclosure (bring your own water) tucked back into the bushes behind the camp. They are very inconspicuous and the site still has a bush feel to it, it’s still unfenced wild camping and a great view of the plains below.

We spent the afternoon exploring the riverfront and we had a diversity of sightings, including two lionesses, hyena, black backed jackal, topi, warthogs, buffalo, elephant, impala, hippos and giraffe. The birds were also happy with all the rain, flitting and flying about all over the place. In particular the pin tailed wydahs were in abundance, the males hauling around their ridiculously long tail feathers. Long crested eagles also abounded.

Right at the end of the day we had the good luck to see a serval and cub in the grass, not far from camp. Rain came in the evening and we had a relatively subdued night, cooking on our stove and retiring early to prepare for an early start the next day. 

Over the next days we continued with our usual park routine, making morning and afternoon game drives with a little chill time in the midday. Rain came every day, and one day in particular it was very heavy. It was interesting to see the herds of elephants disappearing in the rain squalls.

Lions made an appearance everyday for us. Once we saw two big males on a buffalo kill, but they had long since had their fill and were sleeping off their fest. 

On another lion sighting we took advantage of the Masai Mara’s unique allowance to drive off-road for big cat sightings. Here we found four young males feeding on a buffalo calf. The dominant male munched away for 45 minutes or so while the other three lions dozed in the grass. When the dominant male finally had his fill the other three sprang with lighting speed from their formerly relaxed state to pounce on the remains, having waited for their turn to feed. One was too slow and got nothing. While all this was happening a few hyenas and black backed jackals patrolled a radius of the kill, hoping for some scraps, but this kill wasn’t big enough to leave them leftovers.

A rhino was sighted in the north of the park and we made our way to the scene. It was at the top of a rise and the track to get up there was thick deep mud. We would have never had attempted it if we didn’t see some lodge vehicles up there already. The Honey Badger acquitted itself well, bouncing and churning up the muddy track to the top of the rise, but by the time we arrived the rhino had disappeared into the bush. Unfortunately we didn’t get any more opportunities for rhino, but as a small consolation the guided lodge vehicles weren’t having any luck on that front either so at least we weren’t being left out.

One evening in camp as it was getting on towards dusk a Land Cruiser showed up and started unpacking. It looked like we’d have neighbors. After a little while the Land Cruiser drove away, leaving three young women with some lightweight mountaineering style tents and nothing else.

We invited them to share our fire and they explained their story. They work for the UN and were on a one night marathon trip to the Mara from Nairobi. It turned out that their guide hadn’t realized that they planned on camping and so he had no camping kit for himself. He dropped his guests off and went to stay at the guide quarters of a nearby lodge.

They had only a few snacks they’d bought at the supermarket, but no cooking kit, no chairs, hardly any water, and no flashlights or headlamps. They were just using their phones for light. We were incredulous, but had a great time chatting with two of them around the fire and sharing some of our dinner with them. The third was too scared to get out of her tent. 

When they finally went off to sleep Jenny noticed they accidentally left some of their food in the camp chair we loaned them, which included a pack of salami. Jenny returned it to them, but it wasn’t until the next morning that we pondered the wisdom of giving them meat to keep in their ground tent with all the wild animals about. They survived and we had a good laugh about  it. 

That night we had lots of wildlife around the camp. We could hear the grunting of buffalos, lions in the distance and the hippos were particularly vocal too. Our neighbors certainly got a good bush experience for only having a single night to spend.

All in all our Masai Mara stay was lovely, but a little damp with all the rain. Even the animals seemed a bit subdued. The scenery was glorious, it was something to see big thunderheads moving across the sky and dense squalls bring dark grey sheets of rain across the park. 

Heading north from the Masai Mara there aren’t any headliner destinations within a reasonable days drive, so at the advice of a veteran we headed to Kericho. This would make a good stop to points beyond. It’s about a five hour drive from the gate, not including the hour or so we took the wrong road and had to back track. This brought us through lush green countryside full of small villages and farms. In the small town of Kilgoris we bought a big stack of fresh chipatis, still hot. We feasted on these treats, delicious with perfect stretch and flaky layers to them.

Kericho is tea growing country and as we got closer we began driving through picture perfect hills of tea estates. The tea is grown in hedges that are packed close together, giving the appearance of huge blocks of technicolor green foliage. The thin rows between the bushes that the pickers walk are obscured by the fresh green growth. It’s very attractive country. 

Our camp for the night was at a place called “Ray’s Place,” a tea farm that has some rooms, a restaurant and a small campsite on trimmed green grass. Arriving we saw there was a ‘big rig’ camper in the campsite already, and funny enough we’d seen this one in Zambia months earlier. 

As we got settled in was clear rain was imminent, we grabbed our books and retired to a covered area that looked like it was sometimes used by the restaurant. 

The rain began and  it came down very hard. The drops slamming into the tin roof of our shelter were incredibly loud. It seemed to settle in for a while, a proper tropical downpour. It even hailed for a few minutes and little rocky ice pellets collected on the lawn.

It was impossible for us cook in these conditions so we settled on a dinner of cheese, crackers and veggies. It was raining so hard that even collecting this without getting everything soaked was going to be a challenge. We waited for a break in the weather, with the plan to eat in the tent.

The rain slacked off for a moment and we jumped into action. Jenny, the food, the boxed wine and my laptop all made it into the tent. I decided to pump my bilges before getting trapped in the tent for a while. This was a mistake, as while I was in the ablution block the rain came back with a vengeance and I got stuck there instead. The Cruiser was maybe 10 meters away and I could see it out the window, but there was no way to get into the tent without letting in gallons of rain at the same time. I will grant that this is a flaw with this type of roof top tent. Any ads for AluCab saying it’s an ‘all weather tent’ are not quite honest about the whole picture.

Lighting came too, violently. It reminded me of the big storm we’d gone through in Busanga Plains in November. The lighting was coming down fast, the thunder was tremendously loud and the rain was hammering on the tin roof of the ablution block so hard that I put my fingers in the ears, wishing for my ear plugs. 

Amusingly Jenny and I were able to WhatsApp each other, and she was holding up okay in the tent as it was buffeted about in the wind. The lighting was viciously close, and the thunder rippled and rolled loudly. Thankfully the campsite was on a slope, but even with the good drainage there was inches of water running under the cruiser. Finally there was a brief respite and I tumbled into the tent. We enjoyed an unconventional dinner, listened to the rain and watched the first movie we’d seen in months on my laptop.

The next morning we chatted with our big rig neighbors and we told them that we were envious of their spacious quarters during the rain. Interestingly they said we shouldn’t be, it leaked like a sieve last night! It turns out the vehicle wasn’t theirs, they had rented it from their neighbors in Denmark for just a few weeks and they hadn’t been in such heavy rain before. 

Unfortunately the forecast was for more of the same. Our original plan had been to drive up to Kakamega Forest, but after now four days of getting pretty wet and the thundershowers slated to continue we aborted that plan. We chatted with a guide at Ray’s and he confirmed that a scenic route to Lake Baringo was feasible in one day. That became the new plan.

The scenic route is almost twice as long as a direct drive there, but now the entire stretch is tarred and reportedly the going is easy. The route, if you want to follow on a map, was Karicho – Eldoret – Iten – Kabernet – Marigat – Baringo. 

The drive from Ray’s Place to Iten was uneventful. This was on the fringe of my old stomping grounds when I worked in Kenya back in 2009, we used to come to Eldoret on occasion. At the time the NGO I worked for also had a satellite project in Marigat. Though I had dispatched supplies, Land Cruisers and staff there I had never been myself.

Iten greeted us with a banner over the road, “The Home of Champions”. This is because Iten is the center of the Kalenjin tribe, who hold more records in running than anyone else. Ever. Anywhere. How this came to be is something of a not totally solved mystery. When we left Kericho this morning we listened to an old Radiolab podcast, Cut and Run, which details the ins and outs of the Kenyan runners excellence, it’s really worth a listen. 

It’s just nuts how good at running they are. For example, by 2013 there were 17 American men in history who have run under 2:10 in the marathon, but there were 32 Kalenjin who did it in October of 2011 alone.

From Iten we turned and stopped at the viewpoint above the Kerio valley. Here there are a few shops selling drinks and snacks and nice tables with fantastic views. Slightly disappointing was the persistent haze obscuring the view, but we could still see the outline of the opposite ridge, and looking along the escarpment the cliffs fading blue into the distance. The tidy square and rectangular outlines of shambas, small subsistence farms, painted an attractive quilt on the hillsides and ridges that dropped precipitously away from us into the valley. 

After a simple lunch at the viewpoint we hopped back on the road, which also dropped precipitouslydown the escarpment. We were in low gear, engine braking most of the way. We stopped at another viewpoint and still we could smell the brakes, having dropped almost a thousand meters of elevation in not so many kilometers. 

Here a half dozen women surrounded us, offering mangos for sale of various shapes and sizes. We were a little low on freshies and decided to buy some fruit. Herein lies a daily conundrum of traveling here. Who to buy from? How much to pay? I suspect the prices were elevated on our behalf, but not so much. A large bowl of multiple fat mangos was 200 KSH, just under $2USD. Jenny selected a bowl from a woman wearing a t-shirt saying “beast squad.” 

At another viewpoint further down I pulled over again. This one had a couple enjoying the view and a solitary old man in a suit jacket, but thankfully no vendors. We got out and I snapped a few photos of the hazy hills below. In the meantime Mr. Suit Jacket approached Jenny and began to offer some weak introductions to the viewpoint, a lead up to asking for money. While I took a few more photos he pointed out that he was suffering greatly from both elephantiasis, as evidenced by his enlarged feet, and leprosy, as evidenced by the shedding from the same disfigured feet. It wasn’t a pretty sight and both Jenny and I felt sympathy for the man. 

At the same time, we didn’t give him money and we cut short our stop at the viewpoint, getting back in the vehicle while saying apologies and getting on our way. I regretted not giving the man something, clearly the need was real, but we had defaulted to our normal practice “don’t give money to beggars.” We reflected on this for quite a while. Maybe it’s something of a cop out to say, “we donate money to various charities, therefore this relieves us of giving money directly to those in need.” I think going forward in some instances I will soften my stance in the future.

From here we continued our scenic drive, across the floor of the valley, through than many twisting turns of Kabernet and then into the village of Marigat. 

Marigat is the largest town on Lake Baringo, but the access to the lake is a bit further north. When we arrived at the lakeshore we confirmed what we had read online, that the old standby and well loved campsite of Robert’s Camp had closed. The lodge and campsite is completely flooded and derelict now.

Many East African lakes, and Kenya’s in particular, have flooded significantly in the last decade. This has been a slow motion disaster, displacing whole villages, flooding schools and farms and everything else. Lake Baringo has risen something like 15 meters, and then receded two. This has caused the lake shore to come up to three kilometers inland in some areas, and about  800m inland at Roberts Camp, thus its loss. It has been devastating for the local community. 

Explanations for this relatively rapid rise in lake level are varied. Climate change. Geologic shifting causing new underground springs to feed the lakes. And more. Here are two great articles on the topic if you are interested from the Guardian and Quartz Africa.

Across the road we found the Bush Baby campsite, run by one of Robert’s Camp former employees. Here they are recreating Roberts Camp in a way, and we were welcomed.

We settled into the Bush Baby campsite enjoyed a cold beer after our day on the road. For dinner we reheated leftover chicken Thai curry we’d made a couple days before. A couple cats came over to beg for food. I am not a fan of cats, though Jenny likes to point out my inconsistent feelings, that I like the big cats, lions and leopards, but domestic cats I distain. 

It’s hot in Baringo and we enjoyed cool showers before retiring to the tent. The next day we booked a boat trip on the lake, famous for its birding. The world record for the number of birds seen in 24 hours (three hundred something) was made here. 

We can’t claim to be quite so dedicated at birding, but I was looking forward to a morning out on the lake. Luka, the owner of Bush Baby, introduced us to our boatman and we just walked across the road to the boat launch. The remnants of Robert’s Camp is now being used as a place to store and launch a few boats, tucked between thick stands of dead flooded trees and a few dilapidated half flooded buildings.

With flat morning light and haze on the lake, combined with all the dead trees it was a bit dystopian in feel. 

It was warm and calm and the boat sliced through the water easily, it was wonderful to be on the water. Our boatman knew his birds and we ticked off many, though most species we had seen before. For whatever devastation the flooding had on the community it didn’t seem to affect the birds, if anything they were happier. Herons, egrets, weavers, kingfishers and bee eaters all abounded. 

The boatman wove us between the dead trees, indicating when we floated over the old reception office of Robert’s Camp and pointed out bird species as we went. He also took us by the enormous Soi Safari Lodge, now completely derelict due to flooding. He said he had used to work there before it was forced to close, and that unemployment in the community was much higher because of the flooding. 

He brought us out the one of the islands in the middle of the lake and we saw huge numbers of pied kingfishers. Once a dozen in one tree. Here he brought the boat close into shore to pick up some driftwood, which turned out to be the highly buoyant balsa wood. He also bought a few small fish from fisherman out on the lake.

With these ingredients he cut a small piece of balsa wood and inserted it into the belly of the fish. Then he whistled loudly several times, and a fish eagle appeared on a tree on shore. He gave another loud whistle and threw the fish out in the water. 

The balsa kept the dead fish floating, and the fish eagle swooped down impressively close so we could take pictures. This practice seems somewhat questionable, interfering with wildlife and so forth, but it is longstanding practice here and was certainly impressive. 

Crocodiles also inhabit the lake, but they are small and he said present no danger to swimmers. We were not confident enough to test this theory, and anyway, swimming among the dead snags of the lakeshore held no appeal.

After the boat trip we lazily whiled away the afternoon. Serious birders also take a walking excursion along the cliffs behind the village, to see the cliff and land dwelling species, but we were satisfied. Amazingly it rained here too. In parched Baringo this is very unusual this time of year, but it was short lived and served to cool things down a bit. 

Sadly Island Camp, the lodge out on Ol Kokwe Island, had closed during Covid and had just reopened, but not to day visitors. We had hoped to enjoy their well reviewed restaurant and pool, but not this time around. 

We enjoyed our stop at Lake Baringo, a sort of understated attraction. At the same time one can’t help but see the flooding as a massive hit to the tourism here and it made us wonder if those remaining can hold out. The dead trees and lack of lakeshore do detract from the atmosphere. 

Tomorrow we would head out on another scenic drive, over the Kito and Marich passes. I had been in contact with Richard Barnley, of Barnley’s Guesthouse, and he confirmed that the road and security conditions should be okay. I was looking forward to seeing some remote parts of the Kerio Valley and driving the scenic Marich Pass.

The Nitty Gritty

Kembu Cottages to Sekakani Gate – 195km, 3h 35m

Sekakani Gate to Mara Bridge – 41 km, 1h 22m

The Masai Mara Background

The Maasai Mara is roughly 1500 sq km in size, but is confusingly divided into to two parts, roughly 2/3rds and 1/3rd, with the dividing line being the Mara River. The Maasai Mara National Reserve is the eastern portion, the Mara Conservancy is the western portion. To confuse things further, the Conservancy side is often simply referred to as, “the Triangle” due to its triangular shape. The eastern boundary of the Triangle is formed by the Mara river, the southern boundary by the Tanzanian border, the western boundary by the Siria escarpment.

The entirety of the Maasai Mara protected areas (the Reserve, the Triangle and a number of adjacent protected areas that are the next tier lower in the level of protection provided to animals) abuts the northern boundary of Tanzania’s Serengeti, making one very large contiguous ecosystem for animals to move about freely within. In this ecosystem there are numerous geographic barriers that only motivated animals will cross, such as the Siria escarpment or the forbidding landscape of Natron, and other boundaries are formed by settlements and farms. This means that even though the area is almost entirely unfenced that the bulk of the wildlife, mostly, stays within the protected areas. 

Travel between the Serengeti and the Maasai Mara used to be allowed many years ago, via the Sand River border post, but this is long closed. Anyone wanting to travel from one park to the other must go the long way around, the least bad way is exiting the Mara at the Oloololo gate, crossing the Isibania border, and then driving to one of the western Serengeti gates, or visa versa. This is a two day drive for all but the most motivated, but it does at least give you an opportunity to provision and fuel while you are out of the park.

Back to the Mara. The Reserve and the Triangle are managed by different entities, but the park is contiguous and fees paid on one side allow you use on the other side. Entry fees are the same on both sides. We’ve been to the Maasai Mara before and visited both sides, but predominately spent our time in the Triangle. We found the Triangle to have excellent game viewing, well maintained roads, and importantly you can camp within the park. On the Reserve side the only public campsite, Sand River, was closed some five-ish years ago and now you have to camp outside the gate. Rumors of the reopening of the Sand River campsite persist, but for the time being they are just rumors. 

On top of all that we found the Reserve side to be less organized and professional, and last time we witnessed animals swarmed by vehicles at sightings. On the Triangle side they allow a maximum of five vehicles at a sighting and if there are more than five they limit sightings to 10 minutes, so everyone gets a turn. The final cherry on top in the Triangle is that they allow off road driving for cat sightings if you are not in the high use area. This well policed privilege allows really great sightings of animals that would otherwise be out of view. 

Campsites in the Triangle

There are three campsites in the Triangle, the Oloololo Campsite, near the Oloololo Gate, Eluai near the middle of the park and Iseiya, noted as Serena on T4A. 

Oloololo has the most facilities and a very nice view, but is near the gate and staff quarters, so there is more traffic. 

Eluai until recently was a special campsite with no facilities, and is still marked, incorrectly, on the Mara Triangles own map. It is now a public campsite, but until just the last couple months had no ablutions of any kind. Now it has a basic toilet and shower enclosure, you must supply the water.  Somewhat humorously, but also inconveniently, the builders of these new ablutions used the wrong kind of toilet. It’s a squat toilet, but normally when you build a latrine as a squat toilet with no water it is just a keyhole shape in the floor to the long drop hole below. In this case they used the a porcelain squat toilet that is intended to flush, but as there is no water, any thing that doesn’t manage to go down the hole just sits there. So, uh, not super practical.

Eluai is on a rise and has a good view in the distance, but there is no shade. 

Iseiya/Serena is nearby Eluai and has no view and is tucked into the forest. It has a long drop but no other facilities. It’s fairly tight in there, with not much flat spaceif you on using a roof top tent. There is no view at all, but good shade. So to each their own for campsites. They are all good in their own way, all unfenced, and all wild. 

The Mara Conservancies website is a wealth of information: https://www.maratriangle.org/home In particular their monthly reports provide detailed insight on anti poaching and other trials of conservation.

Special Campsites require a booking fee, I think of 1000 Kenyan Shillings for individuals, roughly 100 USD. This is regardless of how many in the party or how long you stay (or perhaps it’s per week?), so this amortizes well if you have more in your group or stay longer. 

Entry fees are $70 USD pppd (24 hr rule), camping is $30 pppn, vehicle fee is…400 shillings? Payment is by credit card or Mpesa only, no cash. 

Firewood can be purchased from the park staff at Oloololo gate or Mara Bridge, but they have a monopoly on the market and it’s expensive. We paid an exorbitant 1500 shillings for an admittedly huge pile of wood. So did another set of campers we met. I suspect you could bargain down to 1000, but we didn’t.

Fuel is usually available at the Serena lodge in the park. There is also fuel outside the Sekakani gate, in a modest fuel station of unknown quality, and the same for outside the Oloolo gate. So you’re unlikely to run out of fuel, but those are not large fuel stations so the quality is suspect. 

If you are headed to the Triangle from the east, as we did, ask for a transit pass at the gate. They’ll give you a free two hour pass to get to the Mara Bridge, where you can pay your entry fees by credit card. 

Andrew Nightengale strongly advised us not to use the C13 to drive to the Oloololo gate, he said it’s in terrible condition and is a miserable drive.

There is a Naivas supermarket, as well as many other shops, in Narok, if you need to provision. On the Oloololo side there isn’t much for stocking up, your best bet might be Lolgorien, but it will be more modest pickings.

When leaving from the Oloololo gate there are two roads marked C17 on T4A. The eastern one was not passable and we had to double back. The “correct” one the western one, shown in the screen shot below.

To Kericho: 175km, 5h13m including a stop for a car wash.

Lake Baringo

The drive from Ray’s to Baringo via Eldoret – Iten – Kabernet – Marigat is not the efficient way to go. It would be better to break this up, either by camping at Kakamega or maybe at the Naiberi Overland Campsite outside Eldoret (if it’s still open). The drive from Iten down the escarpment is beautiful and I think well worth the diversion. It would be double excellent if you were motorcycling, I imagine.

Bush Baby campsite was 800 KSH pppn, well worth it. The ablutions were clean and new, the shower is cold, but in the hot weather of Baringo this is no issue. The campsite has rubbish bins, a device charging station and a couple picnic tables. There is a basic restaurant and cottages under construction. Shade is pretty good, and they have planted many new trees that will add to that. There is a water tap with water from a borehole. The only negative is the campsite is fairly close to the road, so there is some road noise, though not at night. Also we had some kids staring at us from the road, but that was no great hardship, they were friendly. As the foliage grows in it will become more private. 

Across the Chalbi

In the morning we packed up from our beach camp at Koobi Fora in Sibiloi National Park. We were headed to the oasis of Kalacha, half way across the northern fringe of the Chalbi Desert. There weren’t really any specific sights to see today, just a journey to make and a bleak beauty to absorb. 

Danson, the Koobi Fora manager, consulted on our route. He advised we take the Karsa gate out of park, then to take the desert track as opposed to the “main” road to Kalacha. He also told us that there is a curfew for security in Marsabit and that under no circumstances should we put ourselves in a position to make a late arrival in Marsabit. The curfew goes into effect at 1800, and to underscore the seriousness he said that even the boda boda drivers, known for their wanton attitude towards their own safety, finish their business and are off the roads by around 1700. 

This seemed a bit ominous. In retrospect I wished I’d asked what was happening in those hours of darkness, but we just accepted it. The original plan was a one night stopover at Kalacha and then to go to Marsabit National Park, which would also mark our return to main tar roads and reliable fuel. We’d just take it one day at a time. 

When we checked out of the Karsa gate the rangers confirmed Danson’s concerns about Marsabit, but said the route through the desert was fine. We need not worry on that front. 

Just outside the gate we saw a large herd of northern topi, heading for the lake. It was nice to see some wildlife present out here. We had heard that there is better wildlife in the south of the park near Allia Bay, where we didn’t go, and here was some evidence of that.

The initial stretches of the road out were the same we’d covered heading into the park, slow going on rocky tracks, through dry riverbeds and across rocky fields. The little wildflowers persisted, and it was scenic. At a junction, marked by a bullet pockmarked KWS sign for Sibiloi,  we entered new territory. This was a gravel road, and we were able to pick up the pace a bit for the first time.

Heading into the sun the track brought us closer to the desert. Rocks, sand, sparse dry scrubland. We’d see a smattering of huts on occasion, pastoralists making a hard living on the fringes of the desert.

Then we started seeing camels. Large herds of camels and goats, and we knew there must be water nearby. There were a few herders around, sometimes we’d get a casual wave. Some of the camel herds numbered in the hundreds and were using the road. Slowly the LandCruiser would part the herds, coaxing them out of the way. In that particular herd the herdsman were armed with AK-47s, but they hardly gave us a glance.

Days later we were camped next to some Kenyans that had experience in the north. They said that a lot of those armed men are contracted herders, that those are not their camels. Some wealthy people hold large amounts of wealth in camels, and these herders were responsible for protecting that wealth, with force if necessary. A study from 2016 established that camels can sell for 40,000-100,000 shillings, topping out at almost $900 USD. Multiply that by the hundreds of camels in front of us, and we had been looking at a lot of money.

These pastoral bankers paid us no heed, their AKs slung over their shoulders as they walked slowly through the desert. Jenny remarked that carrying a heavy weapon like that through the heat of the day must be exhausting.

Eventually we got to the desert proper. To us it looked like a dry lake bed, hard baked in the sun and fractured into millions of pieces. Two tire tracks make a stripe across this very flat, very empty plain and we zoomed across the barren land feeling like we might be in the Sahara.

I tried not to think too much about what would happen if the vehicle broke down, but the needle of the temperature gauge stayed planted, and with luxurious air conditioning blasting, the Cruiser ran on without complaint. I love this car.

We made it to the landmark town of North Horr, a hot, dusty and melancholic looking town. Aid workers plied the dusty streets in LandCruisers emblazoned with their logos, and locals gave us curious and not all together friendly looks.

By late afternoon the GPS guided us to Kalacha. Kalacha is an oasis town, and I mean a proper oasis. From the hard baked earth of the desert we could see clusters of palms in the distance. The GPS had the roads wrong, but after a lucky guess we found ourselves rolling into the oasis, thick stands of palms feeding on underground water, and at the epicenter an actual spring flowing out of the desert ground. 

Chiefly, the spring was being used to water animals and thus had a fair amount of dung around it. This detracted a little from the romantic desert oasis vision, but otherwise the image was complete. The spring water wandered through a clearing between the palms. Goats, camels and donkeys were here to drink, their herders chatting in the shade. 

The Kalacha Oasis

Where to stay here was something of a mystery. We’d heard of a simple guesthouse in the town, but also about a place that was near the springs which lie south of the settlement. Camp Kalacha, by the springs, did turn out to actually exist, though diminished from its already modest past. It is under renovation, slowly. To our surprise they actually have two swimming pools, and one even had water in it. 

We were invited to camp under a nearby tree at the edge of the spring. There was no bathroom or toilet facilities here at all. The only amenity was, oddly, the pool. Not an amenity you normally get before a toilet.  

This desert oasis was quite a picture, animals feeding and loads of birds coming to drink, all ringed by palms. We just sat and pondered that this place existed and how we had come to be here.

The pool was being attended by friends of one of the staff, some guys in their 20s having a good old time. They were keen to chat. They spoke excellent english and were well informed, telling me about the drought, climate change, how Kalacha was a friendly and safe place and how it was doing better than other surrounding settlements because of the spring.

Jenny inspects the facilities. Not one, but two swimming pools. The second looked alright actually.

They were also very curious about our story. I asked advice about the road ahead, and this generated a lot of discussion. I was concerned when they told me of security issues on the road to Marsabit. “There are bandits on that road, very bad people.”, “You must be careful.” 

Uh, bandits?

Bandit is not really a word in use in our lexicon. Talk of bandits and cattle rustling can’t help but conjure up images of the American Wild West. I thought there must be a better word than “bandit”, more serious and less Hollywood. The thesaurus however offers no better: robber, highwaymen, brigand, freebooter, outlaw, desperado, gunman, gangster, looter, footpad. None of these offered any improvement. Maybe the local word, shifta?

They advised either leaving very early in the morning, with the 0300 convoy of busses and taxis from North Horr, or alternatively taking a police escort. They seemed serious, and we certainly would proceed carefully. Later in the discussion our council of locals backed down a little bit, saying that tourists would not be targets, but that mistakes get made. They followed up by saying we should at least ask the police and they would tell us if an escort was necessary, which seemed good and practical advice.

After dusk the animals, herders and our advisors all went home. We had the oasis to ourselves, save an old man serving as night watchmen, standing guard by the swimming pool.

I slept with images of bandits, shiftas and wild west highwaymen in my head.

Given the warnings about the road ahead we rose before dawn to get a jump start on the bandit situation. For our efforts we were treated with a nice sunrise over the palms. It was early and we had the oasis to ourselves, beautiful palms highlighted in the glow of dawn light. 

I was a little anxious about the warnings we’d received, but Jenny was her usual sublime self. She put her faith in what we’d always heard about this kind of thing, that if the security situation was bad the police would prevent us from proceeding headlong into danger. On the other hand, I recalled the words of a childhood friend’s father, “Don’t die in a way that embarrasses me.” Such as heading into bandit territory, having been forewarned, only because it was shorter than backtracking. 

I held onto a latent hope that bandits don’t get an early start in the morning, tuckered out from the previous day’s brigandry. Tendrils of sunrise were still lingering as we headed off into the desert. 

Initially the road was excellent, and we zoomed across the Chalbi, clouds of fine brown dust rising high into the air behind us (and alerting the bandits we are coming). I am being melodramatic, but rolling across featureless plains had brought on a meditative state, and I couldn’t help my mind wandering into the macabre.  

Our advisors from Kalacha told us to proceed on the desert road until the village of Maikona, then to get on the “main” road, the C82, to proceed onwards to Marsabit. It was here, around Maikona, that we’d consult with the police on the security situation ahead. 

The desert road was not quite as mapped on Tracks4Africa, but it kinda sorta paralleled a track on the GPS in the right direction, and we forged ahead. This stretch was ostensibly bandit free, and we were relaxed, enjoying the desert, sipping our coffee and tea. 

The road changed to a maze of small tracks as we closed in on Maikona, but this was an, “all roads lead to Rome,” kind of thing, and we found ourselves in a large village. It did not look like tourism was about to take off here, a rocky and desolate town of traditional stick huts and cement block dukas selling a modest inventory. We received a lot of confused looks and a few happy smiles and waves as we rolled through town. 

Police were nowhere to be seen, and we assumed there’d be one of the standard police checkpoints once we reached the C32. A kilometer or two past the village we merged with this main road and found no checkpoint. I was driving, and we’d agreed it was best to go as quickly as we could safely drive, theorizing that less time on the road is better. As we shuddered down this newer, bigger, more corrugated road we wondered if perhaps we had misunderstood, that there was no checkpoint and we were supposed to have sought out the police at the police station in Maikona. Hmm.

Well, we were committed now. A truck hauled into view coming from the opposite direction, and we waved him down. It was being driven by an old muslim man wearing a taqiyah who was not at all surprised when we asked about the security ahead. He assured us there was no problem, all was quiet. Until Marsabit that is. He advised not stopping there, and definitely not to turn left, (toward Ethiopia), but to turn right and head south. With that he rumbled away in a cloud of dust. 

The news of it being all quiet ahead was very welcome. But we weren’t sure what to make of his take on security in Marsabit. We hoped to eventually meet some police on the way who could clarify. In the meantime we relaxed an octave and settled in to grind out the road ahead.

The scenery wasn’t quite harsh beauty, more just harsh, and the road was punishing too. It was rough corrugations punctuated by a rocky road surface and the occasional pot hole to keep things interesting. We bashed on, not enjoying our “African massage” very much, but we were at least happily ticking off kilometers towards Marsabit. 

Our feeling was probablycompounded by the state of road, but the more we battered our way onward the less we were  excited about Marsabit. Even though we had generally slept well the last week and enjoyed our sojourn to this remote corner of Kenya, we also were coming to terms with the fact that this week had just worn us out a bit. I guess we are not made from as stern a stuff as some other modern explorers.

Marsabit’s attraction is Marsabit National Park, but with all the warnings we’d received about the security situation here we decided we best just keep going. With our early start it would be easy to keep heading south. There was a place to the south called Reteti Elephant Sanctuary, where you can watch feedings of orphaned baby elephants. Feeding baby elephants sounded a lot brighter than shiftas, and police escorts and reports on iOverlander said you could camp there.

Twenty or so kilometers from Marsabit we came upon heavy equipment, a Chinese led road project. It was a big project, with a huge road bed being built and heavy machines everywhere. Where the heck was this road going to? Regardless, we felt that now we were in this busy territory, we were past any threat of bandits, we’d made it. We bumped our way down the final kilometers into Marsabit. 

Marsabit town is more spread out than Isiolo, its neighbor to the south, with broad central streets and well spaced buildings. All looked calm and fairly tidy. After fueling up we consulted with each other and agreed to keep pushing south. The feeling at the time was that our Turkana and Chalbi experiences had gone so smoothly why mess it up by risking a security situation here? And watching orphaned elephants getting fed seemed like food for the soul.

We were back on the A2 now, pristine tarmac and no traffic, heading back south. There were a number of police and military roadblocks on the way out of town. They all asked us where we were going, no doubt to evaluate whether they’d have to keep an eye on us or not. When we said we were headed towards Samburu, they visibly relaxed and waived us on. We didn’t think to ask them about the security situation. I regret not confirming the security rumors we’d heard from others with the authorities.

Kilometers rolled under our tires quickly and easily. All was well until, unfortunately, our destination, the Reteti Elephant Sanctuary, informed us on WhatsApp that they no longer have camping. A ways further south our plan B, Ngare Ndare Forest Reserve, also fell apart as they were fully booked. Fully booked, don’t they know it’s a pandemic? This isn’t something we’ve had to worry about on the whole trip. Subsequently we learned this was because of the Naivasha Car Rally. 

This sent Jenny into a tizzy, plumbing the depths of iOverlander and Tracks4Africa for where to go. There were a lot of high end lodges, too expensive, and a lot of places that looked not all that good. One of our goals was to visit Mt. Kenya, looming ahead already, but all the places to stay on this side of the mountain didn’t seem that great. The one place that did seem nice was the Castle Forest Lodge, just our type of place. It would be a long day on the road, but they had been easy miles, and we decided to just bite the bullet and do it so we could settle in a nice spot for a few days. 

If you are unfamiliar with the area, driving from Kalacha to the Castle Forest Lodge is an idiotic plan, far too great a distance to drive in one day. What can I say? It seemed like a good idea at the time. After passing Nanyuki the traffic set in, and the miles were no longer so easy. Those last few hours were a real grind through heavy traffic and road works.

The final stretch to the Castle Forest Lodge were roads through small tea farms, lush hilly countryside and tall trees, hard to reconcile with the Kalacha Oasis and the Chalbi desert. Had we just been there this morning? 

Castle Forest Lodge is a different world for sure. Vibrantly green, with tall trees and that curious equatorial mix of tropical trees and pines that exist at this elevation. The lodge itself almost has the appearance of a Swiss chalet with a wood shingle roof and smoke drifting out of a stone chimney. The large clearing that forms the grounds of Castle Forest is bright green grass, with a campsite and just out of sight several cabins. 

This is all in the Forest Reserve, but not quite in the Mt. Kenya National Park, meaning that no park fees are required. We stayed here for two nights and thoroughly enjoyed our time in the mountains. 

The evenings were cold and at night you could hear the call of tree hyraxes, surprisingly loud for such a small animal. I wanted to see one but couldn’t find them. The birding here is excellent, proven not only by the prodigious bird life but by the several serious birding tours that were also staying here. They had Kenyan birding guides hired in Nairobi to take them to the ornithological highlights of Kenya.

A pair of Hartlaub’s turacos were frequent visitors at the edge of camp in the morning, and lots of other birds as well. We hiked to the nearby waterfalls, surrounded by jungle.To go further into the forest you need a guide because there are elephants about. Apparently two guests were killed by elephants a while back, so they are quite cautious on this front. No elephants were around during our stay.

On our second day two Kenyan families from Nairobi arrived and camped next to us. We had a really nice afternoon chatting with them. They had done some very interesting traveling in Kenya. Apparently a friend of theirs organizes trucking in Samburu county and now utilizes his logistical connections to organize tours. They had been to the very rarely visited Suguta Valley, accompanied by armed rangers. They’d also been to Turkana and the Chalbi, and we enjoyed swapping stories.

I was scoping out their land cruiser which had some nice gear on it. I asked them about it, and it turns out they founded a company in Nairobi that designs and fabricates 4×4 accessories. They’ve just started out and so far make an awning, drawer system and wheel carrier, but have more products in the works. Ultra Red Outdoors. (https://ultraredoutdoors.com) It’s nice to see locally made products like this here in East Africa.

The mornings were cold and clear here, and we could see the spiky peaks of Mt Kenya in the mornings, before the clouds set in for the day. 

Castle Forest was a nice place to land after Turkana, but after a couple days of being pleasantly cold and birding a little we felt we either needed to get serious and do some guided hiking into the forest reserve or we should move on. Onward we went.

Kembu Cottages, outside Nakuru was our target. The plan was to just relax a bit and do a little catching up with home, blogging, do our laundry and that sort of thing. The drive was a reasonable 270 or so kilometers, but it still seemed to take us all day. The roads were for the most part in good shape, but on none of them can you drive particularly fast. 

The drive is mostly unremarkable, but we did cross the equator twice, making now four times in total we’ve been across the equator on this trip. Jenny and I are both shellbacks from our days at sea, so no hazing was required. 

Just after Nyahururu the road drops down the flank of the rift valley, and the views would have been incredible if it hadn’t been so darn hazy. This dropped us onto the main artery of the country, the A104, full of trucks and traffic heading into and through Nakuru. The road runs right through town, and we were bumper to bumper with huge trucks, with motorcycles and bicycles filling every conceivable gap. 

We took on provisions at the Waterfront Mall in Nakuru, made easy by a Foodplus supermarket. The parking here is secure, and you have to pay 50 shillings (a little less than 50 US cents) to park. I didn’t have change, and while I was trying to find some, a local Kenyan guy insisted on paying for my parking. I was very appreciative of this gesture. From there it was another hour or so to drive to Kembu Cottages. 

Kembu was recommended to us by travelers we met, and we hoped it’d be a nice place to land, to take care of some chores and relax a bit. The Cruiser was due for service, we were tapping the final reserves of our cleanish laundry and I needed to get on the blogging.

If I understand correctly, Kembu is part of Kenana Farm, which has a diverse portfolio of projects; breeding of dairy cows, race horse studding, various crops, self sustaining forestry and also the Kenana Knitters Women’s Group. 

Kembu is run by Andrew and Zoe Nightengale, and they have been busy during the slow times of Covid. In addition to numerous other projects, the new campsite location has new ablutions, which are full bathrooms, the first we’ve had on the trip. These had a door with your own flush toilet, sink and shower and even a place to put your stuff while you’re showering where it won’t get wet (a rarity).

There are several (nine?) cottages around the property as well as the campsite. There was one other group at the campsite. Our neighbors were friendly, some locals from Nairobi who had done some good traveling, including to Turkana. It seems everyone has been to Turkana. We had a good chat with them. It’s great to see middle class Kenyans out and about enjoying their country. In case I haven’t mentioned it before, there is an excellent blog, the kenyancamper.com, promoting independent travel and camping for Kenyans. He is a great writer, down to earth and funny. For example, he refers to his partner as “The Muse” and his child as “The Intern”, fantastic.

Andrew Nightengale stopped by to chat for a while. He explained that the campsite used to be down the hill, but it had been relocated up behind the restaurant to make room for the swimming pool they were putting in, including second nearby pond that would act as a reservoir and natural filter for the main swimming pool

After that he walked us around the property and pointed out all the various things they were working on while also just chatting genially about whatever. Again we were impressed by how diverse a set of projects many of these farmers have. Cottages, restaurant, naturally cleaned swimming pool, local knitters project, nursery of drought resistant plants, tree planting to encourage soil retention and more shade, on and on he went. 

He also gave us a tour of Beryl Markham’s cottage. I confess I had not heard of her, but she was a remarkable woman who, among a very long list of other accomplishments, was the first person to fly solo non-stop from Britain to America. Not the first woman to do this, the first person to do this. She was also one of the very first bush pilots. Born in 1902 in England, she moved with her family to Kenya at the age of four.

She grew up on the adjacent property, and had a small cottage detached from her family’s house (purportedly because she was such a pain in the neck). More recently the cottage was in disrepair, and Andrew Nightengale built a foundation for it on his property, 700m away, and moved it piece by piece to its new location, restoring it in the process. Now it is one of the cottages you can rent. 

Andrew said as a kid he grew up knowing her only as a “gin soaked old dragon” that lived nearby, not realizing until he was older how amazing she was and how she could out shoot, out fly and write better than all the men that came to Kenya to bolster their egos. During our visit I downloaded her autobiography, West With the Night, and started reading it. Her writing is incredible. I began marking pages that had great quotes on them as I read, but it was pointless, as I was marking almost every page.

Hemingway wrote this about her and her book: “Did you read Beryl Markham’s book, West with the Night? …She has written so well, and marvelously well, that I was completely ashamed of myself as a writer. I felt that I was simply a carpenter with words, picking up whatever was furnished on the job and nailing them together and sometimes making an okay pig pen. But this girl, who is to my knowledge very unpleasant and we might even say a high-grade bitch, can write rings around all of us who consider ourselves as writers … it really is a bloody wonderful book.”

Here are a few quotes from her book:

“…Africa is mystic; it is wild; it is a sweltering inferno; it is a photographer’s paradise, a hunter’s Valhalla, an escapist’s Utopia. It is what you will, and it withstands all interpretations. It is the last vestige of a dead world or the cradle of a shiny new one. To a lot of people, as to myself, it is just ‘home.’It is all these things but one thing – it is never dull.” 

or,

“It was not like a herd of cattle or of sheep, because it was wild, and it carried with it the stamp of wilderness and the freedom of a land still more a possession of Nature than of Men. To see ten thousand animals untamed and not branded with the symbols of human commerce is like scaling an unconquered mountain for the first time, or like finding a forest without roads or footpaths, or the blemish of an axe. You know then what you had always been told – that the world once lived and grew without adding machines and newsprint and brick walled streets and the tyranny of clocks.”

The woman can write!

Andrew also told us about other goings on in the area, such as some way down the road from Kembu is another company that ties fishing flies. This company now sells fishing flies all over the world and offers a rare employment opportunity for disabled Kenyans. All this seemed the tip of the iceberg, and it was nice to get this introduction. 

Kembu means chameleon in Swahili, and there are a lot of chameleons on the property. One activity is to wander around the property on a mini chameleon safari, which we did. This is easiest at night, as their camouflage doesn’t work as well, and under the light of a flashlight they stand out like a dead leaf. Which is frankly still pretty good camouflage, as there are quite a few actual dead leaves around. But we did manage to find two of the little guys, very cool.

Kembu was a fantastic spot to land for a bit. We got the vehicle serviced at Toyota in Nakuru, and pleasantly there were no surprises. We had a few meals in the restaurant, made calls to home, caught up (somewhat) on the blog, took a lot of hot showers and got our laundry done. We also sketched out our plans for the remainder of Kenya. 

After four nights here it was time to get cracking. We were off to the Masai Mara. 

The Nitty Gritty

Astute readers will have noted that I accidentally put the Camp Kalacha info in the previous blog post. I am reposting here to keep it attached to the story above.

Camp Kalacha

Koobi Fora to the Kalacha Oasis, 223km 8h 47m

Camping here is really just adjacent to the camp, currently under refurbishment. You receive only the use of the pool. It was 500 pppn, but also 500 pppn for “security.” A bit pricy for what you get, but we empathize with any place trying to make it all the way out here. We received a hand written receipt. We were offered a toilet in one of the bandas under refurbishment, but upon inspection it was not fit for even the bravest or most desperate of users. We used the bushes.

There was fuel in North Horr, from a fuel station that looked similar to Loyangalani’s, a sort of modular station that fits in a shipping container. So it seems that any concerns about running out of fuel on this route are now no longer an issue. Who knows if it’s any good, but it’s good enough that you won’t be stranded. 

There was mobile signal (for Safaricom at least) in South Horr, Loyangalani, North Horr and Kalacha. 

Reteti Elephant Sanctuary (https://www.reteti.org)

We didn’t go here as they don’t have camping. Apparently they used to offer informal camping, but this is no longer the case. They do let visitors watch feedings of their orphaned elephants, every three hours, which seems really fun. We didn’t make it, but I thought I would list this in case it is of interest.

Ngare Ndare Forest Trust (https://www.ngarendare.org/forestcamping.html)

We tried to go here, but they were fully booked. It comes highly recommended and we will save it for another visit.

Castle Forest Lodge

Camp Kalacha to Castle Forest Lodge 572km, 11h 31m

I emphasize that driving this far, particularly anywhere in East Africa, is stupid. The only reason we were able to accomplish this is because of the stunningly good road from Marsabit to Nanyuki that had almost no traffic. And even then you’ll note that we only made good 50 kph for the day.

Castle Forest was great, a cool lush green stop in the mountains, the antithesis of camp Kalacha. There was more than one birding group here, making this a stop on a high end birding tour.

I believe camping here was $10 pppn. Guides are available from the lodge to go hiking or birding. Meals available in the lodge, along with occasionally functioning wifi.

Kembu Cottages

Castle Forest to Kembu, 270km, 7h 48m, including a longish stop in Nakuru

Kembu is a great stop. 600 KSH pppn. Firewood available, which I think we were charged some modest amount for, but it was ample. We had no real complaints, but if I had to come up with one it’s the campsite itself is not very atmospheric in it’s new location, with some dust blowing up off the road. Maybe with some more plants around it in time this will change. The restaurant meals were pretty good, but maybe not quite as amazing as depicted on the website. Wifi available in the bar area.

To Lake Turkana

Today was the day we’d see the Jade Sea, as Lake Turkana is sometimes known. The road north from Ngurunit is scenic, looping around the top hat peak of Mount Poi and between the crags of other Ndoto mountains. Eventually we joined the road to South Horr. Not long after we saw a turnoff that Tony, Lasamu Camp manager, had told us about. This road is not marked on any map we have, nor Google. It’s a new road directly to Loyangalani built by the Lake Turkana Wind Project.

The old road goes via South Horr. It worried me to drive off into the desert on an unmapped road, and I wanted to experience driving through South Horr like so many travelers before us. We kept to the original route.

It was a dusty dirt road on the edge of the desert, swooping up and over hills and across dry luggas, most of those with paved fords. We saw a Somali ostrich and dik diks, who always come in pairs, patrolling the scrubland.

Our road finally merged with the Maralal – South Horr road. Turning north we saw the enormous power transmission lines paralleling this road, about a half kilometer to the west, carrying power from the new wind project. The road dropped into in a valley that was surprisingly green in a dry desert sort of way. 

Stands of acacias abounded, including that favorite that typifies East Africa, the flat top acacia. The flat top acacia’s limbs reach aspiringly aloft, branching evenly apart like capillaries, the tips ending in a perfect plateau, nature’s imitation of a martini glass.

We drove through South Horr and to our surprise found it has cell coverage. I’ve been promising Jenny we’re going to get way Out There, off the grid, and here even on this long dusty road to remote Turkana cell signal is present. I guess we’ll have to keep going. 

South Horr turned out to be more attractive than the sandy backwater I imagined. Located at the bottom of a valley, almost the entire village is shaded by trees. Going down the the main street of shops I am almost tempted to use the words “leafy boulevard” except that it is not quite a boulevard and the leaves are the small acacia leaves amongst long thorns, still letting through some of the hot sun. Still, the occasional bougainvillea, shade, and friendly waves made it more appealing than I had imagined. 

It is still something of a sleepy outpost. Camels sat under trees next to circles of residents chatting away the hot hours of the afternoon. A goat wandered out the door of duka (small shop), I guess they didn’t stock what he needed. We bypassed the traditional stopover campsite in South Horr, the “Samburu Sports Club” and continued toward the lake. 

North of town there are actually brief sections of tar road, though in such poor condition that anyone would rather it be gravel. Mostly it is a wide gravel road that hasn’t seen the attentions of a grader in a long time.

As we push north out of the valley the acacias give way to shrubs and the shrubs give way to rocks. A lot of rocks, dotted with green bushes here and there and it all became quite desolate. Of course that is what Turkana is known for, desolation, being the largest permanent desert lake in the world. 

Then we saw the first tips of the wind turbines. Wind turbines of course denote the presence of wind, and this causes some trepidation in the Land Cruiser. Jenny is particularly not fond of camping in the wind. I mean, it’s no one’s favorite, but I was concerned that I might be pushing the boundaries a little bit too far. 

At least the turbine blades weren’t whipping around too fast, no gale as of yet. I started to count them, but there was a lot. A group here, maybe 25. Another on the far ridge, another 25. They were all over the place (It turns out there are 365 turbines generating 310 MW of power). At a security gate for the Wind Project they asked us our destination. We said Loyangalani and they waved us along. Where else could we be going?

Another gate at the end of the wind project checked our registration plate. Before opening the barrier they asked if we would give two guys a ride to Loyangalani. This was all in Swahili, but it was pretty clear what the proposal was. 

Here was another conundrum of Africa. We were going to Loyangalani and if we reorganized our luggage we could find room to take them. We see vehicles loaded to two, three, four times their capacity. People on the roof, people riding on the rear bumper, whatever. Really there is no way to say to an African with a straight face, “we don’t have room.” Instead to this request we simply replied, “no”.

We get asked for rides often on our travels and every time it pains us to say no. Jenny and I empathize with those asking for a ride, but have stuck to our guns, saying no with rare exceptions. 

There are a myriad of reasons for our policy. In some areas security is an issue. Not being locals we’re not always aware of where this is an unwarranted concern. Covid is a worry as well, though this excuse seems very thin when you talk to locals who could care less about such first world problems. Another is what would become the constant need to reorganize our gear. We use the rear seats to store our clothes and those things that don’t like dust, computers and cameras and so forth.

Shallowly I will confess the last reason, which is a lot of African hitchhikers do not have an opportunity to bathe frequently and are quite fragrant. Once in a while giving a ride to a pungent passenger for a few kilometers is no big deal. But we’re frequently asked for rides that are a whole or half a day and we’ve no interest in becoming a daily taxi service on this trip.

In a way the Land Cruiser is our haven, a place to retreat from the sometimes exhausting sounds, smells, temperatures, dustiness and occasional awkwardness of Africa. This makes it uncomfortable when strangers invite themselves into our home and sanctuary by asking for a ride.

Part of why we travel is to encourage self reflection and all this makes me feel superficial and callous. We witness plenty of local vehicles pass up hitchhikers as well, so I don’t think we are too alone and perhaps I am over thinking this. I mention it to give an honest account of our travels; this is something I haven’t much read about before but I know others must contend with the same requests.

After exiting the Wind Project the road weaves around hills and you can tell the lake is tantalizingly close to coming into view. The hills are made from chunks of porous red volcanic rocks, piled haphazardly in long slopes towards the lake. There are a few green shrubs growing here and there and it looks vaguely similar to the basalt fields of Palmwag in Namibia that we visited a couple years ago. 

The road drops down in elevation and around one corner the lake comes into view. It’s a wonderful view. The heat shimmer is rising above the rocks in every direction and the lake just appears to sleep lazily in the distance. It is huge. I know it’s huge from the map, but we can’t see the opposite shore and it’s bigness impresses.

After following the road for a few more hills and turns we can see the lake it properly. It’s an incredible sight. Maybe it’s because it is so far out here, away from anything. We drove for two days through desert scrubland and rocks, and to arrive at this enormous lake gives a lasting impression.

South Island, a national park and part of what forms Turkana’s UNESCO world heritage site status, sits in the lake serenely, housing huge nile crocodile breeding grounds. We stopped for a snack and to absorb the view. 

The road drops down to the lakeshore and the whole time we feel like we are exploring deep into the hinterland. This is unvarnished remote Africa and it’s a privilege to see it. We see a few fishermen with modest craft working by the shore, some just rafts of logs, and pastoral huts built from reeds and sticks. These tiny settlements have no shade, just plopped on the rocks were a few Turkana families somehow eking out a living. 

This rocky road wanders along the very scenic lakeshore, right down to the edge of the water, or sometimes swooping inland over a point or rise. In far too short a time we rolled into Loyangalani, the only real town on the remote eastern shore of Lake Turkana. 

The outskirts of this dusty outpost are formed by dozens, maybe hundreds, of reed and stick huts. As we entered town we get a lot of stares, smiles and waves. There are traditionally dressed old Turkana, younger people usually are wearing western clothes with maybe a beaded necklace or bracelet as a nod to their traditions. 

We took a quick look at the lake before heading for our camp for the night, Palm Shade Campsite, one of only a couple accommodation options in town. Palm Shade has a few simple bandas, a restaurant serving a simple set menu, and a couple places to camp. 

It was surprisingly full here. A Kenyan NGO focused on drought relief had a few Land Cruisers of staff here, getting ready to make the rounds on their local projects. The NGO staff were, I presume, Kenyan locals, wearing sarong wraps and they chewed mirrah, a mild narcotic (also known as khat in Somalia and Yemen)late into the night.

We found a spot in the small lawn and settled in. Palm Shade camp is a nice little oasis. Speaking of oases, the other place to stay in town is the slightly more upmarket Oasis lodge, though from what I hear “upmarket” is not really a thing in Loyangalani. I regret we didn’t check it out. 

In Aberdare I started reading The Constant Gardener, by John Le Carre. This novel is set in Kenya, a murder mystery where the scene of the crime is on this same eastern shore of Lake Turkana. Among the typical Le Carre international intrigue is also the Oasis Lodge, and its famously irascible owner. It felt somehow imprudent to read about a grisly murder while we were setting out to visit the very same remote and inhospitable destination. For what it’s worth the book is much better than the movie. 

At Palm Shade there is a restaurant onsite serving a fixed menu for only 500 KSH per person. At this bargain price we thought we’d give it a try. Dinner turned out to be amazing, a massive pile of nile perch fillets, sautéed vegetables, potatoes and ugali, all served family style. It was way more than we could possibly eat and I imagine the kitchen staff took care of the excess.

The other guests were interesting. We met two Israelis, friends traveling together who had come on public transport. It had taken them days, with matatus that broke down, cars that used all their spare tires, and finally a boda boda all the way from South Horr. I can’t even imagine how uncomfortable ridding two-up on a boda all that way must have been.

Another guest was a Czech women who was on her weekly break from living in the village of the El Molo. The El Molo are one of the smallest tribes in Africa, with only 200 members remaining. She was a researcher, living there for a month studying sexuality in their tribe. She told tales of the living conditions and of the sexual and gender norms of this tiny tribe.  

It was hot here and when we turned in for the night we were very happy for our little 12v fan. At night the famous Lake Turkana wind blew up for a few hours, causing fitful sleep. In the morning the wind died and instead the flies were out. It is a difficult trade off, the flies or the wind, but at least they weren’t tsetses. 

There is a Kenya Wildlife Services station here in Loyangalani that can organize trips out to South Island. It was very hazy, I suppose a product of the wind from the night before, and a day on the water didn’t seem that attractive. Instead we resolved to push north.

At Palm Shade we topped up on water, which is from a borehole here. We treated the water regardless. We also discussed the security situation with the camp manager, a local safari guide and the KWS rangers. We did not see any police, but everyone was adamant that for the time being things were quiet and perfectly safe.

In addition to mobile signal Loyangalani also has a new tiny fuel station. Before hitting the road we again took the opportunity to top up on fuel. Just a few kilometers north of town is a museum, sited with an amazing ocean view. Or it would be amazing if it hadn’t been so hazy. We paid our 500 shillings and toured the modest museum. 

From here we continued north to the village of the El Molo. This is marked on T4A. We had heard that you can pay a fixed price and they’ll give you a tour of the village and allow you to take photos. Normally we shy away from this sort of thing, but at least this was a real village and not a “living museum,” which make me a little uncomfortable. This seemed like a good way to talk to some locals and the researcher last night had stressed how hard the living is for the El Molo is, and that every dollar helps.

We pulled into the village and were immediately surrounded by kids. Not long after a guy came up to us, introducing himself as the tour guide. We established the price (1500 KSH per person), which was cheaper than what we’d been told in Loyangalani. 

The tour around the village was really nice. The guide was friendly and most of the villagers were welcoming. A few old men were sitting around playing something resembling mancala, and some women were building a new hut. Our guide went to great lengths to explain how hard the men worked, braving the lake to fish and so forth, while the women “just stayed home with the kids and cooked.” And built the houses. It wasn’t a very convincing balance of labor, but we didn’t argue.

He offered to take us in a boat across to a small island close offshore. There is a second part of the village there that also has their sacred shrines. We passed, we were worried about the time and we wanted to make some progress north towards Sibiloi National Park.

Our plan was to take the less traveled lake shore road. Not that the “main road” is much traveled either. We had chatted with all the drivers at Palm Shade and they had confirmed that the lake shore road was safe and passable, just that it was slower.

At the tiny junction we turned off onto our lesser route, just a rocky two spoor track wandering off into the desert. Much of the road isn’t’ actually on the lake shore, but paralleling it a little inland.

Like other Kenyan lakes, Turkana’s lake level has risensome meters and swamped some of the original road. This meant we had to divert from the GPS and Tracks4Africa’s instructions several times, but each time we were able to pick up the scent and return to the mapped road. 

We were really out in the back of beyond now and I started to ponder mechanical break down. We drove gently. The scenery was unworldly, empty and forbidding. There were at least relatively fresh tire tracks ahead, a sign that this wasn’t totally foolhardy, but otherwise we were very alone. 

At one point the road follows a dry riverbed and T4A had it coming out of the riverbed and up onto the bank. We probed and searched and could not find the road. Eventually we just decided to fully off-road it, blindly following the track on the GPS.

When we zoomed way in on the GPS, to follow the route carefully and hopefully pick up some faint tire tracks we noticed T4A had labeled the road on the map as “not visible.” What the heck, then it isn’t a road, right?

The longer we pushed on this bushwhacking route the less comfortable we were. We resolved to double back if we didn’t find the road soon, but much to my relief (Jenny being less concerned than I) we finally picked up the original track.

The rest of the day progressed slowly as we made our way up the lake shore. Occasionally we’d pass a small collection of huts, sometimes getting and odd wave and a smile. Out here most were dressed traditionally, old grandmothers wrinkled and bare chested, heavily adorned with beads and a wrap. Men universally have a long straight stick, for assisting with herding and hiking, a wrap, sandals made from old tires and one nod to western clothing, a short brimmed hat. 

Most Africans seem to shun a hat for shade. Sometimes we see a wool hat to keep warm, even on days that are quite warm enough for us, but almost never a hat to protect from the sun. Except men in Turkana seem to have embraced the idea. 

The track ambles north and we ambled with it. True to form we were indeed stuck-in-low-gear. The road crosses the grain of the land. We imagined we were driving on old lakebed, from when the lake was deeper, wide swaths of black and grey volcanic sand. It must rain a lot on occasion as there were hundreds of tiny dry ravines, just too deep to drive across without slowing and downshifting, making for slow going. 

Our progress was slow and we planned to wild camp tonight. We’d asked about this in Loyangalani and the only concern was that there weren’t many people around up here should we have any problems. This is sort of the opposite of our concern, that there’d be too many people around.

In the late afternoon we were scouting spots and settled on a stretch where we hadn’t seen many huts for a while and the shoreline was thick with palm trees. We tucked in behind a few palms about 50 meters up the lakeshore and declared this a charming spot for the night. 

As should not surprise you, in about half an hour two young guys materialized. They didn’t speak any English and our Swahili didn’t get us very far. We busted out the phrase booked and asked if it was okay to camp. They responded that it was. A while later they made a shy and oblique attempt at asking us for 3000 shillings to camp, a little more than $25 USD. We feigned ignorance to see what would happen. After a few more mutual attempts at communication they seemed satisfied and wandered away. 

We figured it was good they knew we were here. If it was a problem, someone more senior would show up soon but nobody did. It was hot and we had the luxury of a bush shower. In keeping with our usual wild camping program, we didn’t have a fire and stuck with our easiest meal for bush camping, pasta. The wind had abated mostly and the flies weren’t too bad a menace. 

After a beautiful sunset night fell swiftly. The moon was bright, the stars out, and it felt like we were a million miles from anywhere. This feeling is invigorating in a way, but also alarming. I don’t think there are a whole lot of places, on land, that feel this isolated and I was embracing the novelty of it. 

I suppose in a certain way Turkana isn’t so remote. There are Turkana pastoralists scattered about and I’m sure they would surprise us with their ability to help if we were stranded. But when you find more aid workers than tourists, when vehicles are few, when maps are incomplete and when information on the route is rare, that is what makes it feel like a far off place. 

In the morning we didn’t feel any need to stick around. The road continued to be slow going, a lot of second gear. Eventually the track dives inland, pulling us off the lakeshore. We went across a wide flat plain with fresh shoots of green grass from recent rain. There were also dried mud holes along the route, signs of previous vehicles struggling in the mud. I shuddered to think how that would feel, stuck in the mud all the way out here. 

At the north end of the plain was an incredible field of orange and red wildflowers, all part of the wonderfully varied scenery to which we were being treated. The road improved, almost to the quality of a small gravel road, and for a minute it was actually corrugated, a sign of regular traffic. I briefly reached all the way to third gear.

Another relatively large road joined this track from our righthand side, also not on any map. If we stayed on our current track we would end up in the village of Moite, but we were looking to turn off, northeast, to join up with the usual road to Sibiloi. 

We saw a boda boda and driver at the side of the road, and after passing him we missed the turn, driving past its faint ruts. As we were stopped, consulting our GPS, he came up to check on us. Incredibly he was wearing a white down jacket. How he kept it white out here is one mystery, and that he was wearing a down jacket in the building heat of the day is another. 

He was friendly and even with the language barrier we managed to communicate that we were looking for the road to Sibiloi. He smiled and showed us, we were very close, and then wished us well on our way.

We bumped our way along this track for a while. When crossing one of the many dry riverbeds of deep sand we again lost the track. This time the brush was too thick for bushwhacking and we drove around in circles for a while looking for the road. Two lanky Turkana fellows popped out of the bushes and smiled, they could tell we were lost. Without even asking they directed us to the road. It was wonderful, though I suppose not surprising, that all the way out here, when two mzungus without a clue show up they know what we need. We stopped and thanked them and they were all smiles.

Sibiloi National Park

Finally our little track intersected with the main road to Sibiloi. By “main road” I mean a small gravel road that has at some point at least seen a road grader. The vistas were beautiful in their starkness. We saw signs of rain in the tiny wildflowers that persisted and we enjoyed the drive.

The Karsa gate to Sibiloi National Park hove into view. The rangers were nowhere to be seen at first, but eventually they appeared. I had finally achieved my promise to Jenny, finding a place with no cell signal. This means no payment by Mpesa or credit card, so we paid our park fees in cash. 

Sibiloi is the site of, among other things, the Koobi Fora museum and research camp. Koobi Fora is run by the National Museum, and curiously you can camp there within the park, for far less than KWS charges to camp at their sites. We paid for two days in the park, telling them we’d camp at Koobi Fora. We figured if we didn’t like it there we could always pay to camp at the KWS site later.

Sibiloi National Park was gazetted in 1973, to protect wildlife, paleontological and fossils sites. It is, collectively with the other Turkana National Parks, a UNESCO world heritage site and has the byline, “The Cradle of Mankind” though I expect a number of other places make the same claim.

One of our guidebooks, The Safari Companion, advises that it is a good place to see rhinos, but thanks to poacher’s efficiency those days are unfortunately long past. KWS claims wildlife includes zebras, Grant gazelles, lions, leopards, stripped hyenas, Beisa Oryx, greater kudu, cheetahs and northern topi. That said, Sibiloi is not a place one comes for game viewing. It’s a place for wildness, remoteness, desolation and fossilized history. There is the Koobi Fora museum and some fossil sites we can visit. 

Fitting the moment we put Sapiens back on the stereo, where we were told about the social structure of early hunter gatherers as we wandered through the narrow tracks of the cradle of mankind. 

There is also a petrified forest not far from the gate. We took the spur to go have lunch and investigate. We’ve seen a number of petrified forests in our travels, and this one surpassed all those. We meandered through cleanly fractured rounds of huge trees, we could count the rings of the trees. New pieces of long petrified trees can ben seen emerging from the silica sand, being slowly revealed by Turkana’s persistent wind. This was all punctuated with wildflowers, the scene was very satisfying. On top of that we felt like we were the only people in the world, but in this case were probably just the only tourists in the park. 

From here we made our way to Koobi Fora. The track is slow going, driving across dried lakebeds, long dormant volcanic flows and through deep sand in dry rivers. In one spot baboons scattered in front of us and we thought that was all the wildlife we’d see. Instead, on one sandy track flanked by dense scrub we got our first ever sighting of a caracal. After considering us for a moment he dashed into the bushes, so there wasn’t enough time for a photo. Before he left we could see through the binoculars the caracal’s signature ear tufts. 

We later reported this to Danson, the manager at Koobi Fora, and he said we were very lucky. He had never seen one and a zoologist had once come specifically to find caracal and had only found tracks. 

Koobi Fora is situated on a sandy point that juts into the lake. The research station is a collection of similar buildings, most in the rectangular banda shape that is common throughout KWS parks.

I don’t think they get a lot of visitors. At the sound of our engine the manager came out to greet us. He introduced himself as Danson and guided us to what he thought was the best place to camp. There aren’t designated campsites at Koobi Fora, just find a place that works for you. 

His suggestion was perfect though, just past the last banda, with only the tip of the sandy point between us and the lake. He offered up the use of the banda’s toilet and shower and water was provided from a tank of rainwater. We thought this impromptu campsite was very nice.

The wind wasn’t strong today and the flies not so menacing either. The last of the wind died in the evening and there was a spectacular sunset, with oranges and pinks and reds filling the sky. Night fell and under a blanket of crisp sparkling stars we cooked over the fire, feeling very far from anywhere at this distant research outpost.

In the morning we chatted with Danson for a while and he told us about the Dassanach tribe. He said their territory is on both sides of the border and they freely travel from Ethiopia to Kenya in the search for better grazing. Ethiopia is some 55km north of here as the crow flies. 

They’re a people that live off their livestock and have a culture of carrying firearms. Danson told us that he is from southern Kenya and firearms are strictly forbidden there, that when he was first stationed here he was horrified to see armed herders with AK-47s. Though they’re not supposed to, they grazed their animals inside the park. He said, “They’re very stubborn people,” and that to avoid conflict KWS allowed them to graze inside the park provided they stayed away from the tourist areas.

Continuing, he said there had been severe drought in the last few years in Northern Kenya and all their livestock had died. This drove them back across the border to Ethiopia, so there are not so many Dassanach here now. 

After our lesson we headed out for the day, but we surprised Danson when we said that we’d stay another night. I guess not a lot of people spend two nights here and he was very happy to have us, I think for someone new to chat with. It was a long haul to drive up here and we’d rather explore the park a bit without rushing off to Kalacha, which is no great destination, just a place to stop.

Unfortunately he said the Koobi Fora Museum, a few kilometers away, was closed and under repair. He said he had written Nairobi several times stating the need to get the museum open again, but for now it was closed. This was a little disappointing, to have come all this way and not get to see the museum but neither Jenny or I are particularly dedicated museum goers, so we recovered from our disappointment rapidly. He did give us instructions on how to drive to the fossil sites further inland, apologizing that he couldn’t guide us there since their Land Rover was broken. 

Off we went, to tour the fossil sites and possibly head down to check out Allia Bay in the south of the park. There is a KWS campsite on the beach in the south that I sort of wanted to see, but at  $40 more per night, and after we’d had such a nice evening here, we thought we’d stick to the bargain priced Koobi Fora.

First we made a pass at the museum, even though closed we thought we’d at least take a look. To our surprise there was quite a few people camped out there, matching green tents pitched at its perimeter and a host of guys hanging around. This did not look all that welcoming and we realized that when Dawson told us the museum was closed and under repair that perhaps this was a euphemism for something else. Or maybe this was the repair crew? It didn’t seem like it. 

We received a casual wave from one of the occupants, but they did not look all that welcoming so we made an about face, back down the track. Not far from here we could see some large abandon bomas, stick huts and thorn fences to corral livestock at night. We assumed these were disusedDassanach bomas.

The fossil sites are located back the way we’d come the day before. It’s still slow going, there is no driving fast in this park. The first site was an ancient enormous tortoise that had been excavated by paleontologists but left in place. The shell remains for us to look at, upside down. The theory is that the tortoise was overturned somehow and unable to right itself, dying upside down. The site itself is protected under a roof and screened off so visitors cannot touch the shell. The shell is very impressive, about six feet in diameter. 

The crocodile site is a few hundred meters from the tortoise, under a similar roof. We found this less impressive, there is not much of the crocodile easily visible. 

The elephant site is the last of the three, some kilometers away. The elephant site isn’t signposted and the track there isn’t on any of our maps, but Danson had given us directions. He said that at 4 kilometers from the tortoise site we’d see tracks from his last visit a month or so ago, heading off into the bush and we should follow those. 

Sure enough we saw his tracks and we turned the Cruiser into the blank space on the GPS. Blindly forging ahead, this “road” was made of serrated rocks, making for slow going and again we remarked to each other how we owe Mr. Cooper a beer. 

We have Cooper tires and it is absolutely astounding how many kilometers of lousy roads and sharp rocks they have hauled us over without complaint. Our tires are a little chipped, with small scuffs and superficial slashes here or there, but they marched over these jagged volcanic rocks without hesitation. We have two full sized spares and often I lament the extra weight we’re carrying. I think of getting rid of one, but then we find ourselves way out here in the godforsaken reaches of Turkana and it feels good to have that extra spare tire.

Finally the road wrapped around a final hill and brought us to the last fossil site, a 200 million year old elephant. It’s impressive, and in all the heaps of basalt, lava and sand around you can’t help but wonder how many more tortoises and elephants remain to be discovered.

The paleontologists must have found other better specimens, because no scientist I’ve met would let a sample sit under a roof for tourists to see when they could be studying it in a lab. 

All this wandering around took longer than we thought and now the infamous Turkana wind was picking up. Allia bay was quite a ways away and it would mean many more hours driving to get there and back, so instead we retreated back to Koobi Fora.

Danson came by to check on how we’d made out. When we asked him about the abandon bomas we’d seen, he confirmed that those were old Dassanach settlements. He also said that after he got to know them he learned they were reasonable people, but if an armed Dassanach waved you down on the road you should give him some food or water. We could tell he still harboredapprehension about them. We didn’t ask about the men at the museum, we sensed it was a sensitive subject and doubted we’d get the full story anyway. 

The wind had picked up and we hid in the lee of the bandas for the remainder of the afternoon, reading and lounging around. Towards sunset the wind eased off and we repeated our nice evening from the day before. Tomorrow we’d head out across the Chalbi desert.

Nitty Gritty

The Wind Farm road turnoff from the D371 is located at roughly N1° 57.266′ E37° 05.052′, you can find it on mapcarta.com

Loyangalani 

Palm Shade camp was 500 KHS pppn. There is room really only for one vehicle with a roof top tent to have their own space. That was taken when we arrived and we camped kind of in the middle of everything, but it worked out fine. The Ablutions here were simple but pretty decent, ample cold water showers and both flushing and squat toilets. 

The museum also has bandas with an ocean view (1500 KSH), though I did not ask if they had en-suit showers or toilets. We also read on iOverlander about people organizing to camp here. The view is great but there is no shade or protection from the wind.

The fuel station in Loyangalani looks very new, meaning at least that an old rusty tank shouldn’t contaminate the fuel. Fuel was priced 15 or 20% higher than elsewhere and the fuel quality didn’t give us any issues.

The Lakeshore Road (Palm Shade Camp to wild camp 88km, 6h 55m with much stopping, the Museum, El Molo village, lunch, getting a bit lost, etc.).

Opinion at Loyangalani was that the lakeshore road was fine, just slower. When pressed how much slower they said, “an hour,” which I’m sure is not true. Since we didn’t drive the other route I can’t say, but my guess is it’s twice as long. You could drive the lakeshore route from Loyangalani to Sibiloi in one day if you left early and didn’t dally. 

As I said in the blog, the track departs from the mapped road numerous times, but only two of those times did we actually get lost. Getting lost in the wilds of Turkana is nothing to sneeze at, but our GPS (the Garmin 276cx) has a trackback feature, to turn your past track into a route, and more simply we could have just followed our own tire tracks back if needed. We sent our tracks to T4A.

Koobi Fora

(Wild camp to Karsa Gate, 79 km, 4h 52m with some stopping. Karsa Gate to Koobi Fora 60km, 3h 8m moving time)

Camping was 500 shillings pppn, with an additional charge (800 KSH?) for visiting the fossil sights and the museum. Danson apologized for charging us for this, but he said that the museum and fossil sites were all a single entry, and that his books would not tally if he didn’t charge us this, even though we didn’t get to see the museum. We didn’t argue and received a receipt for this.

Camp Kalacha

(Koobi Fora to the Kalacha Oasis, 223km 8h 47m)

Camping here is really just adjacent to the facilities, you receive only the use of the pool. It was 500 pppn, but also 500 pppn for “security.” A bit pricy for what you get, but we empathize with any place trying to make it all the way out here. We received a hand written receipt.

There was also fuel in North Horr, from a fuel station that looked similar to Loyangalani’s, a sort of modular station that fits in a shipping container. So it seems that any concerns about running out of fuel on this route are now no longer an issue. Who knows if it’s any good, but it’s good enough that you won’t be stranded. 

There was mobile signal (for Safaricom at least) in South Horr, Loyangalani, North Horr and Kalacha. 

To Samburu

It is still cold camping in Aberdare National Park, even when in the lower campsites of The Salient. This kept us from getting going too early, the tent being toasty warm and outside being the opposite. The route from Aberdare to Samburu Nature Reserve didn’t look too bad on Tracks4Africa but we’d been warned it was an all day affair.

This warning finally convinced us to leave the tent, but we still broke camp without a rush. On the way out of the park we hoped to see some dang elephants, who so far had completely eluded us. We made it to the Treetops gate and amazingly had not seen any elephants, which I am considering something of an accomplishment given their obvious presence.

After checking out we drove a couple kilometers on a dirt road, passing by verdant green small hold farms. Then we burst out onto the tar and the roads from here on were all in excellent condition. After airing up the tires we zipped along with only moderate traffic to contend with. There is some zigging and zagging but we eventually ended up on the A2, which if followed would bring us all the way to Ethiopia.

On this broad shouldered road we made our way north past increasingly larger and larger farms. These were no small hold farms now, but the big agriculture operations on the Laikipia plateau. The scenery was attractive and most crops appeared to be growing well in these famously productive lands below the slopes of Mt. Kenya. 

On our way to Nanyuki we crossed the equator for the first time of the trip. There is a sign and a few roadside curio shops, as well as performers waiting to demonstrate some tricks, water swirling one way or the other depending on which side of the sign they stand on and that sort of thing. We stopped for a quick snapshot but otherwise did not partake.

The equator is on the outskirts of regional hub of Nanyuki. We stopped at the mall to stock up for our big Turkana leg. We thought this would be our last big chance for a proper supermarket before heading out into the great unknown of frontier land. One curiosity of Kenya is that we’ve seen less boreholes than earlier in our trip, makingit a little harder to fill up on drinking water. I’m sure they’re around if we looked harder, but a couple times we’ve resorted to buying a few 20 liter bottles of water at the supermarket to fill our 60 liter tank. I hate to generate more plastic, but we’ve found the big bottles are always snapped up to be reused by someone. 

The Foodplus at the mall here had a nice butchery and all the other sundries. We picked up a couple meat pies for the road (do not get the masala chicken), thank goodness they don’t sell these at home, I’d be as big as a house.

Back onto the A2 we continued north, after Nanyuki traffic thinned out a lot. We rolled along listening to a new audio book, Sapiens, by Noah Yuval Harari, and right away he started talking about Homo Rudolfus, an early species of human. The evidence of Homo Rudolfensis was discovered at Lake Turkana (previously known as Lake Rudolf) by Richard Leaky’s team in 1972. Those Leakys are busy people.

The A2 dove north, steeply down the contours of Mt. Kenya and we engine braked our way down a steep grade, losing over a thousand meters of elevation. Suddenly the green fields and cool climes were gone, replaced by familiar acacia scrub land. The occasional camel was grazing on thorny bushes and we found ourselves in a different world entirely. This brought us to Isiolo, the last reliable fuel stop on our route. 

Isiolo is nothing like the cool climes of Nanyuki. Hectic streets greeted us, gregarious looking busses with exotic destinations painted on their windows flashed by and many army green and desert tan Land Cruisers rumbled through the streets. These vehicles are either army, police, or representing one of the many conservancies that forms the Northern Rangelands Trust (NRT). Isiolo is a frontier town and has that “last stop” feel, make no mistake. 

We filled up on diesel, topping up the Cruiser and jerry cans to the brim. This takes no urging, most station attendants in Africa take pride in filling tanks and jerries right up to the lip. 

Jerry cans all have a “fill to” line that leaves one or two liters of air at the top, carefully calculated to allow the appropriate level of expansion or something like that. This fill line is always disregarded by the attendants. That last liter could be the one that lets you roll into town, preventing you from being stranded, so any concerns about appropriately calculated expansion goes out the window. We’ve never had any issues with our jerries, and one of them is a cheap second hand one of the type sold at supermarkets in Southern Africa. 

Lake Turkana has certainly been traveled to by plenty an overlander, but I feel safe in saying it is not on the regular itinerary so I want to spend some time outlining the logistics of this mini expedition. 

Most of the independent travelers that do make it to Turkana are on the Cape to Cairo route, visiting on the way to or from Ethiopia.  We on the other hand are headed to Turkana for it’s own sake. Normally I would constrain myself to putting all this stuff in the Nitty Gritty section, but this is one of those times where the careful planning and calculated risks form an integral part of this leg, so you will have to suffer through this detail.

I calculated our fuel consumption, endurance, and route and was concerned. I had calculated our route between known reliable fuel stations at 988 km. This would be Isiolo > Samburu NR (Public Campsite No. 1) > Ngurunit (Lasamu Camp) via the new Laisamis Road > South Horr > Loyangalani (Palm Shade Camp) >  Sibiloi National Park (Koobi Fora) > Kalacha > Marsabit, to where fuel would be reached at last.

This 988km does not include any game drives, getting lost or whatever else might cause us to need reserves. The Cruiser tanks 130 liters of fuel and we have another 40 liters in jerry cans on the roof, so 170 liters in total. We have kept a detailed fuel log of every fill up since we bought the cruiser in 2017. This gives us a pretty good idea of what our consumption is in varied conditions. For example, through all of our recent Zambia trip, 6182km, we averaged 6.9 km/l, or if you prefer, 14.5 l/100km, or 16.2 US mpg. 

In theory, 1173 km of range, but even that would not even allow 200 km of game driving or error. And that was a mix of tar and gravel with little heavy 4×4 work, where our consumption drops. Even with these detailed records there is always a seed of doubt that we haven’t accounted for some variable. 

I dug further back in the records for a more representative sample and landed upon a Namibia riverbeds trip we did in 2019. For those in the know, the route was Uis > Ugab Save the Rhino Trust Camp > Twyfelfontein > Palmwag > Sesfontein > Marienfluss > Etanga > Opuwo. On this trip, with a lot of 4×4 driving in deep sand, though rarely in low range, we averaged 5.9 km/l. If this was our Turkana fuel consumption then we’d barely role into Marsabit on fumes, without any reserve at all.

What to do? We dove into our resources, Tracks4Africa and iOverlander, and derived that Archer’s Post, Laisamis, South Horr and the new Lake Turkana Wind Project all had fuel stations of questionable reliability and quality. On the quality front I wasn’t too worried, we wouldn’t be getting a full tank from any of these places, thus diluting the potentially poor fuel with our presumably good Isiolo sourced fuel. The 1HZ engine is notoriously tolerant of bad fuel. As far as availability, we only needed one of these stations to have fuel. It seemed improbable that none of them would have stock. 

Another thing to keep in mind is that running out of fuel isn’t the end of the world. After all, if we miscalculated its not like we’d run out in the middle of our journey, but probably fairly close to the end. Africans are well familiar and sympathetic with running out of fuel, they have all been there. If worse came to worse we’d hitch the kilometers needed to a fuel station, fill up our jerry cans and catch a boda boda back to the cruiser. 

I say this with blithe confidence, but of course a mild current of unease runs underneath. I will feel much better when at least one of the intermediate fuel stations proves to actually have fuel. 

North from Isiolo the road is perfect tar, nearly new. This was the very last stretch of tar to be paved on the entire Cape to Cairo route. If you stick to the main route you can now drive the entire thing in any old car, no 4×4 required. There was hardly any traffic and we were able to reach greater speeds than in the previous weeks, even up to the lofty speed of 100 kph. 

This dusty scrubland is an enormous and confusing patchwork of conservancies, trusts and reserves. They seem tantalizing when I read about them online, but most charge quite high fees and cater to high end private safari guests. I think with a bit more research you could find a nice way to sample what is on offer up here, but we settled on the Samburu Nature Reserve. 

The Samburu Nature Reserve shares a border with the Buffalo Springs National Reserve, and the permits for one allow passage through the other. We hoped to do a quick turn through Buffalo Springs on our way to Samburu NR, but unfortunately the bridge between them recently washed out. Instead of going through Buffalo Springs we drove to the small town of Archer’s Post and turned off to the Reserve. This track bumps along and in just a few kilometers we arrived at the gate. 

There was some consternation at the gate because we didn’t have the preferred payment system of Mpesa, the mobile money system, on our phones. Unlike the Kenya Wildlife Service Parks they do not accept credit cards here. Samburu Nature Reserve is managed by Isiolo county, not KWS, and has different standards. Instead we tapped into our diminishing reserves of US cash. We paid, handsomely, for two nights and received official receipts and a stack of fancy little tickets torn out of a book. There was a ticket for each of us for each day, for each of us for each night of camping and for the each of the Land Cruiser’s daily vehicle permits, amounting to quite a stack of tickets.

A large map is painted on the entry gate and the rangers advised us on the best places to look for animals. Heading into the park we found the main track to be horribly corrugated so we took the first branch possible.

In not too long we ran into our first of the “Samburu Five.” A Grevy’s Zebra, which are very good looking zebras, having more finely striped coats than their brethren. I think I’m spoiled for future zebras now, the Grevy’s being a new favorite. The remainder of the “Samburu Five” are the Somali Ostrich, with it’s unusual blue legs; the gerenuk, previously described with it’s long graceful neck; the reticulated giraffe, which has an unusual coat and is found nowhere else other than northeast Kenya and perhaps the western edge of Somalia; and lastly the besia Oryx, which we saw before in Tsavo. 

Not much further into our efforts at Samburu and we saw a small herd of gerenuk, our first reticulated giraffe, and besia oryx. This left only the Somali ostrich which I’m sure we’d see soon enough.

I don’t think you could describe it as “busy” but there were a half dozen or more game viewing vehicles working the same part of the park, more than we’d seen since Amboseli. We chatted with one of them and apparently the leopard that had been lounging in a tree had just decided he’d had enough attention, disappearing. All the guided vehicles were zooming around trying to find the leopard.

The maze of tracks in this central part of the park weave through and around dense scrub about a meter high, such that any cat who wants to disappear can do so easily. We made a half hearted attempt to go to the scene of the leopard’s last sighting and on the way got a surprise, bumping into a scarred old veteran of a lioness with four cubs bouncing along behind her. They disappeared into the brush quite quickly, but it was a great sighting. Samburu was certainly off to a good start.

It was getting late in the day and we drove to our campsite. The public campsites in Samburu are numbered, but it is a bit misleading as they are in a string along the same piece of riverfront, maybe 50 meters from one another. So going to the public campsite No. 1 is not so different than No. 3, for example. We had been assigned No. 1, but upon arrival found that this large site also had a mobile safari company setting up a sizable camp for their guests. 

As we pondered this a camp attendant and ranger materialized and suggested that we were welcome to pick any of the other sites. We inspected them all and settled into No. 2, which shares ablutions with the unoccupied No. 3.

This site is not as expansive as number one, and perhaps the trees were not quite as majestic, but the view was excellent and we had it all to ourselves. The camp attendant offered firewood at the price of 1000 KSH for two nights. This seemed a bit overpriced, particularly since the rangers at the gate said it was included in the camping fee and that we should just offer a small tip on departure. 

The camp attendant had clearly not received this memo, but not wanting to ruin the evening by haggling we accepted his terms. He could sense our annoyance and set about trying to make up for it by cleaning up the ablutions somewhat and promising an unlimited supply of firewood.

The ablutions are located unobtrusively behind the campsite. They’re fairly basic, and after the camp attendant had made a pass at them they were tolerably clean. One of the toilets flushed and one of the showers, the one with a door, even had a shower head on it. They were fine enough, though at the prices paid to stay here we certainly feel that they could be better. Still, a cold shower at the end of a hot day is luxurious and all those complaints faded away under the splash of cool water. 

The public campsites are wonderfully situated on the banks of the Ewaso Ngiro river, which only had a trickle of water running down it. The sandy riverbed looked hard packed and wet. In chatting with the ranger we learned that the river had run strongly about two weeks ago and had just recently come down. 

Evening in camp was sublime. The fire crackled away, we grilled chicken and butternut squash over the coals, the stars came out overhead and we could hear the whoop of hyenas in the distance. There are special campsites at Samburu, but it is hard to imagine how you could improve on this wilderness spot. 

A ranger patrols the campsites at night in Samburu. This is something we’re not that familiar with. Further south you’re left to your own devices, free to annoy elephants or get eaten by a lion at night when you head to the bushes for a nighttime pee. In practice this is never actually a problem, of the very few people hurt/killed by wildlife I cannot recall a single incident being related to the nighttime call of nature. None the less in many reserves in Kenya and Uganda a ranger is required. 

Our ranger for the evening accepted our offer for a cup of tea and we chatted a bit. He had been in the military, and after completing his service had been a ranger at Samburu ever since.

He was a pleasant fellow, but he trod heavily at night during his patrols and walked very close to the vehicle, waking us up at night. 

Dawn came and we got an early start for game viewing. We saw fresh elephant dung less than 10 meters from the Cruiser, we must have had company last night. 

After getting going we found a dizzying amount of tracks to be explored in this small reserve, many not on Tracks4Africa. We suspect this is because the “no off-road driving” rule does not appear to be enforced. We witnessed many guided vehicles pushing deep off-road into the brush, and after these tire tracks are followed a few times, Presto!, there is a new track. 

After a few hours of searching around we found lions. One mating pair and again the veteran old lioness from the previous day. We hoped the cubs would be about but we never saw them, perhaps they weren’t hers? She did not seem at all happy about the mating pair, pacing around the perimeter and disrupting their plans. It was fascinating to watch and we wondered about the drama we could not understand.

I will note that, again, we are the ones who found these lions, not the guid vehicles. Don’t let anyone tell you that you won’t see anything without a guide, as other overlanders have told us several times. After one of the guide vehicles joined us they put the call out on the radio and six or seven vehicles showed up.

At one point our old lady paced around behind the Cruiser and then walked right along the car, practically brushing her golden coat on the paint work. I could have easily reached down and pet her, but better sense prevailed.

The rest of the day was a pleasant day of game driving, along with a leisurely lunch by the river back at camp. At lunch we watched a herd of grevy’s zebras come down to the river to drink, with one zebra causing all kinds of ruckus with the others. Warthogs, impala and water buckalso came to drink and some very brave bee eaters sat quite close to us. 

Interestingly we also saw herds of cattle within the reserve. My understanding is that these herders are violating the reserve boundaries, unlike some multi use wildlife areas. However they were outside the prime game viewing zones and my guess is there is some informal agreement with the park management that if they stay outside the peak use zones they’ll be left alone. We waved and received a lazy wave back.

This also explains where the dead cow we saw in the morning came from, lying by the side of the road. Oddly there were no scavengers on the carcass. We went back later to check and the  carcass was gone, presumably removed by the park rangers. 

In the afternoon we saw lots of nice birds and more of almost everything else. We particularly liked the crisply patterned coat of the reticulated giraffe. The air remained annoyingly hazy. There are scenic mountains in the distance that I longed to see clearly, but they remained stubbornly blue on the horizon.

Two cheetah lazed in the riverbed in the very last hour of daylight. Notably absent, the Somali ostrich. Would we draw a miss on the Samburu Five?

With a Somali ostrich on the goal list we got an early start for our last morning game drive on the way out. As we packed up our riverside camp we noted to each other that the ranger that had paced around our camp the night before had been totally absent this night. We didn’t mind and appreciated the quiet, but it was odd that this required protection never arrived. 

Wildlife was also getting a slow start this morning, seemingly dispersed and sedate. Again we found our old lioness, regally perched on the river bank. We never did find those four cubs though. Later in the morning we saw more of those graceful gerenuks, standing and feeding in the thorn scrub, and finally a Somali ostrich. They are striking, the males being very black with blueish legs, while the females are all grey. This rounded out our “Samburu Five” and we could leave with our heads held high. We also got a good sighting of a flock of red bellied parrots, and another gander at a pygmy falcon.

Checking out at the gate we had a nice exchange with the ranger there. He had been to Turkana many times and was enthusiastic about our visit. He was also fascinated by our air compressor as we aired up our tires for the tarmac road, even asking if he could be the one to push the button. Of course we invited him to do so. He was happy to participate in our strange process, as I’m sure no guide vehicles have compressors or fuss with their tire pressures.

Since leaving Nanyuki, every town we’ve passed through gives more and more of a frontier impression. Isiolo was the last hub, full of eclectic energy and dusty beat up Land Cruisers. Now leaving Samburu Nature Reserve we went through Archers Post. Any town with “Post” in its name has that outpost feel, and Archers Post certain fit the part, a dusty stop on the road north. Perhaps the last of many things we thought, mobile signal, fresh vegetables (limited), and fuel. 

We were lucky that the basic Archers Post fuel station had diesel, so even though we had filled to the brim in Isiolo, we topped up. As Jenny says, “There are two things in Africa you should never pass up, fuel stations and a shower.” This helped a lot to relieve my range anxiety about the Turkana loop. We had already over extended ourselves on Samburu game drives, eating up our paltry reserve.

Heading north the road continues to be pristine new tarmac. You could easily zoom along at any speed here, but I drove more slowly, taking in the views of the mountains and terrain. The very impressive Mt. Ololokwe dominates the horizon, the road heading straight for the monolith’s base. 

As the road wraps around the base of the mountain and more impressive rock formations came into view we were stopped at a police road block. They were very serious here, though not rude, and checked our passport and asked our destination. They were satisfied, and I asked about security concerns. He assured there were no problems ahead. 

This was a relief. The northern frontier zone of Kenya experiences sporadic security issues. Cattle raids between tribes, bandits attacking travelers and who knows what else. Fortunately you have to try fairly hard to get yourself into trouble. The authorities have periodic road blocks and this provides a chance to frequently check in about the road ahead. If things are particularly hot it’s unlikely they would allow a tourist to proceed, or you might be required to join a convoy or police escort. 

I had read of a recent trip to Turkana that had experienced just such a re-route to their plans. It was possible that we’d get as far as Loyangalani, the southern town on the lake, and have to turn back the way we came. Or perhaps forgo our furthest north destination, Sibiloi National Park, instead heading straight from Loyangalani to Marsabit. We were flexible and also prepared to adjust to these vagaries as we went.

I am not an expert, but my understanding is that the road north of Marsabit, not in our plans, is particularly known for security problems. Also the road between Maralal and South Horr, and some areas in the Chalbi Desert. For example, near Baragoi in 2012 there were clashes between tribes and the police were sent in to settle things down. The locals did not like that, preferring to handle their own disputes I suppose, and they killed over 40 police.

I worked in Kenya in 2008/9 in West Pokot, southwest of Turkana near the Ugandan border. Before heading out on my assignment I Googled up the area and a dramatic article kept popping up, describing the lawless district of West Pokot that had needed helicopter gunships to be sent in to restore order between tribes fighting over cattle. My eyes were a bit wide over this, but in the head office of the NGO I worked for they regarded it as “a nice place,” relative to other assignments. 

Arriving at my post in West Pokot I found that lawlessness was hardly the order of the day. There was a large local police and army detachment not far away. Our vehicles roamed the country side daily in the six months that I was there, during that time there was a single incident of cattle disputes that was settled by the elders the next afternoon. 

No gunships darkened the horizon, nor could anyone remember that they had in the past. There are certainly areas that have their troubles, that I don’t dispute. My experience reminds me to temper the rumors. This is not to say that nothing ever happened, just that there is a lot of nothing between happenings.

You might be interested in what other preparations we have made for this sort of remote travel. Jenny and I both have first aid training, though hers is quite a bit more extensive than mine. This is backed up by a pretty good first aid kit, complete with some fairly heavy antibiotics and painkillers.

On top of this we also have good medical evacuation insurance, provided by Ripcord. They provide medical evacuation, including for covid, from any country in the world to a hospital of your choice. Unlike many policies they have no exclusions related to State Department or CDC warnings, or Red List exclusions like they have in the UK. For a significant sum more, which we did not pay, you can also pay for the “security evacuation” which includes civil unrest, terrorism, war, etc.

To contact Ripcord, or someone else, we have an Isatphone 2 satellite phone with 300 minutes of talk time provided by Sat4Rent Namibia. A sat phone doesn’t do you any good if you don’t have a number to call, so we keep a list of embassies and other numbers in case we get into trouble.

For several reasons we do not have the other option, a Garmin InReach. First, I loath subscription based services. Second, they do not make clear how much the rescue they offer is actually going to cost. Probably because it depends a lot on who does it, but this level of uncertainty I feel they gloss over too much. Lastly I think it’s far more likely that we’ll need a simple mechanic or other assistance, not a full blown evacuation. Perhaps this can be coordinated on an InReach, but I think if I’m calling KWS or some other local authority I’d rather just speak on the phone. 

In the event of vehicle related problems we carry a selection of spares and a pretty good tool kit. I have a copy of the Australian Hanes Land Cruiser manual that covers all aspects of the vehicle except the engine. To address that I have a digital shop service manual for the 1HZ on my laptop, though it is a scanned document and a total pain to actually use. 

For spares we carry a set of radiator hoses, a set of belts, fuel filter, oil filter, fluids (brake, transmission, gear oil and engine oil), fuses, rear leaf spring bushes, two spare tires, and a few other odds and ends like bits of wire, electrical connectors, and things like that. For tools we carry a set of box wrenches, ratchet and sockets, allen wrenches, screwdrivers, pliers, hacksaw, Leatherman, wire strippers and crimpers, a multimeter, and I’m sure a few other things. We are both reasonably mechanically inclined, though neither of us is by any means an auto mechanic. 

In a mechanical pinch I think we’d be inclined to call either of our fathers, both knowledgeable in vehicle mechanics, or the Chief Engineer on the ship I usually work on (heads up Matt..).

On top of all this our experience is that pretty much everyone we meet is helpful. Remember how I said you can hardly stop for a pee without someone popping by to see what you’re up to? This also means it is not hard to find someone who at least isn’t going to let you starve to death or die of thirst in the desert. All this stacks up to up to make us feel pretty confident about heading up to Turkana and across the Chalbi. I’m sure we are far more prepared than the locals who routinely ply these routes, but their appetite for risk is greater than ours.

Continuing north we saw herds of goats and cows being grazed along the roadside. These Samburu herdsmen were often dressed traditionally, with beaded necklaces and short wraps, holding a herding stick and not much else. Some of the herders held up empty water bottles and motioned, asking for water. Reluctantly we sped on. It’s hard to pass by people asking for water, but we can hardly stop for all of them, we’d be out of water ourselves. They must bring their animals to drink nearby somewhere. We also did not see any other vehicles stopping.

This grazing is being done sometimes within the boundaries of the reserves, at times causing tension between the herders and the concession holders. One more example of tensions that can arise in these northern areas that at times has become violent.

Another road block marked the boundary into Marsabit county. The tire spike strips were drug aside and we were waived through. Now we approached the small town of Laisamis. Here we found fuel again, and topped up again. We were joking that we were getting so much fuel that we wouldn’t even need the jerry cans, but of course you could easily come this way and have these stations be empty, waiting for their next delivery.

To Ngurunit via the Laisamis Road

At Laisamis we turned off the A2 towards Lake Turkana. This was a new road, put in by the Lake Turkana Wind Power project, a large wind farm near the eastern shore of the lake. This new road makes Lake Turkana more accessible than before. Maybe this accessibility removes a bit of the adventure of heading up here but it was adventure enough for us.

To our surprise the road was still tarred, running through many small luggas (sandy riverbeds, usually dry). The road is flanked by dry acacia scrub land, and we passed by herds of goats and camels, Samburu herders dressed in traditional beads and garb, frequently complimented by a jersey from a favored sports team.

Eventually the tar petered out to gravel, heavily corrugated and rocky. To soften the ride we aired down the tires as far as we dared and forged ahead. There were sandy tracks flanking the actual road in places, made by others looking for relief from the corrugations. We tried these a few times but frequently the plunged into deep pools of the ultra fine bull dust. In our mirrors you could see nothing and we could feel the engine working hard.

Not wanting to deal with getting stuck in this incredibly fine dust we got back on the gravel road and bumped our way along. Impressive mountains loomed and it felt very wild out here, somewhat reminiscent of the stark landscapes in parts of remote Namibia, but a camel would wander by, or a Samburu herdsman would remind us that we were very far from there.

The GPS instructed us to turn off this road towards the village of Ngurunit, towards our destination for the night, Lasamu camp. This less used dirt road was smooth and headed straight into the valleys between the Ndoto mountains. 

On our way a driver from a water truck flagged us down. He asked if we knew the area. Laughing, we said we did not. He was lost, looking for a tiny village where he was supposed to deliver his load of water. It turned out this village was on our offline maps.me app on my phone and we gave him directions, for which he was very grateful. I hope they made it.

As we got closer to the village of Ngurunit the mountains became more impressive, with tall slabs of metamorphic red rock, green growth tucked into all the cracks and crevices. The village the campsite is in is situated in a spectacularly scenic spot. We followed the GPS on increasingly small tracks, and to our relief finally seeing a sign for Lasamu Campsite. 

We were welcomed and shown to our spot. Due to drought the river was dry. There is a large shady riverside camping area, and then further back a bit another spot for groups. They gave us this group site, comprised of showers, a basic but clean pit toilet and two containers at right angles supporting a shaded platform. Apparently people set their tents up in this sort of loft, protected from the sun.

Ngurunit is known to have a fantastic natural pool and swimming spot. Spring fed, this stream flows down small pools worn in granite rocks. These rocks are polished smooth and form natural water slides between the pools. Far out here in the desert this oasis appealed to my imagination and I was keen to visit. 

After a break in camp we got back in the cruiser and followed our map on a convoluted track towards to the pools. At some point we got lost, the GPS not being up to date, and a little girl offered to guide us. We took her up on it and made our way to the pools. 

To my great disappointment the pools were not running. The drought had seen to that. Instead there were a few green pools of tepid water with some garbage and animal feces in it. Our guide was not deterred, and after splashing some of the remaining water on the rocks she laughed as she zoomed down the face of the rocks, plunging into the gross green pool at the bottom. We demurred, but it was nice to see the potential. 

We’d seen elephant dung on our walk. Tony, the manager of the camp, said that yes, there are resident elephants in the area almost always. And giraffes further south. 

It was hot and dusty and back at camp we looked forward to a shower. The shower head leaked a tiny bit, and in the drought this had attracted the attention of bees. Jenny, being generally braver than me, followed our bee keeper friends advice and slowly reached among the bees to turn on the shower. She had a reportedly pleasant shower, bees buzzing overhead but leaving her alone. I attempted this but they must be able to smell fear, every time I reached for the tap they seemed to excite, buzzing furiously and swooping for my head. Every time I retreated. 

Finally I beat them by waiting for dark. They went back to their hive and I finally managed my very much appreciated shower. These small battles with nature are typical in our travels, but this night I was tired of them and just wanted a shower.

Lasamu Camp is more or less in the middle of a dispersed village, and we had several children come along the fence to quietly watch the mzungus for a bit. Not that it isn’t a pleasant campsite, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that on some nearby hill there was the potential for a campsite with a million dollar view of the surrounding mountains. Still, ours wasn’t bad and we were happy.

Morning came slowly at Lasamu Camp. The chorus of the village campsite begins in darkness, lead by the crowing of roosters. In the very early dawn the weaver birds add their song. Then the rest of village life makes up this early orchestra, the braying of donkeys, the bleating of goats, the rough running engine of a boda boda. As the sun breaks the horizon the roosters and birds have settled a bit, but we hear children laughing, crying, and playing as the warm morning sun lit up the face of the Ndoto mountains. 

We had a nice long chat with Tony this morning. We carry a little album of photos from back home and he loved flipping through it and seeing photos of California. 

As we were getting ready to go, and after we had paid for camping he asked us for more money. We thought maybe we’d misunderstood, hadn’t we paid for camping? He said yes, we had, but that was for the owner. He explained that he doesn’t get paid by the owner and that we should give him some money. This turned into a discussion, the end of which was us advising him to take it up with the campsite owner, he should be paid for his services. He wasn’t thrilled with this suggestion but in the end accepted it. 

Constantly being hit up for money is routine, but also tiresome. Mostly we have a thick skin and say no. When appropriate we tip generously for various services. But we get asked for money a lot and usually we just have to say no. Sometimes is hard to know what to do, such as in Tony’s case, and we hope we are making the right decisions as we go along.

With that behind us we set off from Ngurunit, weaving through the scenic valleys of the Ndoto mountains towards South Horr. Today was the day we’d see the Jade Sea.

The Nitty Gritty

Aberdare NP

To check into the park at the Treetops gate there is still a sign posted that you need to load a Safari Card with the desired amount at the Aberdare HQ, a few kilometers away, then bring that card to the gate. Why you need to do this at Treetops gate but we did not at the western gate is a mystery. Perhaps a legacy of when there was no mobile reception here.

Samburu Nature Reserve

Fees to visit Samburu were $70 USD pppd plus $30 USD pppn to camp. Fees are as posted here, sadly no KWS covid discount. We found the fees for foreigners to be high in all the northern conservancies. I wouldn’t go as far as to say this makes them not worth visiting, but it does make it hard to consider sampling several of them. 

If you are planning a visit to the north the Kenyan Camper’s blog is indispensable. The Northern Rangelands Trust website also has an excellent interactive map, link is earlier in the blog post. 

There is not an up to date guidebook for Kenya, or I have not found one. Sadly the Bradt guide for Kenya hasn’t been updated since the mid 2000s, something to do with a copyright dispute. The Rough Guide, which is what we have, isn’t bad, but is a few years out of date. Even equipped with the guidebook and the Kenyan Camper’s excellent blog I found it hard to find a way to tackle the North that is friendly to independent travel. 

Lasamu Camp

You can read the Kenyan Camper’s good write up on Lasamu Camp here and here. We paid 1000 KSH pppn. There is a 200 KSH community fee to visit the pools, whether there is water or not. You’ll also need to pay a guide to visit the pool or surrounding mountains, fees are reasonable.

Route

Aberdare National Park, Prince Charles Campsite to Samburu NR Gate, 197km, 6h 33m with lots of stopping to air up, air down, provision, etc..

Nanyuki has anything you could want as far as provisions, shops, vehicle repair, etc..

One day of Samburu game driving was 60km, coming out of our fuel reserve. We also drove the day before and morning after, but just to give a sense of what we used on a moderate day of game driving here.

Archer’s Post fuel station to Lasamu Camp, 200km, 4h 53m

January 28th – February 1st, 2022

Jungle Jungle took good care of us. Nairobi lies at 1800m elevation, only just south of the equator, and this makes for a very pleasant climate. Evenings are cool enough to warrant a light jacket, and days are sunny and warm but not humid. After a nice doze and lazy breakfast we got to working on our various to-dos.

We had only just gone through one of our two gas cylinders since we last filled up. They normally last us four weeks, but this one was a bit shy. We’re not sure why. Nairobi is one of the few places in E. Africa that will fill our South African cylinders, with their odd thread, and we wanted to top off. Normally the owner Chris dispatches a boda boda to courier the empty cylinders across town for filling, but in this case he happened to already have a matching full 3kg cylinder on hand, so we just swapped. 

Being in the big city we wanted to treat ourselves to a night out at a nice restaurant. Manager Chantal recommended Ankole Grill, which sounded fantastic, but it was a fair ways across town, and even in a taxi we didn’t want to suffer the Nairobi traffic. She advised it for a late lunch stop if we found ourselves that way.

Instead we settled on the well reviewed Talisman, a short Uber ride away in the Karen neighborhood. Donning some respectable-ish looking clothes, we hit the town. The evening confirmed what we’d heard, that Nairobi takes covid precautions pretty seriously. Our Uber driver wore a surgical mask, and upon arrival at the restaurant we were given hand sanitizer, and all staff were masked up. 

Talisman was wonderful. The staff were professional but also friendly, the food was excellent and prices not as high as I feared. Costs were similar to what you’d pay at a California gastropu but with better service. The clientele were a diverse crowed of what seemed to be all Kenyan residents but young and old, black, white, Indian and Asian all hobnobbing and comfortably chatting away.

We sat outside, and they brought over a little hopper in the shape of a frog full of hot coals to keep us warm. The evening was a success. We were relaxed and enjoyed the novelty of this dining experience all the more because it had been so long since we’d had anything similar. 

Back at JJ’s we met a few other travelers, but it was not the bustling hub of travelers of the Before Times. One German women, probably in her 50s, is cycling through Africa, having already spent years on the road touring other parts of the world. Another Dutch couple here spends 10 months a year on the road as a roving production company, doing small films and work for NGOs and whoever needs their services. It’s always interesting to hear everyones’ stories.

With the luxury of having all the laundry done, we did a thorough clean, tidy and repack of the Cruiser. After that we felt prepared to go for a big provision. Being here in the big city, we would be able to find all those things that are a bit harder to come by when wandering the countryside.

Chantal advised us to avoid the larger mall and to instead go to “The Hub” in Karen, which was still plenty big enough for us. It’s a short drive through the the Karen neighborhood, bougainvilleas and leafy vines hiding the high walls of all the various compounds. When I drive through a place like this, I can’t help but wonder who lives behind these razor wire topped walls and in some very big mansions? 

At The Hub, a polished looking shopping complex, our vehicle was politely searched by security personnel before we were allowed to enter. You’re not in Kansas anymore. These are the differences that fade into the background after a while but at first can be a bit of a surprise. 

Nairobi, and Kenya generally, has had security issues at times. In 1998 the US embassies in Dar Es Salaam and Nairobi were simultaneously bombed by Al Qaeda, killing 224 people and injuring many more. More recently, in 2013, the Westgate Mall in Nairobi was attacked by Al Shebab, resulting in 71 deaths. 

That incident in particular struck home more closely, as I had shopped at the Westgate Mall in 2009, it not being far from the head office of my employer at the time. Of course all that was a while ago. More pressing, our Dutch camping friends had been notified by their embassy contacts that all the western embassies were on high alert due to a terrorist threat to attack a large venue in Nairobi.

Being caught up in a terrorist attack is not something I spend time worrying about. One would have to be spectacularly unlucky to get caught in the middle of that. Still, we thought we’d not dally. This tidbit of info, added to our general disinterest of big African cities, tipped the scales towards our heading onwards fairly quickly. 

Those in the know might think we are missing some of the sites in the city, but I have been to the national museum before, and Jenny had previously eaten at the famous Carnivore restaurant and also been to Giraffe Manor. The one thing we did miss a bit was Nairobi National Park, a big five park where you can reportedly see rhinos fairly easily. In all of our travels we have never endeavored to “do it all.” It puts too much pressure on the trip. We also do not consider any destination “once in a lifetime.” In our travels together and for work, we’ve frequently been brought back to destinations where we can fill in the gaps if needed. 

The Hub has a large Carrefour supermarket with western products at western prices. Everyone at the mall was masked up for covid, and at the entry to the supermarket, a thermal scanner and hand sanitizer greeted each customer, with a security guard watching to ensure proper procedure. Inside, every customer was masked, with fewer noses sticking out than I’d find back home in California. 

Carrefour had everything, and soon we’d loaded up a shopping cart with all sorts of luxuries. Good cheese, bacon (we’re told bacon is the caviar of Africa), frozen meat, novel herbs and vegetables not sold in the open markets. This was a modern and well stocked supermarket. 

Our Nairobi chore list was getting pretty short. Originally we thought we’d end up in the city longer. JJ’s was treating us well, but it’s still the big city and we decided to move on to relax out of town. We’d heard good things about Lake Naivasha, and specifically Camp Carnelley’s. 

Lake Naivasha and Camp Carnelley

Naivasha is only a 100 kilometers or so from the city, so it wasn’t too long a haul to get up there. We miscalculated a bit as it was a Friday, and apparently lots of Nairobians also thought it’d be a good idea to get out of town for the weekend. Still, even with the Friday traffic, it wasn’t so bad. There are two routes to Naivasha, and we stayed on the main highway, the A104, wanting to see the view down into the Rift Valley. Sadly a haze hung in the air, and we could only see vaguely down into the valley. Later we met some expats, who advised us that the alternate route, the B3, is a more scenic route to take.

It was a relief to get off the highway and lose all the traffic. We drove around the southern lakeshore, home to lots of small lodges and campsites as well as many commercial flower farms. 

Carnelley’s has bandas tucked back in the trees, but wonderfully gives campers lakeside priority. A number of picnic tables and shelters are scattered across a wide strip of lawn along the lakeshore. There are no assigned sites. Campers can just pick a spot that suits them. We staked our claim by a table with a nice view of the lake.

Just as we were settling in, we noted two hippos munching on the hyacinth that grows rampantly along the shoreline. The campsite sits behind a fairly inoffensive electric fence, to protect us from the hippos at night. Birdlife was excellent also, with herons, egrets, hammerkops, superb starlings, fish eagles and a flock of lovebirds, all in attendance at our arrival. 

Lake Naivasha has suffered similarly to many of the other Rift Valley lakes, the lake level having come up considerably in the last few years. This means that a ring of dead trees line the lakeshore, mostly fever trees that have drowned in the flooding. 

As it was Friday, the campsite started filling up, and we were glad we got our spot. It was a nice mix of campers, mostly Kenyans. And not just Kenyans but a nice mix of society, all races and ethnicities, couples, families, a Ukrainian cyclist, a little bit of everything. I mention this because it is in contrast to the less diverse crowds we have seen in southern Africa, and it struck me as a positive sign. Everyone was so nice and clearly happy to be out on the lake for the weekend. It was a really good vibe.

Over the next few days we got to know our neighbors and enjoyed Carnelley’s. This included a troop of black and white colobus monkeys, new primates for us. They are bigger and much less graceful than the ubiquitous camp thieves, vervet monkeys. Colobus monkeys hurled themselves from tree limb to tree limb, crashing into their landing zone with a ruckus of thrashing limbs and falling leaves. They all look like grumpy old men with big lamb chop sideburns.

Camp Carnelley’s is also home to the Lazy Bones Bar and Restaurant. On one day, after an afternoon of lounging around and bird watching, a sizable thunderstorm came through and brought an afternoon of heavy rain. We retreated, along with everyone else, to the Lazy Bones to test it out. It was busy, but the staff were running around like crazy, and everyone was having a good time. We ordered pizza, and I pronounced it to be the best of the trip. At seven o’clock sharp they started a big fire, and we huddled nearby as the rain had cooled things off considerably.

Music from a nearby club blared into the early hours of the morning, and sleep was elusive. Sometime after one in the morning the voice of Kenny Roger’s “The Gambler” drifted through the night. This was followed by the crowd heartily singing along to Dolly Parton’s “Nine to Five,” and I recalled that Kenyans love country music. This club had a whole country music set to round out the evening. These classic songs mixed with the wheeze and honk of the resident hippos made for a uniquely Kenyan Saturday night. 

Sunday morning came, and nearly everyone packed up and headed back to Nairobi. We have been the only campers at so many places it was nice to have some company, but after the busy Saturday night a little peace was okay too. But peace was not to come, the whole day was spent listening to a preacher from a nearby church haranguing his congregation on a loudspeaker. It was incessant, going on for hours, and drove everyone in camp to the brink.

It started to rain again in the afternoon, and mercifully the preacher finally had to pack it up. We again retreated to the Lazy Bones, though a much more tranquil version. We sipped beers and played games as rain drops pattered down. It might be unconventional camping, but we were having a nice time.

During our time in Nairobi and Carnelley’s, we started to confront an unexpected challenge, allowing ourselves to confess a wee bit of travel weariness. We’re finding ourselves lacking the usual verve for early dawn wake ups to search for lions as well as for tackling the daily logistical uncertainties of African travel. Those myriad of tiny decisions that seem so mundane, where to buy food, what road to take, do we have enough cash on hand; they all seem to add up to more than they really are when you are tired at the end of a long day on the road in an unfamiliar place. 

These things can be novel and interesting experiences, but sometimes we don’t have quite enough information, and winging it all the time takes its toll. We’ve noticed that the longer we spend in each country the less this is an issue, as we become familiar with the small nuances of each place.

With over three months on the road, we are now past the duration of any previous travels. It’s not clear to us the exact source of all this malaise, though I stress that it is modest, but we both agreed that we were missing our friends and family back home more than anticipated. Jenny is an extrovert, and all the campsites we’ve had as the only campers has also taken a toll. Camping here at Carnelley’s has been a treat, with so many campers to chat with, and our long distance travels are always of interest to those we run into and good for striking up a conversation.

In hindsight we noted that although the parks we have visited recently have been unique in their own way, they are all variations on a theme, that is wildlife in savannah parks. We love the animals, but we both thought mixing things up a bit for a more varied itinerary would reignite our sense of wonder. With that in mind we schemed on our next few weeks, building out a rough sketch of a plan. 

You might be interested in knowing how we plan such a long trip. More or less we have a heap of notes gleaned from friends, the internet and books. Over many many hours of fantasizing about this trip, we’ve sort of narrowed down the highlights we want to see, and then we use the notes, T4A and iOverlander to add in the missing pieces. 

We didn’t want to be constrained to planning out each day of almost an entire year. Instead, every once in a while, we sit down with a calendar and roughly map out the next leg. We always tell ourselves that we won’t hold ourselves to this schedule, that it’s just a rough plan. In practice though, we feel some invisible compulsion to stick to the calendar. 

That is ridiculous, and we made a pact with each other to be better at being more ‘go with the flow.’ To stay when we weren’t ready to move, to go when we weren’t feeling a place was what we needed at the time. This might seem totally obvious to everyone, but we still need to practice. 

Our sketch is roughly: Aberdare, Samburu Nature Reserve, Lake Turkana (!), Marsabit National Park, Ngare Ndare Forest, Mt. Kenya, Kembu Cottages, the Masai Mara Conservancy, Kakamega Forest, Baringo, Barnley’s, Mt. Elgon and to Uganda via the Suam border. 

I know I was just complaining about game parks and the astute reader will note that Samburu Nature Reserve is just such a park. Although Samburu NR is a conventional game park it is supposed to be excellent and not so enormous a park to tackle. Sometimes the likes of Serengeti, Masai Mara or Okavango are intimidating in their size and reputation, but Samburu we felt we could get a grasp on without too much pressure. 

Lake Turkana will be a sojourn through the remote and rugged frontiers of northern Kenya. Heading to isolated Turkana really piqued my interest, the antithesis of visiting some of the classic safari destinations we have just been to. We’ll have to be on alert for security concerns and take it easy on the Cruiser. The remote and rocky roads will be torture on tires and suspension, with no easy rescue in the event of vehicular issues.

You’re probably thinking that this does not sound at all like an antidote to travel weariness, but the brain craves a curious mix of novelty (Lake Turkana) and security (trusty Land Cruiser) at the same time. We were keen to strike out to the north, truly a place where the journey is the destination.

Back home when we planned this entire African journey, the war in Ethiopia relieved us from having to consider whether we wanted to tackle any sort of “Cape to Cairo” type route. As of now there is no viable route north. Turkana will be as remote as we will and can get on this trip. 

In the terrain of Southern and Eastern Africa currently accessible to us, the only other place we can imagine that is even close to this far on the fringe is Kaokoland of Namibia. At least there, should you have issues, you’re likely to meet a fellow overland 4×4 traveler in not too long. Perhaps parts of Angola, where we have not been, might approach Turkana’s status on the fringe, but landmines notwithstanding, there are no armed tribesman to contend with. 

Generally we felt this would be a good mix of classic safari destinations and some wilder times, and of course we can adjust on the fly to suit our needs. We shall see how it works out!

Some friends and family back home are going through some big life events and it feels strange to be all this way around the world. Having this new plan in place, some time to call home and some pizza in our stomach have already invigorated us to a degree.

Aberdare National Park

Monday arrived, and we thought it was time we’d better get rolling. Our sights were set on Aberdare National Park. Most of this park lies at fairly high altitude, 2500-4000m, and promised to be very different from a “normal” African savannah ecosystem. It has high moorlands, misty mountains, cold weather camping and wildlife. 

In addition to various antelopes, elephants and a few other regulars, Aberdare has, albeit very rarely, seen black rhinos, the very elusive and endangered forest bongo, the giant forest hog and melanistic (black) servals and leopards. How can one resist the lure of these tantalizing animals, rare though they may be? We have yet to see a rhino on this trip, a testament to poachers’ unfortunate efficiency. And who doesn’t want to see something called a bongo? The melanistic cats are very rare, Aberdare being one of the few places they are seen if they are seen at all. With these novelties hidden away in the hills, I was keen to get started.

Aberdare is also well known for trout fishing in its many pristine clear mountain streams. I was kicking myself for not learning at least the fundamentals of fishing. I harbor romantic notions of afternoons spent fishing a mountain stream to hunt and forage a trout dinner that I could cook for Jenny over the coals. This dream will remain unfulfilled for the time being.

Monday morning the traffic was light. Not far from Camp Canelley’s we were able to stock up on some inexpensive and quality firewood by the side of the road. You’d think there would be a glut of firewood here, with so many trees down from the rising lake level, but we didn’t see firewood for sale anywhere else. Knowing that it’d be cold in Aberdare, I loaded the roof rack with a lot of wood. From there we cruised in light traffic along into Naivasha town proper, stopping at the Buffalo Mall to snag a few provisions. Here there is a well stocked supermarket, Foodplus. 

It’s worth noting that while in Tanzania western style supermarkets are few and far between, really there are none other than in Dar and Arusha, here in Kenya they seem to abound. The old Nakumatt chain has disbanded. Now it’s Foodplus, Naivas, Carrefour, and Quickmart. This particular market had two rare nuggets for us, Nik Naks, Jenny’s preferred cheese snack from South Africa. They also had rusks, our preferred simple breakfast option to accompany a boiled egg. We’d run out of rusks long ago and not found them until now. We were quite enthused.

From Naivasha we started east and up into the foothills of the Aberdare range. Aberdare National Park is relatively high altitude. Even the campsite is just shy of 3000 meters, so we had much climbing to do. The road wound its way up and ever higher. In not long we were seeing pine trees. The locals were clad in heavy jackets and wool hats even though it was not cold out. This goes to show you how the human body can acclimate. 

The trees got bigger, and there are some forestry tree farms at the fringe of the park. Finally we crossed into the park proper, marked by a fence meant to deter wildlife from raiding nearby crops. 

The farmed trees at the edge of the park looked curious to us, and I couldn’t place why at first. It was because there is absolutely no undergrowth, no saplings or ferns or beds of needles like we have back home. Then we saw that the undergrowth is grazed by livestock, cattle, goats and sheep trimming everything down to short cropped grass. 

As the road winds higher, it narrows and the trees gave way to thick bamboo forests. As we rounded bends, we got glimpses of the Kenyan countryside below us, but the haze still hung on, and in the distance the view was obscured a bit. 

The Matubio Gate is quite high and far into the park, and we had already been treated to some mountain views. The rangers at the gate were welcoming and happy to see us. When we asked if we could pay by credit card, they assured us we could, but we had to walk 200m or so to where the machine could get the faint mobile signal. On our walk we had a friendly chat with our happy ranger. 

He gave us various tidbits of info, confirming that the bongo is never seen, hardly even by the bongo research team. Mostly their presence is confirmed only by tracks and camera traps. (Side note: contrary to sources you might read, the bongo is now, sadly, extinct in the Cherangani Hills. You can read up to date information on its status in this report.)

You can see forest bongos more easily than the critically endangered mountain variety, but only if you happen to find yourself in West Africa. Someday I hope to visit Dzanga Ndoki National Park in the CAR, where one can see forest elephants, lowland gorillas and forest bongos all in the attractive Dzanga Bai.  

The ranger gave us another dose of reality. We were very unlikely to see any rhinos. On the brighter side someone had seen one of the melanistic servals just the day before. I hadn’t really expected that we’d see a rhino, but hey, one always holds out a little hope, right? 

We had decided on two nights in the park. The ranger concurred with what others had recommended to us, to stay at the Reedbuck campsite, almost at 3000m elevation, in the moorlands for our first night. After that we weren’t sure if we’d spend a second night there or drop down to one of the campsites in the lower elevation forest on the east side of the park. The ranger said we didn’t have to decide now, We could play it by ear.

Game driving isn’t really the name of the game in Aberdare the same way it is in the savannah parks. There are few loops to be driven. Several waterfalls and streams are in the high altitude part of the park, and we wanted to do these short hikes. The first we visited was Karuru falls. Up here at altitude even the modest hike to the falls left us a bit winded, nothing at all to do with the minimal exercise of sitting in the Cruiser day after day I assure you. Nevertheless it felt great, and in the cool misty climes it was invigorating. Mossy beards hung from the branches of trees that were new to us, and the view at Karuru falls was spectacular, looking out over a gorge with another tall waterfall in the distance. The whole environment had a very Lost World feeling to it. 

We also stopped at Magura Falls, which vaguely reminded us of one of the Zambian waterfalls. The whole time Jenny had to listen to me lament my lack of fishing skills and equipment. 

By the time we arrived at Reedbuck campsite, we’d seen only a buffalo with calf and a bushbuck for wildlife so far. We had startled the bushbuck, and it had given a loud warning bark, just like a dog, as it crashed into the brush and down a hillside. All antelopes have a warning call, and the bushbuck’s is the loudest and most startling in our experience. There were signs of elephant around, and I was keeping my eyes peeled for the incongruous sight of an elephant in these rolling moorlands, which would be like seeing a pachyderm in the hills of Scotland. 

Reedbuck actually has two campsites about 50 meters apart from each other. Both are similar with a large patch of grass, small lumpy hummocks and a decent view of the surrounding moors, mountain peaks obscured by mist in the distance. The park fishing bandas lie close by, some few hundred meters further down the track.

We selected the upper Reedbuck site. It felt slightly more wild and had a teeny bit better view. There is a rustic but clean pit toilet shared between the sites, and otherwise you have to be self sufficient. 

One good thing about wildlife being more scarce here is it takes the pressure off game driving. With no compulsion to stay out to the bitter end of daylight hoping for a glimpse of lion kill or what have you, we settled into a very pleasant late afternoon in camp. It was already cooling off, and I promised Jenny a large fire, free from wood rationing. 

Water is available from the fishing bandas down the road. I started to walk the short distance to refill our five liter jug of “utility water,” for washing dishes. Not far down the track I spotted some fresh buffalo dung and uncertainty crept upon me. I could see the fishing bandas not far ahead, but the danger of a mother buffalo with calf that we’d seen lingered in my mind for a few paces, then I turned around. Better to use some of our drinking water and not risk a run in with her.

After the fire was crackling away, night closed in on camp, and the mist turned to rain. We had positioned the Cruiser well, and with the awning out, we could sit close enough to the fire to stay dry without being so close as to melt the awning. It turned out to be a very pleasant evening by the fire, novel to be cold and in the mountains. It was almost like camping back home, but with the minute chance of being gored by a buffalo to keep things interesting.

It was getting cold, so we busted out the sleeping bags. Normally we sleep with sheets and a blanket up in the tent, but we carry sleeping bags in reserve for cold nights. It seemed it would be one of those. Up in the tent, all zipped up, we were in fact very cozy despite the just above freezing temperatures. After we went to bed, it rained in earnest for a while, but tucked in tight we were very comfortable. 

There was no rush to get up in the morning. When I finally did emerge, I could still see my breath. As there was no urgency, I stoked up the fire, a morning fire being the very definition of camping luxury in our book. Jenny was very excited to have tea by the fire as the chill of the night tapered off. A couple bushbuck tentatively came to the permitter of camp to graze. We’ve noticed that many camps seem to have resident bushbucks, who have learned that it’s not so bad to be near humans. 

The mist had cleared for the most part, and for a while we had brilliant blue skies although this did not last. We packed up and headed out to explore these highlands. On the way to check out the next waterfall we also inspected one of the other campsites, Gukururu.

Gukururu was marked as a public campsite on the very old park map, but I don’t know if this is still accurate. The track was fairly overgrown, though tire tracks proved it had been recently used. We parked and walked the 500 odd meters to the campsite. Trudging down this rough track I pondered the buffalos again, but before anything happened we came out into the clearing and saw a beautiful campsite. 

Gukururu is a campsite big enough for one or two vehicles, set alongside a perfect clear stream. This crystal clear water tumbles over a small waterfall just a few meters away from camp. The whole glade makes a stunning picture. If we come to Aberdare again, we will certainly try to stay at this campsite, and I will while away the hours fishing for trout.

We spent the rest of the day wandering the moors of Aberdare, inspecting waterfalls and appreciating the views. We drove the road up towards Satima Peak. From the end of this road hikers can summit the peak, but we turned back at the T-junction in the interests of time. The road does provide amazing scenery though the Honey Badger was not happy about it. We reached about 3100m elevation, and the naturally aspirated 1HZ engine, like me, does not operate so well in the thin air. 

Other engines, including the 1HZ in some markets, are sold with altitude compensators on the fuel pump, a simple and clever little bladder that deflects with barometric pressure and adjusts the amount of fuel injected. Ours, and most African models, does not have this, and the engine becomes anemic and weak at altitude, particularly noticeable over, say, 2500m. When you put your foot down, black smoke comes out of the exhaust, unburnt fuel from the poor mixture in the cylinders, and the Cruiser goes no faster. 

With a wee bit of black smoke from time to time we wound along the edges of ravines, through mossy forests thick with first growth mountain trees and across open moorlands. Wildflowers abounded, and the whole day was a wonderful outing, just the change we needed I think. 

Given our ambitions to head to Samburu Nature Reserve the following day, we decided camp in the lower eastern part of the park that night. This would also show us a different ecosystem and give us a chance to perhaps see some more animals.

Heading down down down on the narrow track, we saw black and white colobus and sykes monkeys. This lower forest is sometimes called “The Salient” and is known to have higher animal densities. In not too long we saw a giant forest hog, giant indeed. He crashed into the brush once he caught sight of us, but it was nice to see this new to us species.

The growth here is dense, and you can’t see much beyond the road. There was elephant dung everywhere, and yet they still eluded us. A small herd of buffalo were wallowing in a muddy red stream where we turned up toward one of the picnic areas. 

At the picnic area we saw more forest hogs, as well as what looked to our untrained eye to be an old rhino midden, so they are here. This spot had a wonderful view and in the distance some sort of clearing or meadow. I had my binoculars out, scanning, and what did I see in the meadow but a cat! Jenny and I took turns and after some hemming and hawing, decided that we’d broken our unlucky streak, sort of, and it was a leopard. We hadn’t seen a leopard since Zambia, and this one in Aberdare was lounging around in the clearing thinking nobody could see him. It was very far away, but still nice to see. 

It became time to go to camp, and we realized that we had not clarified with the rangers which camps we should stay at in this part of the park. We had already inspected the well signposted Prince Charles Campsite, and decided that if it was a special campsite, it would be signposted as such or noted on the map. 

Prince Charles Campsite, has a single large tree in a large open grassy clearing, surrounded by thick brush. I could easily imagine a buffalo materializing out of the bushes, but at least the camp was big enough to give you a bit of notice. There are no facilities at all, just a clear spot to pitch a tent and make a fire.

We imagined (though have no actual information to suggest this) that this is the camp that Victoria was staying at when she discovered she was now Queen, as she was visiting Aberdare at the time.

The evening was wonderful and a bit warmer than our night at Reedbuck, though still cool. After dinner and a fire the rain came again and rushed us into the tent. It sure seemed to be raining a lot in this supposed dry season. We have heard that increasingly the traditional short rains of November and December and long rains of April through June are less consistent, and so it is proving to be true on this trip. At least it was mostly raining at night.

Morning was beautifully clear, and we could even see the craggy peak of Mount Kenya off to the east. It is a long day from here to Samburu, so we had better get a move on.

The Nitty Gritty

Refilling CADAC cylinders 

Nairobi is one of the few places in Kenya (only) confirmed to fill CADAC bottles. I suspect that there are quite a few more places in E. Africa that it’s possible to fill CADAC bottles, it is just a matter of finding the actual filling depot and not the regular spots that swap bottles. I’m sure they won’t all do it, but we have been hoping a fair number would. However we haven’t been patient enough to actually find those depots and so far we are skating by. I’ve been avoiding buying an E. African cylinder just because it is another thing to haul around that takes up space, but that is our plan B.

I spent far too much time online before the trip trying to find the thread specification for CADAC bottles and East African bottles and never managed to get to the bottom of it. I even emailed CADAC on this issue. They did respond, forwarding an internal email thread that quoted advice from the 4x4community forum to buy an East African bottle! Not much help there. 

I plan to buy a regulator here in East Africa and one in South Africa in some months time I’ll bring home. Then I’ll have the correct thread specs and solve this mystery once and for all. Hopefully. From there I can start churning out CADAC-E.Africa adapter fittings and I’ll make tens of dollars in profit.

Aberdare National Park (Buffalo Mall in Naivasha to the Gate was 55km, 1h 46m)

Aberdare is totally different to any other park in Africa that we have visited and we thoroughly enjoyed it, I would highly recommend it to anyone touring Kenya. Kenya continues to impress with its incredible variety, and with what we have planned I suspect will continue to do so.

When we checked into the park there was a faded poster on the wall of the ranger’s office with a stunning view. I asked about it and he said that is the viewpoint over Dragon’s Teeth, in the north of the park. To go there you have to use the northern gate, you can’t get there from the central part of the park. At the northern gate you can arrange the required guide to go to this stunning lookout. 

If  When we come back to Aberdare we’ll spend two nights at the stunning Gukururu campsite, where I will fish away and prove my manhood to Jenny, and after those nights at altitude we should be in decent shape to go to the northern entrance and make a day hike of going to Dragon’s Teeth. There are no campsites in that part of the park as far as I know, but there are places to camp outside those gates.

Park entry fees are a bit steep, the same as we had at the Tsavos. $52 pppd plus 20 pppn camping. We are greatful for this, as this is the covid discount. Official fees are posted on the handy KWS website, here.

The Buffalo Mall in Naivasha is modest, but has the Foodplus with most anything you might need. There is also a Java House where we got meat pies and coffee to go. Java House is Kenya’s answer to Starbucks, or maybe more accurately SA’s Mug & Bean. Reliably decent coffee, if not amazing. A huge leap better than what use to be available in Kenya during my 08/09 stint, where all the best coffee was exported and what remained was either instant or just bad.  

Another mall is being built on the west side of the A104 as you come down the hill into Naivasha, but it’s not done yet. 

Camp Carnelley’s (The Hub Mall to Carnelley’s – 103km, 2h 10m in some traffic)

We thought this was a wonderful setting and campsite. The bandas might make for a nice respite for those that need a break from camping. Ablutions here are simple, but there are flush toilets and piping hot water from a donkey and we were very satisfied with them. Camping was 1000 KSH pppn. The restaurant was good, though not particularly cheap. 

They serve a very excellent gin and tonic, not the tepid sip of warm gin in a barren glass, no ice and a bottle of tonic on the side that one gets in so much of Africa. Obviously that is no G&T at all, everyone knows a proper G&T must also include ice and lime (lemon allowable only under duress).

January 21st – 27th, 2022

A lion serenaded us most of the night at Lake Jipe Safari Lodge, which is located just outside Tsavo West Nation Park. In the morning we rose and had a slow start, making a nice breakfast and getting ready to head into the park. All the Kenyan parks also operate on the “24 hour rule”, meaning that your entry fees are good for 24 hours. We didn’t want to check in too early, and be forced to rush out of the park when we left in a couple days.

Eventually we got rolling. The skies remained overcast, and Kilimajaro remained stubbornly hidden. Though Tsavo is further away from Kili than we’ve been the last few days, we hear there are still good views of the mountain. Not so this morning. 

We checked in at the gate and were able to pay our fees by credit card, as you can at almost all Kenyan National Parks. I emailed the Kenyan Wildlife Service  (KWS) to ask where you can’t pay by credit card and received a response, “You can pay by credit card at most park gates.” Not that helpful, because any park that is not “most” will present a problem. Cash payment isn’t allowed at most parks, a policy made to curb corruption. But if credit cards aren’t accepted then this presents a problem, particularly for foreigners. Locals use Mpesa, mobile money, to send payments form their phones. Tourists have a hard time with this as the only way to load Mpesa as a tourist is with cash. When we’re talking park fees, that is quite a a bit of cash and it’s not all that practical, better to use a credit card if possible. 

After we checked in we were off, planning to make an all day game drive to the more popular and reportedly more game dense area in the north of the park. Both Tsavo West and Tsavo East are enormous parks, sharing a long boundary formed by the Mombassa Highway. At the gate the ranger suggested we drive across the southern portion of the park to the Maktau gate, checking out and then back in to head north. However there is a lesser track, thus more alluring, that leads up the spine of the park and we thought we’d try that out. 

There is a certain heightened anticipation when one heads into a new park. There are so many unknowns. Will we have good sightings, will the roads be as mapped, will the campsite be a nice place to be? This suspense is fun and we embrace the exploratory feeling, but you can’t help but hold up new parks to previous experiences. What we are finding about Kenya is so far everything is wonderfully varied. Kimana was very different than Amboseli, and Amboseli nothing like Tsavo. Reportedly Tsavo East and West are also not similar at all, despite lying adjacent to each other.

Tsavo West welcomed us with attractive red earth tracks, beautiful pallets of green and wide open vistas. There aren’t many trees in the southern part of the park, but the acacias we could see looked very healthy with dark green leaves. Then there are shrubs spotted evenly around, bright green from recent rain. The grass was a wonderful pale lime green with a bit of yellow, and together the whole ensemble contrasted against the red dirt roads was enthralling.

Even though the southern part of the park is much less visited we started seeing wildlife right away. It reminded me a bit of the Kalahari in Botswana, where game is often not dense, but persistent. Quickly we spotted our first Besia Oryx, which looks a lot like an Oryx (gemsbok) from Southern Africa, except a bit smaller and a little more tan in color with slightly smaller horns. Also, we saw our first of many European Rollers which abounded throughout both Tsavo West and East, but refused to roost where there was good lighting for a photograph.

Further along we began to see zebras, giraffes, warthogs, Coke’s hartebeest, gazelles and impalas. Perhaps wildlife wasn’t so sparse down here after all. We kept seeing groups of animals, all the different species hanging in loose groupings together, grazing and browsing amongst the greenery. 

We tried a side game viewing track, but after a while it petered out into the bush. A faint track lied ahead, perhaps, but we decided not to risk it and back tracked. This gave us some concern about our lesser track through the park plan, but we soldiered on. 

There was signs of elephant on the road but no elephants to be seen. Side note: whenever I say “signs of elephants” or “elephant spoor”, what I really mean is soccer ball sized turds. Still, there must be a good few of them as we kept seeing quite a lot of fresh and unusually green dung on the road. Our lesser track brought us up to the east/west running A23, which cuts through Tsavo West. This road is brand new and not quite mapped in the correct location on our GPS. We could see the remnants of the old road, and even drove along it for a bit as we probed for our track on the northern side of the A23. Eventually we found the continuation of our spinal track and headed further north into the park. 

The terrain changed, becoming more hilly, with dryer and thicker scrub. Incredibly, we saw a cheetah with two cubs crossing the track. They weren’t too wary of us and we had a good ten minutes or so with them as they paced parallel to our road for a bit. The cubs were a little grown up, bold enough to stare us down for a moment, and the mother looked to be very healthy.  

We arrived at the Tsavo River, which cuts west to east across the park, and the terrain changed again. The flanks of the river have thick stands of doum palms, who’s unusual branching trunks gives them a fantastical Dr. Suess feeling. Brown muddy water was running through the palm shaded river and baboons scattered in front of us as we crossed the bridge.

Now we were in the northern part of the park, with time to explore before heading to the Chyulu Public campsite. We wandered riverside tracks and up valleys, winding among terrain much steeper and more varied than the wide rolling plains in the south of the park. We saw what we think is our first lesser kudu, though it looked quite similar to the greater kudu to us so I can’t be sure.

Surprisingly, we did not see much of the “red elephants of Tsavo” that the park is famed. We did see one, a large female, who was a dark, muddy, and grumpy. A guide heading in the opposite direction waved us down and advised, “Stay clear of that one, that is not a happy elephant.”.

He was right. He drove away and she focused her attention on us. Ears wide and head held high she gave us an intent look and a brief trumpet. Jenny was driving and backed away slowly, while joking that maybe I would get that charging elephant photo I’ve always wanted. Backing up the elephant gave us a couple rushed steps in our direction and a violent head shake of annoyance, showing us who was boss of this encounter. We played our part and stood down, easing back slowly. She was moderately satisfied, walking across the road but still staring us down angrily.

As is often the case, as long as you behave as if they are in charge, which let’s be honest, they are, then you’re fine. We backed down, stopping, and finally when she’d cleared off the road and settled down a bit we edged closer and past. She remained annoyed, but also started eating slowly. An eating animal is usually a happy animal, or happy enough anyway. We had passed our test and continued on our way.

The rest of our game drive did not reveal a whole lot. We saw some new birds, including the alien like vulturine guinea fowl. A few more oryx, zebra and giraffe were around as we made our way to the campsite for the evening.

Chyulu public campsite is a large grassy area on a gentle slope, about the size of a football field. On one side is an ablution block, and around the perimeter are thatched roof shelters for protection from sun and rain, looking a little shabby. The campsite is surrounded by dense thicket and there is no view. We weren’t all that impressed, but it was a perfectly fine place to sleep for the night. Upon inspection we found the ablutions did not have any water. We could have gone to the nearby ranger station to inquire if they could sort it out, but it was getting late for that and we decided to sort it out tomorrow and use our own water in the meantime.

The next morning we headed out for some proper game driving in Tsavo West. We passed by some impressive old lava flows. The raw chunky black rocks have foliage growing out of them, but according to our guidebook are only about 200 years old. Since geology usually happens on an immense time scale it’s interesting to see something a mere 200 years old, a blink of an eye. 

Apparently the nearby Chyulu Hills are products of recent volcanic activity, only 500 years old, one of the youngest mountain ranges in the world. I find this remarkable, they are a sizable small range and for something that significant to pop up out of nowhere must have been something. Five hundred years is not so long and I wondered if there was oral record of it in Maasai history.

You are allowed to walk up the Lava Hill feature, but it seemed a bit early for that. Instead we drove, descending down a rough track into a valley. Here is where the scenery of Tsavo West really started to stand out, there was mist around the peaks to the east, backlit by the sun, and rugged red rocks with thick green foliage jutting up around us. It felt very primordial. Had a pterodactyl flown across one of the cliffs it would not have looked out of place. 

Wandering our way back down to the aesthetically pleasing and unique Tsavo river, we poked our way down a tiny riverside track. Hardly any game this morning, but the scenery was excellent. We stumbled across the Kudu Special Campsite on the south bank of the river. A few giraffe were here, but didn’t like our presence and wandered off. What a great campsite, and we wondered about upgrading ourselves to this scenic spot. Maybe we’d stop by the gate later and ask about doing so.

From here we continued on, making our way back across the river. The bridge had washed out at our selected crossing, but some workers directed us where to safely ford the river. The doum palms looming over while we splashed our way through the rocky crossing would have made for a great photo, but it wasn’t a good place to get out of the vehicle. 

From here we stopped at the Mzima Springs. An informational sign proclaimed this the finest tourist experience in Kenya, if not the whole of Africa. I think they may have overstepped, but it is worth a visit. Here there are ablutions and a couple rangers posted and you can park and walk around the pools of the springs.

Crystal clear water bubbles up out of the ground, forming two pools, still part of the Kilimanjaro subsurface runoff in some form. Apparently hundreds of thousands of liters a day springs forth, and some 10% is siphoned off as the main water source for Mombassa, delivered via a pipeline that runs through the park. We went to the underwater viewing enclosure, a circular tank with steps down below water level, with windows that you can look out into the clear water of the pools. We hoped to see a hippo swim by, but sadly they were all in the lower pool. 

After all this hard work of game driving it was getting towards lunch. Felix and Johanna had told us that Severin Camp allowed day visitors and was a nice place to stop. Arriving at 1130 or so they welcomed us, but said that lunch wasn’t served until 1300. Would we like to relax by the pool until then? Why yes we would. 

The pool area was magnificent and we started to realize this place was pretty fancy. After a cold beer and a swim in the swanky pool a tremendous rain shower came through. We watched sheets of heavy rain hammering down from the covered pool veranda. The staff remarked that this is not at all normal weather for January, and we were happy to be ensconced, if only temporarily, in the luxury of this lodge while the rain passed through. 

The showers at the pool area were each the size of a studio apartment and equipped with fresh towels, shampoo, soap and wonderful private amenities. By far and away the nicest ablutions we have seen to date! 10/5! Jenny threatened to move in permanently, but I managed to coaxed back her out.

Lunch was overpriced, but we enjoyed it a lot anyway. By the time we departed Severin’s Camp we’d been there three hours, and we felt guiltily rejuvenated by our brush with luxury. 

On top of this we’d asked the staff about whether we could call the gate, as opposed to drive there, to ask about booking the special campsite for the night. They didn’t have the gate phone, but instead a phone number for someone more senior in the office. When we called they pointed out that on top of the increase in price for a special campsite there was also a 7500 KSH booking fee (~$70 USD). This we had not realized, though on closer inspection it is posted on the KWS rate sheet. We demurred, having been willing to pay for the more expensive campsite, but that was too much more for just a single night. The higher up on the phone took pity on us and waived the booking fee, telling us to “Just go,”  instructing us to pay the difference for a special campsite at the gate on exit, being $15 USD extra pppn.

This stroke of good fortune I’m sure only happened because Jenny’s charm floated across the radio waves of the cell phone, if I had been making the request I’m sure I would have been summarily dismissed. After a stop to see the stunning view at Poacher’s Lookout we started making our way to the Kudu special campsite. 

A bit more game started to appear, including some wonderful elephants dusted in Tsavo’s red dirt, and a few antelope and giraffes. Closer to camp we came across three young black backed jackals that showed curiosity in us for a while. 

The Kudu special campsite was incorrectly marked on T4A, but is signposted. We followed the track for the specified 4km and came back to that same lovely sight by the river. It is set up high on the riverbank and adjacent is a dry riverbed that must sometimes run into the Tsavo during periods of heavy rain. This dry riverbed was covered in animal tracks, obviously where animals often come to drink. I felt a little guilty that we were so close to it, I’d hate to impede an animal coming down to the river to drink, but since the park designated this a campsite I suppose it must be okay.

Other than a few impala in the distance and the honk of hippos around the corner we did not see wildlife other than birds. With a fire going we bird watched in the last light of day before having dinner. Tonight we busted out one of our few chili seasoning packets that we brought from home to make the American classic meat and bean stew. 

After drifting off to sleep we were woken by sound of many hooves. Looking out in the moonlight we could see the dry riverbed full of buffalos who had come to drink. We marveled at the hoofbeats, the snorts of the herd and the sounds of these big animals making their way to the water. We couldn’t see that well and the sounds added a lot as we peered out into the darkness, trying to discern the movement of the herd. While we enjoyed this nighttime spectacle I remarked, “Whew, buffalos do not smell good…” The smell of the herd was strong. Jenny was silent for a moment, then fessed up, “Um..that isn’t the buffalos.” She was experiencing the effects that chili is famous for, but had passed up the chance to blame it on the buffalos and we had a good laugh about this. 

The buffalos got spooked and stampeded away and the rest of the night was quiet. The following morning was so nice that instead of jumping out on a game drive at first light we coaxed the last coals of the last nights fire back to life while enjoying some riverside birding and morning coffee and tea before heading out.

We planned to head to Tsavo East today and had to be out of the park by 1100 or so. Our morning game drive was not particularly fruitful, but the scenery continued to impress, still with that prehistoric feel. We did see a white morph paradise flycatcher, long white tail feathers floating along behind him. 

Tsavo East via Voi

After checking out at the Tsavo Gate we were deposited onto the Mombassa highway, the main road between the port on the coast and Nairobi. This is also the main artery for all cargo headed to points inland, including the land locked country of Uganda, and even some cargo heading to the eastern DRC. Though they do utilize rail cargo the capacity is not enough, which means this road is full of trucks lumbering back and forth. 

Fortunately, we didn’t have to suffer this long before we made it to the town of Voi, outside Tsavo East. We hadn’t provisioned since leaving Tanzania, so we took the opportunity to stock up here.

After the morning game drive and shopping in Voi we were actually feeling a bit pooped and decided to stay outside the park today and to head in the following day. Jenny typically reads the iOverlander reports and makes a best guess at where to go. This time we settled on the “Red Elephant Lodge” that also offers camping.

The grounds are pleasant, with camping in a sandy grassy lot adjacent to the lodge, with bougainvillea around. Shade was limited so we deployed our awning and settled in. They gave us a key to a room for a toilet and shower. The lodge was funny, it reminded me a lot of an American style motel, with exterior doors to all the rooms, only instead of knotty pine paneling, antlers and wooden bears there was a distinct elephant safari theme to all the furnishings.

The lodge shares a boundary with the park. We were invited to sit on the veranda of an empty room and watch the watering hole. No animals came, but lions roared loudly nearby. We sipped cold beers and hoped they might come. They didn’t, but hearing them so close was fun and got us excited about entering the park the next day.

In the morning the drive to the gate takes only a few minutes. The gate has a small curio shop, the first we’ve seen in any park on this trip. It included some maps of various KWS parks, t-shirts and some guidebooks to trees, birds and animals.

Here I had planned that we’d spend one night in the south of the park, and then traverse south to north, staying a second night in the north of the park, and then exiting at the north gate on the third day. One flaw in my plan, there are no public campsites in the north of the park. I had somehow convinced myself there were, but I was wrong. Two nights at Ndololo it was then. I used this as an excuse to prove to Jenny that I had not done enough research, to which I received much eye rolling. 

At the gate they also had a list of all the special campsites, and all their coordinates. Though we were tempted we passed on the special campsites due to the high booking fee. But posting the names and coordinates of the campsites at the gate?! Amazing. Maybe KWS can do some training in Tanzania.

Tsavo East proved entirely different than the west. It is much flatter. A river bisects the park into northern and southern sections, and going north of the river used to require special permission from the warden. This was were the rhinos lived, and marks the front of a long running war on poaching. I don’t have clear answer on this, but I gather that sadly all the rhinos in Tsavo East have passed, either from complications related to transport and introduction from other parks, or from poaching. 

Pretty much right off the bat we saw our first gerenuk, sometimes called the giraffe gazelle. This antelope has a neck even longer and more elegant than Natalie Portman’s. Uniquely they sometimes stand up on their hind legs to feed. They have an almost alien like appearance and this particular gerenuk, a female, let us observe her for a bit, even standing up to pick off some leaves of a nearby shrub. We didn’t know it at the time, but this also turned out to be the bravest gerenuk of Tsavo East, as all the others we subsequently saw more or less immediately ran off into the bush, and I wish I had taken more photos. 

On our game drive we were properly introduced to the red elephants of Tsavo. The dirt here is a rich orange-brick red, and the elephants dust themselves with this dirt, giving them a red appearance. Also Tsavo’s elephants just seemed bigger and to more frequently have large tusks. They are very impressive animals. Jenny thinks that perhaps we are turning into elephant connisuiers (aka snobs).

We made an ambitious game drive all the way up to the Galana River and Lugard’s Falls. The breadth of the riverbed is massive, though it was not running high today. At the falls, the river has carved incredible contours, arches and bowls in the rock. You are allowed to get out of your vehicle here and we marveled at this art of nature for a while, and also at the incredible flood the river must have been in to deposit debris far up onto the banks of the river.

On the way back to camp we saw several large breeding herds of elephants, all painted in Tsavo red and looking very good. As we wound along a small track that parallels a dry riverbed we came upon a huge flock of chestnut weaver and lesser masked weaver (?) birds. They were in a frenzy, chirping and tweeting up a storm while hundreds and hundreds of the birds frantically wove nests. The trees on either side of the track were full of noisy industrious birds. Amazingly they were not bothered by our presence and we were able to park between the trees and watch them work right next to us. 

The boughs of the trees were weighed down heavily with weaver nests. The cacophony of noise and energy was really impressive as we watched these little birds build dense housing for their mating. 

That night in camp was fairly uneventful. There was one other set of campers, who looked like they were on a proper safari. They had an old Land Rover looking very much the part, along with a beautiful cream colored pup tent and wooden folding safari chairs. They looked like they knew how to do things properly. 

The camp staff declined to sell us fire wood, but did point at a large downed tree in camp and we were allowed to harvest what we could. We have a pruning saw in our kit and this proved invaluable. After some sweat expenditure I had a respectable load of not very good fire wood for the evening.

Ablutions at this camp were passable, at least having water, though cleanliness left something to be desired. Still the shower was refreshing and very appreciated. Don’t look up, what occasional cleaning that does happen does not extend into the lofty rafters. 

The following day we got up at the crack of dawn to head out on a game drive. We had heard lions in the early morning and we thought we might track them down. Our gentlemen safari team next to us was not going to do anything so rash as leave at dawn, instead having a proper morning fire before getting underway. Sleep still tugged at us and we looked on enviously, but reluctantly stuck to our guns and kept to our full safari punishment.

After scouting around for lions we accepted defeat. They were roaring loudly and close by but we could not find them, no doubt just a bit off the road and hidden in the brush. As a consolation, we got a wonderful sighting of four large bull elephants.

The north of Tsavo East used to be off limits without warden permission, and thus this forbidden fruit was attractive to me. Jenny had encouraged, as a consolation prize to me, that at least if we weren’t going to stay up north we’d make an all day game drive in that direction to get a sense of things up there. 

This turned out to be not such a great idea. The rangers had said that the road was open, but we hadn’t thought to ask them if the game viewing was good up there or anything else. After buzzing up to the Galana River we took a turn as guided by T4A, and found ourselves at the old causeway. In the past you had to drive a causeway, that was sometimes flooded for long stretches, across the river. 

Apparently unbeknownst to T4A this causeway sustained damage, making it unusable, probably in the 2018 flooding. Since then, a long bridge has been installed a couple kilometers down the river. We rerouted to the bridge, taking a minute to observe the hippos and crocodiles below. After that it was onto a very nice gravel road and up the escarpment to Tsavo’s northern plateau.

The northern plateau we found unremarkable, with thick scrub brush making it difficult to see anything not on the road. We saw some birds, dik dik and not much else. This monotonous road should have been a clue, but we disregarded the evidence before us. Instead we decided to drive over a pass towards the Athi River, via a waypoint marked on our map as Sheldrik’s Blind.

This road was fairly overgrown, but had very fresh tracks on it, so we assumed it was passable. In retrospect I bet these were the tracks of an anti-poaching patrol or rangers’ vehicle, not a tourist’s. 

The road was long and very slow going. The spur heading to Sheldrik’s blind, no doubt a wonderful viewpoint, was completely overgrown. At the peak we drove down the airstrip, which must not have been used in a very long time. Heading down the track became very rough and we had to use low range. A couple times we got to some very rough stuff and we needed to build up the track with stones. Jenny was driving at the time so this job fell to me. It wasn’t so bad, but in the heat of the day I was glad more work didn’t need to be done. The deeper we pushed down this track the more we thought we shouldn’t have done this, but the prospect of turning back was too disheartening.

The longer we went the more worried I became that there’d be some washout and we’d have to double back the whole long monotonous way, but luckily the road did actually go through. Joining the river we made our way south and stopped to have lunch at a very scenic spot, marked Athi River Crossing on the map.

This is a crossing point where one can supposedly ford the river. The river is quite wide here, but shallow, and there are many low rocky islands scattered across it. I sort of wanted to drive the crossing just for the drama of it but better senses prevailed. 

Finally we began to see at least a little wildlife, including quite a few of those curious looking gerunuks. Still the game viewing did not at all hold up to the effort it had taken to get here. The river views were nice, with the stands of doum palms looking like huge bouquets placed along the river. One very rocky gorge was dramatic to look at, and you could see the incredible high water line from the flooding. 

Late in the day we saw a few fine tusker elephants north of the river. Perhaps not the super-tusker class, but there is no doubt that in Tsavo we have seen more large elephants with girthy tusks than anywhere else we have visited.

The bridge across the Galana was a welcome relief after this marathon of a day. We shuddered over the rocky corrugations along the river and then ducked off on our two spoor track to go check on the flock of industrious weavers we’d seen the day before. They were there, still weaving up a storm in a cacophony of sound and flight. 

Back at camp we found ourselves the only campers. Foolishly we had left our camp table, to claim our spot. The baboons had not thought very highly of this and had left it covered in dirty prints (both foot and butt), and with shit running down the side. Jenny gave it a very thorough scrub down, cognizant of D. Quammen’s recent admonishments about Simian Immunodeficiency Virus spilling over to humans.

Also, here to greet us in camp were a docile herd of impala and a few elephants browsing at the periphery of camp. This was nice, but also kept us on our toes. We didn’t want to wander off for firewood or to take a shower and bump into an elephant at night. Thus caution was the watchword for the evening, we hastily did our chores in the fading light so we could stay close to the fire after darkness fell. Not that the fire keeps animals away, but at least you hope that if an animal approaches you by the fire it’s at least aware of your presence; unlike bumping into the hindquarters of an elephant outside the ablutions, sure to provoke an unwelcome response from anyone, elephant or human alike.

We heard Tsavo’s elusive lions again that night, but we didn’t see them in the morning. The elephants and impala were still hanging about camp in the morning, with the elephants at a comfortable distance. 

It was time to make our way to Nairobi. This is something of a major milestone in our journey. Nairobi isn’t much of a destination in and of itself, but it is the Capital of Kenya, the beating heart of East African finance, industry, and politics. Its hectic streets are rife with UN vehicles, embassy vehicles with diplomatic plates and tinted windows all sprinkled on top of a thick layer of matatu mini busses providing the bulk of public transport. Any remaining holes in the traffic scheme are filled in by swarms of boda bodas flitting through the gaps. 

I had been through Nairobi a few times before for work more than ten years ago and frankly I wasn’t much looking forward to returning. Geographically however it is difficult to avoid, and I was really looking forward to staying at Jungle Junction.

Jungle Junction, or JJ’s for short, has long been the refuge and hub of the overlanders circuit in East Africa. In times before the current Ethiopian civil war, this was a critical stop for anyone on the Cairo to Cape Town route. Now owner Chris Handschuhis still the authority on all overland logistics. Need a workshop? To store your vehicle for days/months/years? Need to know the intricacies of carnet renewal, foreign vehicle permits, shipping and import and export? He’s got you covered. Need your South African gas cylinder refilled (we do)? Chris can arrange it for you.

JJ’s has been such a long standing institution that we felt by visiting we were able to become a tiny part of all the adventures that had passed through there and that Chris and his staff had deftly supported. 

First we had to get there though. In the original plan of coming out the north end of Tsavo East, we would have avoided a good chunk of the dreaded Mombassa highway that is so full of trucks and traffic to Nairobi. There wasn’t enough time to drive all the way through the park and to Nairobi in a day, nor anywhere to camp outside the park. I suspect we could have found a place, but instead we went with a frontal assault. 

Sometimes a well executed bad plan is better than a badly executed good plan. With that strategy in mind we exited Tsavo East at the Voi gate and got on the Mobassa Highway northbound to Nairobi. We slogged this out with an audiobook on and it wasn’t too bad. The key being to not be in a hurry and not be lured into dangerous overtaking maneuvers. 

Somewhere along the way I did not heed my own advice. We had spent far too long stuck behind a huge truck doing some 20 kph on a road that you can go 80 or 90 or even 100 at times. A long clear straight stretch of highway in the opposing lane offered itself and I took the bait, quickly dipping around the offending truck. I had, illegally, crossed a sold yellow line, marked for a drainage culvert that someone in the traffic department must have decided constituted a bridge. Overtaking on a bridge is illegal. As you might have guessed, there was a stand of police (what is the collective noun for police? Herd? Flock? Pod?) waiting for me.

I was waved to the verge and a smiling policeman greeted me. What followed was a long discussion with threats of sending me to court, but not for two days time in the neighboring city. They of course know that this is totally impractical, as almost nobody on this road is destined for the next town, they’re all headed to Nairobi or points beyond. But this is the official law, as I understand it. Kenyan law says that, to prevent corruption, you don’t pay the police directly, but instead go to the local court. 

The impracticality of this means that officers use the threat of this inconvenience to extort very modest bribes. After our long chat he worked his way around to asking us for some “lunch money.” I continued to decline and asked to be given the official fine, and he refused to give it to me. Eventually we reached detente, joking about our travels and him saying he’d like to have our vehicle when we’re done with it, and he waived us on. Quite the irony that even with no bribe paid the police declined to issue a fine, I suppose understanding the impracticality of paying.

I found the whole thing frustrating, as we do not want to support any form of corruption, no matter how modest. But to tell people, travelers or locals, to go to some court in a few days time seems completely ridiculous. I anticipate a certain reader may correct the record on the proper procedure here, and if so I will update the blog accordingly!

With that episode behind us we entered the outskirts of Nairobi and heavy traffic. Fortunately Jenny was driving with her nerves of steel for African city traffic. There are roadworks going on, part of building a modern highway out the southeast quadrant of the city. It was a complete mess and bumper to bumper, stop and go traffic until we reached the southern bypass. From here on it was smooth and pleasant sailing on modern roads. Quite the opposite of my experience in Nairobi over a decade ago and a very welcome surprise.

Toward the end we wound our way through the leafy quiet streets of the Langata neighborhood. This was a Nairobi unfamiliar to me, with relatively light traffic and beautiful trees, gardens and plant life all over. Still all the houses are surrounded by tall walls with steel gates, most trimmed with shards of glass or razor wire. But with all the greenery this faded into the background a bit and the overall effect is pleasant, particularly considering our initial introduction of the chaos approaching from the south east.

Jungle Junction has only a small simple sign that says “JJ’s” on the fence. It is in a mostly residential neighborhood and without the sign we would have thought we were in the wrong place. A hoot on the horn brought the security guard to the gate and we were welcomed in to our city sanctuary. 

Inside the walls is a property of maybe an acre in size of mostly green lawn and edged with nice gardens. There is a residential house that has been converted to the guesthouse, with all the things. There are rooms, a kitchen, full proper bathrooms for guests to use, a living room appointed with games and books, a TV and wireless internet. On the back patio are some tables where you can enjoy the very comfortable Nairobi climate and still get a good wifi signal. There is also a fridge stocked full with beer and sodas that is an honesty bar. Beers from an honesty bar always taste better.

The camping here is on a large grass lawn and there were two other campers. We settled in and relaxed, happy to ease off for a bit. Chris and the manageress, Chantal, are extremely welcoming, friendly and efficient.

Unlike many who stop into Jungle Junction, our list of Nairobi chores wasn’t that long, just laundry and refilling our gas bottles, so we probably wouldn’t stay too long. Nonetheless, it felt great to stay at this overlanders’ institution, and reaching Nairobi was certainly a milestone for the trip. Though we made a dash up to Kenya in 2018, now we had some time and we were in really new territory. We are looking forward to a bit of a rest and planning the next stage of adventures in Kenya and beyond.

The Nitty Gritty

Tsavo West

The Lake Jipe campsite will be moved after the new bandas are done, I’m sure it will be in a nice spot. Until that time I would camp outside the park. I think the drive through the spine of the park is a worthwhile detour, to see the various terrains of Tsavo West. We actually saw quite a bit of wildlife in the south, though this may have been an anomaly or because of the recent rain. My understanding is the wildlife is normally focused in the northern sector of the park.

If we were to go again, I would be sorely tempted to pay the 7500 KSH booking fee to stay at the Kudu Special campsite for the whole time. The Palm Shade camp across the river is almost as nice, but the booking fee is, as I understand it, paid for each campsite, so moving is not practical.

I would highly advise a stop at Severin camp for at least a beer. They seemed to welcome day visitors and we did not at all feel we were second class compared to the overnight guests who were paying what I’m sure is a very high premium. We stayed for lunch, and though overpriced, for the whole experience we felt was totally worth it. The staff were extremely professional and it was nice to chat with them.

Tsavo East

We saw more game in Tsavo East, but the terrain does not have the same primordial feel. If at all possible I suggest visiting both parks.

The public campsite at Tsavo East had a charm to it, but it has no view. It is certainly nicer than the Chyulu Public campsite in Tsavo West. I don’t know why KWS, given all the extraordinary locations available, seems to gravitate to putting the public campsites in ho-hum locations. Why not have it on the edge of the savannah, hidden in the trees with a view across the plains? 

At the gate they had all the coordinates of the special campsites posted, imagine that! We did not inspect any of these, but if you care to map them here are the numbers. Note they are in UTM coordinates, which you can convert to in Basecamp (Basecamp Menu > Preferences > Position Format [scroll to near the bottom]. Then enter all coordinates in UTM, then change your position format back to your normal preference and, voila!) Alternatively I sent these to Tracks4Africa and you can wait for their next update.

Nairobi

I think it may have been wiser to take an extra day heading to Nairobi and camp at Chyulu Hills on the way and avoiding the Mombassa highway. Instead take the back roads to Kajiado and the A104, approaching Nairobi from the southwest. 

I’ll post more on our Nairobi logistics in the next post. 

January 17th – 20th, 2022

The drive from Twiga Lodge in Usa River to the Tarakea border post is a pleasant one. After driving a while on the busy Arusha – Moshi road we turned off, up towards the green foothills of Kilimanjaro. The road is in good condition with not much traffic as it winds in and out of little valleys and around lush verdant hills. This dropped us pretty much right into Tarakea, a small border town. 

The usual border post to use from the Arusha area to Kenya is Namanga, but we are sticking with our “small borders if possible” policy. And if you cross at Namanga the only road to our destination of Amboseli is the C103, notoriously corrugated and rough when coming from the west. 

The Tarakea border on the other hand is not even an hour from our destination. And where is that you might ask? Well, on the morning of departure it was still unconfirmed. Last minute we had decided try to visit the Kimana Sanctuary, a small private wildlife conservancy adjacent to Amboseli. It forms part of an important wildlife corridor from the Amboseli area to the adjacent Chyulu Hills and Tsavo area. 

I had emailed Kimana on Sunday, and now that it was Monday, we were hoping to hear back that they had availability. As it happened, they did. I got an email from the very efficient Annie in their office, complete with a link to pay by credit card. This is a luxury, as throughout Kenya Mpesa, mobile money through your cell phone is the preferred payment method.

Rolling into the border, we were directed by security where to park. The Tanzania side was easy, and in less than 10 minutes we were waved on to the Kenyan authorities. Security on this side did make a half hearted attempt to ask for a “gift from America,” but when we declined, we were given a smile and directed where to park.

Immediately we were hounded by two touts, who wanted to help us through the border process. This is common, and annoying. Crossing at these small borders is usually easy and requires no runners, assistants or fixers. They always latch onto us and follow us around telling us what to do and where to go, no matter how much you protest. This is all done with no mention of the inevitable fee they want at the end.

We told them both very clearly that we did not want their services and we would not pay them, even if they helped us. This initial resistance is always ignored, but after a few times the older one believed us and wandered off. 

One good consequence of covid has been that there are now hand washing stations everywhere in Africa, and since one’s hands get dirty often here, we use them all the time. After we washed our hands, we went to the first stop, Health Inspection. We only had hours to go on our 72 hour window from PCR testing, but the Health Officer was unconcerned and stamped our certificates. 

Next was immigration. We had East Africa visas pre-approved (good for Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda), and they were able to stamp us in quickly. It seemed they were ready to issue new visas on the spot, though officially Kenya requires an e-visa, pre-applied for and approved.

The last step is Customs. We handed over our carnet, which we obtained exclusively because Kenya requires them for entry. We had also used it in Zambia to avoid having to extend a Temporary Import Permit (TIP), which in Zambia is only issued for 30 days at a time. The customs officer was not at all happy that we had not used it in Tanzania; she was worried that it would look like she was allowing direct import from Zambia to Kenya, without Tanzania in the middle. For a moment we were worried this was going to be a big issue.

Then a guy wearing skinny jeans and a t-shirt came in and started riffling through the binders and ledgers, looking for something, but not looking at all like the formally dressed officers. He caught wind of the conversation and more or less told them it was totally fine and to just process the carnet as normal. Lucky for us, they accepted his advice.

This brought us to the last step, the foreign vehicle permit (FVP). This is a sort of road tax required in Kenya, in addition to the carnet. We were instructed by the customs officer to head off with Mr. Skinny Jeans to get our FVP. They said when we had that in hand, they’d give the final stamp of the carnet and we’d be off.

Skinny Jeans was actually named James, and we were lead by him past the boom marking the official entry into Kenya, outside the border area. During this process we walked back and forth across this security barrier, in and out of no-man’s land, a few times, and nobody said a word. 

We went to a tiny little plywood booth that sold phone accessories, where he had a laptop and a printer at a little desk in the back. A testament to James’s skill, he finally convinced the runner who had followed us this far to leave us. He also seemed very knowledgeable and efficient, and in not too long he had our FVP for us. Back at customs he handed this over, they finished the paperwork, and we were in Kenya.

Why or how this third party, James, was part of the entry process was not clear, but it certainly seemed to work. The FVP was $42 dollars for a one month permit, renewable. James charged us $2 USD for his services, with an official invoice and receipt.

I asked him if I could buy a sim card for my phone, and he said sure. He walked out on the street and chatted with one of the boda boda (motorcycle taxi) drivers, who pulled his sim out of his phone and handed it to me. How much? “That’s between you and him,” James said. I asked the boda boda driver, and he answered with 1000 KSH, which is about $9 USD. I countered with 500, and he said “sure.” Deal done. I didn’t have any shillings yet, but James said he’d pay him and then add that to our mounting bill.

This all happened with fantastic efficiency. Kenya’s border officials and James had really given a great first impression of our visit to Kenya. After settling up with James, we headed north from the border on a nice tar road. Theoretically this area has a fantastic view of Kilimajaro, but the mountain remained elusive, hidden stubbornly in the clouds.

Kimana Sanctuary

It isn’t far to Kimana Sanctuary, not even 30kms, and we cruised along noting the small differences a border can bring. Notably, among other things, a lot more covid masking than in Tanzania. Right before the turn to Kimana we encountered our first elephant fence across the road. How do you have an elephant fence that crosses a road?

There are two telephone poles on either side of the road with an electrified fence running to them. The electrified wire runs up to the top of the high poles and across, high enough that trucks and busses can pass underneath. Then there are long wires dangling down in a curtain from this top wire, ends hanging loosely about two meters above the ground. 

This allows bicycles and boda bodas to pass underneath, but vehicles muss pass through very slowly as the wires drag across them. The tires insulate the vehicles, but if an elephant tries, it will get a shock. So perhaps not elephant proof, but elephant resistant anyway. 

These barriers are where a wildlife corridor crosses the main road, to enable the elephants to migrate but also to discourage them from getting to nearby farms or housing. Such are the realities of human-wildlife conflict and living with these animals.

Turning off we arrived at the Kimana gate in short order. We were greeted by a ranger who checked us in. Remarkably the booking that we had only just paid this morning had showed up on his computer. This sort of efficiency is not common at park gates, and we were impressed. He proceeded to give us a really detailed and helpful briefing on Kimana, our stay and our campsite. Where to get water, where the animals are usually concentrated, what not to do, what we can do, etc. This is totally unheard of, and I was very appreciative of his professionalism, knowledge and the detail he went into.

We also received an off-road permit, how fantastic! These are noted on their website as costing quite a lot, but he said they sometimes give them to campers who are staying at Kimana. The permit is only for sightings, not for general exploration, and we felt privileged. It is very unusual to be allowed to drive off designated tracks. He also said we were welcome to night drive, which he said would be our only real chance at seeing the resident leopard, sighted just yesterday.

This flood of information and atypical freedom really got us excited about our stay here. On top of all this we were provided with the unusual luxury of a map, and with our booking confirmation, Annie had also emailed an excellent guide on how to drive safely around elephants. The professionalism and organization of Kimana really stands out. Sadly, camping will not be allowed here after March this year because a hotel company has leased the area where the campsites are located to build a lodge.

It was midday, outside prime game viewing hours, so we thought we’d check out our campsite first. Decent roads guided us into the mostly flat land of the sanctuary. The northern permitter of this small reserve, only about 5700 acres, is formed by a small river. This area has stands of tall fever trees, thick green grass and ample shade. It was here we found the Elerai campsite, one of only three in the Sanctuary. Each campsite at Kimana is private, an unfenced wilderness camp with a long drop toilet and enclosure for a bucket shower. In all other respects we had to be self sufficient.

The setting is beautiful. The grass has been trimmed at this large site, adjacent to the modest river. We relaxed and had lunch, watching numerous birds species as well as warthogs and impala gaze around us, with elephants viewable in the distance. Magic.

Rain showers were threatening, but the dark clouds lifted briefly, and we got a little tease of the snows of Kilimanjaro. What we saw looked very good, and we hoped we’d get a better view soon.

On our afternoon game drive we found wildlife to be plentiful, with lots of gazelle of both varieties, impala, warthogs, elephants and a herd of buffalo. The terrain is varied, particularly considering the small size of the sanctuary. Our campsite was so attractive and pleasant that we decided to head back early and just enjoy the evening at camp. 

This turned out very well. We watched wildlife from our camp chairs, including some elephants passing closer by, a pair of Verreaux Eagle owls, along with other smaller animals and common bird species. A large heap of wood sat at the campsite, and we thoroughly enjoyed an evening around the fire in this wilderness camp.

We’ve been on the road for a while now and have started to ease our stance on game viewing. Instead of rising before dawn and heading out and game viewing until sunset, we decided to enjoy more time at camp, letting the wildlife come to us. Over coffee and a proper breakfast we could see more elephants, and birdlife continued to be excellent. That morning we observed pied wagtails, a pair of very loud and territorial lilac breasted rollers, brown hooded kingfisher, Egyptian goose, fork tailed drongo, glossy ibis, hammerkop, hornbills and a few others that were too quick to spot. Amazing. 

The mountain remained with its head in the clouds this morning, so still no view of Kilimanjaro. Also, since Kimana is light on predators, we felt that took a bit of pressure off heading out at first light. Kimana is known for elephants. Whereas lions sleep about 20 hours a day, “conserving energy,” elephants eat almost 20 hours a day. This means they are almost always interesting to watch at any hour. 

From time to time a few of the big tuskers are known to enjoy spending time at Kimana; we thought perhaps we might get lucky and see one. A “tusker” or “super tusker” is an elephant with tusks so long they sweep the ground. Not far from camp we found a large breeding herd of elephants, with lots of little babies, and one particularly large elephant with a very nice set of tusks. We counted almost fifty elephants in this herd, and it was a pleasure to watch them browsing through the forest.

Moving on we continued to see good wildlife, eland and zebras and the other usual suspects. A ranger on foot waved us down. He said there had been lions sighted, did we want to see them? We did! He pointed at the only other vehicle in the park, saying they had a ranger with them and we could follow them. Off we went, and in not long we were utilizing our off-road permit, driving into tall grass. 

It was two young male lions, but they did not appreciate being watched and they kept walking through the tall grass. The first ranger we had seen had climbed a tree and was spotting the lions, directing the vehicles where to go. Eventually we broke off the chase, not wanting to drive through too much brush and because these lions clearly didn’t want anything to do with us. Still it was nice to see lions here and good fun to drive off road a bit.

The ranger who had been directing from a tree waved us down, asking for a lift. He pointed out that as there were lions near in the tall grass, it wasn’t safe for him to finish his foot patrol here. We picked him up and offered to bring him back to his base. 

On the way we were chatting and asked if any of the big tuskers were about. We mentioned that we saw a nice tusker this morning, and I showed him a photo from the back of my camera. He scoffed, mock offended, that I considered that a tusker. He asked, “Do you want to see them?” Of course we did. “I will organize for you.” Really?! That sounded great. He said he would ask around about their whereabouts, and we agreed to rendezvous at 1600 to see if we could track them down. This seemed fantastic to have a chance to see one of the few remaining super tuskers.

In particular one of the most famous, Craig, is known to inhabit Kimana frequently. Also Tolstoy likes it here, a relative of the famous super tusker, Tim, who regrettably passed away of natural causes not long ago. The gene for big tusks is hereditary, but due to poaching pressure, there are fewer and fewer big tuskers left. Less than 20 according to the Big Life Foundation, who keeps track of these sorts of things. 

After all this we retired back to camp for lunch. Some thick rain clouds were building north of us, and we pondered whether it would rain. Around about 1400 we saw Jonathan, the ranger, walking into camp. He pointed at the rain and said that we had better go look for our tusker early, before the rain made the roads impassable. We packed up from lunch quickly, and the three of us hopped in the Cruiser. 

Off we went, the sky getting ever darker, and the first rain drops began to smack against the windshield with vehemence. Jonathan was giving Jenny directions while I fussed with my camera gear, wanting to be ready in the event we got lucky. The rain came harder, and at this point it seemed lucky would just mean we didn’t get stuck. 

Jonathan was excited, telling Jenny to drive faster. He told us that the road we must take is black cotton soil, and if we don’t cross it before it gets too wet, we’ll get stuck for sure. He was almost bouncing in his seat, grinning, “Will we make it?!” 

The rain came hard. The wipers wiped furiously and we could still barely see, but the Cruiser was following the narrow track regardless. At one point Jonathan told Jenny to drive faster, but any increase on the accelerator just spun the wheels in the mud faster, not propelling us forward at any increase in speed. The Cruiser pulled through, and Jonathan declared us through the worst of it, though the road was still awash with two small streams of water in each rut, and rain pummeling down hard.

We went here and there, left and right and came to a place where a downed tree blocked the track. Jonathan and I got out in the downpour to survey. He declared it impassable and directed Jenny off road, weaving through rocks to go around the obstacle.

The rain deigned to ease from a torrent to mere downpour, and we rolled up to a rangers’ small outpost. Here two more rangers came out and consulted with Jonathan. They decided we should wait a bit for the rain to pass. This was all very suspenseful. Would we get stuck? Would the rain ease? Would we see the big tusker? Jonathan too seemed to be feeling the tension.

Finally the rain relaxed to a drizzle, and it was declared we could begin. The two other rangers set out on foot, and we were to follow in the Cruiser. After a little less than a kilometer we were told to stop, from here we’d all proceed on foot. 

It still drizzled. I tucked my camera and telephoto lens under my rain jacket, and we set out. The rangers said the bull herd had been closer, but in the storm they had moved to a swampy area, where they were now feeding.

After a bit of trudging through the mud, we were lead to the top of a small rise. Borrowing our binoculars they were able to spot one of the elephants among the leaves. Jonathan decided we were not close enough and we should go further. Walking off this rise and to the next, the rangers noted we were safer up in the rocks. We kept quiet as we marched in the rain, further and further from the safety of the LandCruiser and toward a herd of old bull elephants. It was invigorating to be tracking these big elephants on foot.

One elephant with very nice tusks emerged from the swamp, and by standing on some rocks and ducking around some thorns, we were able to get short, nice glimpses of him. One ranger stayed with us as the other two went out to scout the rest of the herd. All the rangers were smiling, clearly enjoying our afternoon’s adventure.

We moved closer, and they pointed out the biggest tusker, hidden behind some trees. They insisted that he would come out. We waited. Now it seemed that the rangers wanted us to get a good look, as a point of pride, not just a hazy photo of a grey elephant in the bushes.

The herd began to emerge from the swamp. One elephant sensed our presence and came over to the foot of our hill, ears wide signaling his unease, and trunk held high, sniffing to confirm our presence. One of the rangers whispered, “That is not good for our security.” and, “The vehicle is very far away.” We were all very quiet, and eventually this elephant was satisfied. Whether he decided we were not a threat or that he couldn’t confirm our whereabouts, I don’t know. 

And then the big one came. A huge elephant slowly moving out from the foliage, tusks reaching nearly straight down, hardly any taper to them at all. When he finally fully revealed himself, he was closer, and his tusks were incredible, long straight shafts of white ivory. 

This was the famous Tolstoy, flanked by other big bulls. What a sight. It was really exciting, and I got to perch on a rock and snap away with my camera. The rangers were excited too, I think glad that their efforts had paid off and that they too were getting a good show. 

After a while I had taken my fill of photos and we all agreed it was best we should get back to the vehicle before the herd cut off our retreat. We hiked over to the back side of the hills, out of view of the herd, while excitedly discussing our sighting.

The whole thing had been exhilarating. It seemed improbable that we’d have the good fortune to be in the right place and time to see one of the great tuskers in the first place. With the severe thunderstorm and hiking across the bush the whole thing had seemed pretty likely to result in a simple walk in the rain. We were super pumped, what a great experience.

We said our goodbyes to the rangers looking over this part of the park, tipping them for their service. Jonathan directed us back on a longer route, but on firmer ground so that we did not get stuck, and we dropped him off at his quarters. After that fantastic experience we decided to quit while we were ahead and forego the evening game drive. Half the roads were impassable from the rain now anyway. 

Back at camp we were able to continue our wildlife viewing, it seemed that the large herd of elephants we’d seen in the morning was working its way through the forest on the opposite side of the river. They’d noticed us and were keeping a wary distance. We watched elephants and birds, made a fire and enjoyed more great camp time. The pair of owls returned at dusk, they must be residents here. 

The campsite in Kimana was proving to be really excellent, taking the steam out of our usual game drive verve. But when the wildlife comes to you, in just a beautiful setting, it’s hard to convince yourself to leap up at zero-dark-thirty or finish the day late to cook dinner in the dark. We didn’t even take advantage of our night driving privileges.

As we were getting ready to retreat to the tent, the elephants started to get quite near. I wonder if they had been waiting for us to retire? We climbed into the tent and almost immediately one of the larger elephants started feeding right at the perimeter of the camp, not ten meters away. We could hear the chewing of leaves, his trunk ripping up grass, and the occasional elephantine rumble. It was absolutely enchanting to be able to sit in the security of our tent and watch this elephant so closely. 

A little later, when it was very dark, we could hear a couple of elephants in some sort of scuffle nearby. There was a trumpet and then clacking of ivory as their tusks clashed together. This went on sporadically for some time until our camp elephant friend made a fuss crossing the river and seemed to break up the fight. What a day.

The next morning I rose to finally get a view of Kilimanjaro. It seemed the thunderstorms we’d got had also given the mountain a nice dusting of snow, and we were able to see everything but the very cap of the mountain. Beautiful. 

As we packed up, a flock of very noisy violet wood hoopoes visited us, and we ticked yet another bird species in this ornithologically dense campsite.

On the morning’s game drive elephants, warthogs and antelope kindly posed in front of Kilimajaro for us. There was still high cloud cover, but this added a dramatic look to the tallest mountain in Africa. 

After a pleasant lap around Kimana’s 5700 acres we headed for the gate. We thought we’d head out towards where we’d seen Tolstoy the day before to see if we would luck out again. Instead, on the way we managed to get stuck in the mud, on the same track where we’d narrowly avoided getting stuck yesterday. A bit of shovel work and we were out though, not more than five minutes. The furious spinning of wheels deposited clumps of black cotton mud all over the cruiser, even on top of the solar panels.

Amboseli National Park

After checking out, we fueled up and got the car washed. Car washes can be found anywhere in Africa. Anywhere. Now to the famous Amboseli National Park. It was only a few kilometers down the road before we turned off onto the C103 that heads to the park’s main gate. Some kilometers of bumpy corrugations brought us to the entrance.

Surprisingly, the entry fee was cheaper than both our guidebook said and a blog we have been referencing frequently. That doesn’t happen very often! We checked in for only one night. Kimana had spoiled us, big tuskers, wilderness camping and views of the mountain too. But we couldn’t pass up this iconic park.

We had decided to only stay for a night since Kimana had been such a resounding success. This was enough time for an evening game drive and another the next morning. We had elected to stay inside the park for simplicities sake, even though by all reports the Kenyan Wildlife Service (KWS) campsite is quite modest. 

Amboseli is famous for elephants and for having a fantastic view of Kilimajaro. The mountain lies in Tanzania, but the best views are without a doubt from the Kenyan side. Amboseli is also very flat, and with most of the park being devoid of trees, you can see the mountain from almost anywhere, and herds of elephants are visible far across the plains. 

It had rained recently, and the park was green, not the dustbowl that we hear it sometimes becomes. In addition to the usual grazers, we lucked out and had a lion sighting pretty shortly after heading out. Lions are rare in Amboseli, and in Kimana they had even said that Amboseli’s lions had migrated out of the park. Not today I guess. The lions were busy sleeping, and pretty far off the road, so we let them be.

The rest of the drive was an endless parade of breeding elephant herds. So many elephants! And many well posed in front of that riveting mountain. We also saw greater and lesser flamingos, hyenas, buffalo, and a brief serval sighting. 

Hey, birds are cool too! It’s not all elephants and lions..

A few safari guides stopped their vehicles and chatted with us. We got the feeling that the safari guides here in Kenya are a bit more hip than those in Tanzania. A little younger, with big watches and carefully trimmed beards, sometimes even with sunglasses, rare among Africans. These cool guys were very friendly and almost always wanted to talk about our car. They loved the cruiser and really appreciated the effort it takes to drive all the way from southern Africa. 

There was severe flooding in the area a few years ago, and the central part of the park, where many of the fancy lodges are located, had flooded badly. This destroyed many of the lodges. Now we saw buffalo grazing in front of long abandoned chalets, zebras wandering among the wreckage and baboons sitting unmolested on verandahs. All very odd to see this ghost town of fancy safari camps. 

Back at camp for the night, we settled in. There was even another group of campers here, but plenty of room for all. The campsite is fenced, located in the same area as the rangers quarters. A camp attendant sold us some firewood, price negotiable, but we settled on 500 KSH. The ablutions were in a sorry state and had no water. I don’t think they expected to have any visitors. We took our own water to bush shower in their dry shower stalls, still very refreshing and nice. 

The next morning we were off again, heading for Observation Hill for brunch. The large herds of elephants we’d seen the evening before had dispersed somewhere else. Still there were plenty of elephant, hyena, various grazers, and bird life was really excellent. All the animals were very docile around the safari vehicles too, not jumpy at all. 

To Tsavo West via Lake Jipe

Brunch at the top of observation hill was wonderful. We brought binoculars and surveyed the plains around us, though the mountain was cloaked in clouds again. We couldn’t dally too long. We planned to drive to our next destination, Tsavo West’s Lake Jipe entrance. 

This is a little used gate at the southern end of Tsavo West National Park, but it is reportedly a scenic drive to get there and an idyllic, lakeside camp. On our way out of Amboseli we were treated to another lion sighting, this time seven or eight sleeping cats. They must have fed recently as there were grazers nearby, and they couldn’t be bothered to lift their heads.

The road to lake Jipe had us backtracking, not far, to where we’d crossed the border. Here we turned off onto a dirt road. This road had many moods, starting out rough and jarring, but frequently in very good shape and smooth going. It changed often as we cruised through scenic Kenyan countryside. We passed many farms with tall stands of maize ready for harvest and small villages with a few simple shops. Locals gave us genial waves as we passed by. 

Bumping along we continued to be educated by David Quamenn’s Spillover (yes, we are still working on it), now on the topic of HIV’s jump from primates to humans. Remarkably scientists have documented at least twelve different times HIV has spilled over to humans. Twelve times. Our minds reeling with this information, after some time Lake Chala came abeam. This was intended to be our lunch stop, but we were hours late. We stopped for a look. 

From the road Lake Chala is invisible, just a hill. Now there is a clear signpost, and we were surprised to find a gate with a man asking for a fee. In the past, we understand, this has been a free attraction, but some industrious locals are turning it into a small business. 

It looked fairly official though, with fees posted and a small parking area. They wanted to us to park and they’d run us up to the lake on boda bodas, but we demurred, telling them that our lunch was in the Cruiser. They were fine with that. We paid our fee and drove the narrow track up to the lake.

Lake Chala is a crater lake, about 4 sq. kilometers in area. Interestingly it has no rivers flowing into it. All water is fed from underground inflows, chiefly from Kilimanjaro. The lake straddles the border of Kenya and Tanzania, and we made coffee and had lunch looking across at Tanzania. 

A few locals were up there, customers of our friends down at the gate. The staff here are busy building a long drop, and their sign says they offer cold drinks and food, though I think that was aspirational, as we saw no facilities for this. Still the view was beautiful, and below us we watched falcons floating on the breezes of this steep sided crater lake.

We had to press on though. We were already late, as usual. Further south we briefly went back onto a tar road, finding it, the A23, to be brand new and not located quite where it was on the map. Africa is changing rapidly. We found our way, turning off after a few kilometers to continue heading to Lake Jipe. The road now is narrow dirt with steep ditches on the sides, evidence of the drainage needed to handle big rain. Making our way south we passed sisal plantations and land being cleared for more farms. Finally we arrived at Lake Jipe. A fence separates a nearby village from the park. We later learned from the rangers this fence isn’t to keep the wild animals in the park, but is in fact to discourage villagers from gazing their livestock within the park boundaries. 

Arriving at the gate we discovered quite a scene of construction. A ranger came out and greeted us. He was very friendly and professional. When we told him we wanted to camp, he was a little sheepish, knowing that the construction had disrupted this area quite a bit. He said that normally the public campsite is right there, he pointed at a tree, but now this was a car park with a pile of rubble and heavy equipment nearby. There was also a substantial construction crew living onsite. They were building new bandas, but for the time being the public campsite was in disarray. 

He understood this wasn’t ideal. He said we were welcome to camp, but if we did, he would still be required to charge us the full camping and entrance fee. I was very disappointed, having heard about nice lakeside camping here. Jenny had no such expectations and, reasonably, no interest in camping in a construction site.

She had noted on iOverlander that there was a lodge just outside the gate with camping, and we made to check it out. If it worked out, for a fraction of the price, we might camp there and then enter the park the next day. If it didn’t pan out, we could come back to the park. If we camped at the KWS Lake Jipe campsite in the park, we’d be subject to the full park and camping fees, $144 in total. 

Instead we ended up at the Lake Jipe Safari Lodge, which is maybe a kilometer up from the lakeshore. They were very happy to see us and welcomed us for a mere 2000 KSH. The facility had small bungalows, a bar and restaurant, a swimming pool and a small camping area on grass. This seemed an improvement, and we decided to stay here, again the only guests.

After a swim in the pool and a nice shower, the staff started a fire for us in the communal fire pit. We had a late dinner sitting around the fire. The night security guard had been stopping by to tend the fire, not trusting us with this task. His name was Elijah.

Every time he’d come by to add some wood or adjust the fire, he’d sit with us for a few minutes and chat and then head off on his duties. Later in the evening he stayed and chatted for a while, and we had a fantastic conversation with Elijah. Here are a few excerpts:

“Do you have campfires in America?” We explained that yes, we did. But also that we could cook inside on gas and had gas heat. 

We discussed wildlife, and as we were talking, we had the pleasure of hearing lions roaring not far away. He assured us we were safe, though we were not concerned, that there was a fence and that, “I am very comfortable with lions. They are very friendly animals. When I am tending my livestock and I meet a lion, we are friendly. If he has eaten and is resting you can walk to him. You see, I am Maasai. We know all the animals, how they behave, and we are friendly with them.” He went on at length about how nice lions were and how comfortable he was around them, even on foot.

As he explained the animals, and later village life and food, he frequently punctuated his explanations with, “Are you getting?” We were getting. I loved this.

Jenny, continuing an informal survey that she has asked others, “What about buffalos?” Elijah replied with a stern look, “Buffalo is not a friendly animal,” and left it at that. This coincides with all other answers we’ve received on the buffalo question. They appear to be big dumb cattle, but are actually dangerous and cantankerous animals, which is annoying, when a cow like animal wanders into your camp and you have to treat them as a mortal threat.

Directed at me, Elijah asked, “How many wives do you have?” 

I laughed, “Just one is enough for me!” 

We asked him if he had multiple wives. “My father, he has five. But me, I am not married.”

“A girlfriend?” Jenny asked. 

He giggled, “There is someone.” 

We asked if he wanted multiple wives. “Do you know the jerry can? The one for fetching water?” We did. 

“The jerry can holds ten liters, no more. My heart is like a jerry can, it is full. Full of my love for my girl, there is no room for any other. It is full, so for me, there is only one wife.” 

This, we thought, was fantastic, and since then Jenny and I have been declaring to each other, “The jerry can of my heart is full of my love for you.” Happy Valentines Day.

Nitty Gritty

Border Formalities

Pretty much as I described above. We had no issues going through, except the short concern about the carnet. We didn’t use it in Tanzania because in Tanzania all vehicles are required to get a TIP anyway. If you were going to keep your vehicle in Tanzania for longer then perhaps using a carnet would be advised.

Even when entering Kenya using a carnet for the vehicle everyone also must get a foreign vehicle permit (FVP). These are usually issued for two weeks, but we asked for longer and they offered one month. This is renewable. Jamez said he could renew it for us and we can Mpesa him the fee. It can also be renewed at Kenya Revenue Authority offices, but not all of them, only those in major centers. We have yet to renew (due in two days…), so I can’t confirm how this goes. I also don’t know how this works if you store your vehicle in Kenya, at Jungle Junction, for example. 

SIM cards in Kenya

My understanding is that SIM cards need to be registered to your passport. Last time we came in 2018 it proved to be extraordinarily difficult to get one as a foreigner, and after several unsuccessful visits to various Safaricom outlets I finally just bought a SIM off a local, registered in his name. This time around we got one SIM from Johanna, who had kept theirs from Kenya, and a second one from the boda boda driver. He also provided all his details so that I could set up Mpesa. I assume this is not legal, but I can’t imagine how it’d get us into trouble. Without all the personal details, name, pin, identity number, etc, you cannot set up/use Mpesa. [edit: I have been informed that you can easily get a new sim registered as a foreigner at official Safaricom (or airtel) shops. This would make Mpesa easier to manage as well.]

Amboseli Park Fees

Amboseli Park fees are here, $60 USD pp per/24 hrs. Officially this is single entry, meaning that if you stay outside the park you have to pay again to enter for a second game drive, but unofficially we have heard of people staying at the community campsite outside the gate to be allowed double entry. Camping inside at the KWS public campsite is $30 pppn. The public campsite is rustic but functional enough. Ablutions were not all that clean, and there was no water, but that was a temporary state. The campsite is fenced and has a nice enough atmosphere, but isn’t a destination on it’s own for sure. Firewood available for purchase from the camp attendant. The KWS website for various parks is easy to use and look up fees for whatever. 

Kimana

It is tragic that camping will no longer be available at Kimana. Even so, assuming they continue to allow day visitors, it is well worth a day visit. Their website is here: https://www.kimanasanctuary.com. Camping was $50 pppn, which includes entry and firewood. For what you get this is a deal.

Given the new business charging for entry to Lake Chala I don’t think you could camp at the rim, as others have done in the past. The fee is 150 KSH per vehicle and 50 KSH per person. This is on the northern road on T4A. The road was in good condition, we did not see the southern road. Side note, what is up with the ‘per vehicle’ charges everywhere in Africa? This makes no sense to me…it’s no like it’s encouraging car pooling.

Kimana’s excellent write up on “how to drive around elephants” is below. Highly recommended:

Lake Jipe

Lake Jipe Safari Lodge is owned by the Lavender Garden Hotels. There are some unflattering reviews on iOverlander for this place and all those people are wrong. Or at least we felt so. We were charged 2000 KSH total for two people. Firewood included. Ablutions by the pool were decent, 3.5/5 with cold showers, the ablutions nearer the campsite were not good. 1/5. They told us to use the pool ablutions. Staff were very friendly.

I’m sure that when the bandas are done that camping at Lake Jipe within the park will be lovely once again. Note that you do need to pay park fees to camp here, in addition to the camping fee. As we arrived late in the day that didn’t make sense for us, when added to the construction site feeling.

Just this morning we saw the “big 5”, (black) rhino, leopard, lion, buffalo and elephant; not to mention giraffe, zebra, topi, Thompson’s gazelle, hippo, warthog, impala, waterbuck, giraffe, and no doubt some stuff I forgot on top of that.  This combined with the truly stunning vistas of the Masai Mara and we are really almost speechless.

But before I get too far into the wild I’ll catch you up with getting here.

We left Kacheliba on Monday morning and headed back up to the highlands towards Eldoret.  Our next big destination was the Masai Mara Conservancy, and now here we are.  We considered taking the route Richard had recommended through the Cherengani Hills to Lake Baringo and Lake Bogoria.  Reportedly you can make it through to Baringo in a day, but we tend to travel slow, and as we needed to provision and fuel we came to our senses, for once, and decided not to bite off too much.

It is with regret that we didn’t have time for more of Kenya, it’s an embarrassment that we can’t spend more time here.  Next time.  For now we went up the escarpment and took a right on the A1, heading south to Kitale.  Provisioning at Kitale was easy, there are two large supermarkets across from each other down town, Transmatt and Khetia’s, both well stocked, with the odd exception of eggs.  Eggs are obtainable in flats of 36, too much for us, or in a paper sack of 5.  I probably don’t have to tell you that a paper sack is not the ideal way to transport eggs, even if you aren’t off roading.  We found this elsewhere too, sort of hilarious.  We searched around and found a sort of plastic egg carton thing which hopefully will work.

Kitale had really grown up since I worked in the area in 2008.  Then we used to run to Kitale to go to the bank and hardware store and so forth so I felt I sort of knew town a bit, but visiting now it’s clear that things, whether just in the region or maybe Kenya in general, are booming.  Where there was before only two filling stations that would often run out of fuel, there are now what seems a dozen.  Traffic is thick and before it was calm, the open market has expanded exponentially and hotels are restaurants are many instead of few.  North of town on the A1 there was a garish brand new multi story hotel complete with bell hops, a pool and all kinds of bling, but strangely no sign.  It seemed open and operational and I wonder who their market is?

After provisioning we turned onto the B2 and made our way towards Eldoret.  Eldoret is larger than Kitale and also has been booming.  It seems there is an oil pipeline distribution hub here, petroleum trucks line the road on the way into town for kilometers.  After my second failed attempt at getting a sim card for my phone we headed about 20 kilometers out of town to Naiberi River Overland Camp.

Naiberi is geared towards the overland truck business, large trucks plying multi week trips throughout various regions of Africa, with low budget backpacker style travel.  Overland trucks have a bad rap in the self drive overland world as they often crowd camps and can be a bit too loud partying.  There was an overland truck with 12 passengers here today, but they were completely pleasant, no complaints.

The camp is on a hill, with four large covered open “kitchens” (a generous term) with a sink, power outlet, lighting and braii/fire area and an almost flat parking space.  There is a lower campsite on a large lawn with no facilities that they said they don’t open up unless the upper sights are full.  It looked nice down there, but with the recent heavy rain the ground was saturated, and they also said it’s quite cold down by the river.  It was already pretty cold at our site, with the elevation being something like 2300 meters.

Ablutions are clean and pretty nice, with hot showers, flush toilets and decent lighting.  Between the upper camp and the lower camp there is a huge restaurant/bar/hangout zone with great atmosphere, if anything maybe a bit overdone, but someone has clearly put a lot of thought and effort into it.  Also in the bar area is a large fire pit and they stoked up a big fire in the evening, great for warming up.  Outside they had a pool and deck along with small covered areas around for hanging out in the afternoon.

After a lot of days on the road we decided to stay a couple days and regroup a bit, get laundry done and relax.  The first night we had dinner at the restaurant and I had a really great Indian dish, chicken meri-methti (spelling?) with chapati.  Jenny had mutton nyama choma, a Kenyan national dish, and we were happy.

The staff here were really great, checking in with us often to see if we needed anything.  Organizing firewood, dinner, where to go in town to pick up a few things, laundry and even my much sought after sim card were all sorted out in short order.

Like Barnley’s Guest House, they mentioned that business was really slow.  I’d certainly recommend Naberi for a stop if you’re in the area.  Hopefully things pick up for them, it’s good to see someone putting in such effort and building a nice facility.

A couple nights at Naberi was great, but it was cold at night and we felt the call of the bush, so we pressed on to the Masai Mara.  Right out the door we took a wrong turn and went 20 kilometers or so the wrong direction.  We had to double back, much to the amusement of the police that had stopped us at a checkpoint earlier.  On our brief diversion we saw dozens and dozens of runners along the road.

Many residents of here do not have the time or need for such things as exercise, the daily lives of many rural Kenyans being very busy just getting by, and hauling all of your water or food or charcoal or whatever is plenty exercise enough.  However Kenya and Eldoret in particular are unique in that this is the home of most of the elite Kenyan runners.  Runners from Eldoret are famous the world over for long distance running, winning marathons and holding records in large numbers.  It was nice seeing these runners training along the road to make a connection to what I had read about.  I’d recommend the Radiolab podcast on Kenyan runners if you are interested.

Back on track we got onto the main highway towards Nairobi.  At this point I must take back all that I said about the Kenyan roads being hectic and stressful.  We found the A104 to be in perfect condition, with ample lanes, passing lanes on the climbs to get around slow trucks and also wide shoulders.  Pedestrians, boda bodas and matatus thinned out and we raced along with ease.

We passed the equator at 9100’ of elevation.  Kind of amazing to think how far we have driven.  We have about 9000 kilometers on the clock for this trip.  The equivalent from our home in California is a quick drive to Equador.  And now we need to drive back!  It doesn’t seem so far to us, each day has been an exploration, and when you’re not sure what each day will bring it’s easy to not consider, too much, how far you have to go.

A Logistical digression:

We turned off the A104 to the road marked B1 and C23 on T4A, not sure why the two names.  To further muddy the waters the very new looking road sign says the turnoff is for the A1.  I think this is because it eventually links up with the A1.  The sign is marked for Kericho.

From the A104 turnoff to Kericho the road is beautiful and passes through many kilometers of fervent green tea plantations.  After Kericho the road narrows but is in perfectly fine shape.

T4A would prefer we turned off onto the B23, just before Sotik.  However we did not, we took Stan’s advice (of Slow Donkey fame, who’s meticulous blog has helped many an overland traveler to follow in his footsteps.  We considered calling our vehicle “Slower Donkey” but decided against it) and pressed on the next logical turn toward Kilgoris.  This turn is simply marked “road” on T4A, but links up with the C17.

After Kilgoris the road turns to gravel (is marram the correct term?), a little bumpy at first but improving quite a bit after about half way to the Oloololo gate.

Digression over.

Getting closer to the Masai Mara we were beginning to see more traditional dress, though mostly combined with western clothing.  A baseball cap, jeans and a t-shirt, but a Masai blanket and hearding stick being the most common outfit.

Masai Mara

We arrived at the Oloololo gate around 3:30 pm, and logically we should have saved our money and camped outside the gate.  But the call of the wild was too strong and we plunked down our credit card so we could camp inside the park that night.  Park fees cover 24 hrs from the time of purchase, so it wasn’t totally ridiculous.

At the gate we bought firewood, at the exorbitant price of 1000 ksh a wheelbarrow full, and after a lot of waiting around they brought us what was almost a tree.  With the help of the rangers we wrestled it onto the roof rack, fearing a bit too much weight up top we agreed to have a big fire that night.

Wanting to get in a bit of an evening drive before heading to Eulai camp we charged into the park, foolishly not asking about road conditions, or directions to our camp.  In retrospect all of this would have been useful.

As is our usual tendency, we headed for the river road.  Normally water draws the wildlife, but since it has been such a huge rainy season this is not the case right now.  Fortunately the Mara Triangle is teeming with wildlife, so that part proved not to be a problem.  As a side note, the western part of the Masai Mara is operated by the Masai Mara Conservancy and is all the territory West of the Mara River.  This area is referred to “the conservancy” or “the triangle”.  Universally everyone will tell you that the Conservancy is better run, but what exactly that meant we were not sure.  We will find out.

Later we learned that this year the Mara has seen the most rain for 60 years.  This meant that the roads are very wet and muddy in some places.  Our river road turned into a two spoor track and from that it turned into the barest hint of a path, just two parallel lines of bent grass where vehicles had been before, but vague to say the least.  Slowly we progressed, seeing elephants and topi and having a grand time, back in a park, alone on a wild track and just us and the animals.

As we went along we started watching the clock with concern.  With the vague track and muddy conditions we were making slow progress, and it looked like we were going to be late to camp.  Sunset is 6:30 pm, and you are supposed to be in camp no later than seven o’clock.

We were getting close to where the track connected to the main road and we would be free and clear, but we came to a muddy ravine across the road, clearly impassable.  We had to turn back, and with that there went our hope of being in camp on time.

We made somewhat faster progress back tracking, but even then we were following the maze of tracks trying to find the shortest route to the main road without having to be turned back again.  A couple times we rolled the dice when given the choice between right and left and luckily picked correctly.  As we approached the main road we were treated to a pride of female lions with cubs, but we were so late and had so far to go we only stopped for a minute.

Back on the main road we made good time towards camp, and that is when we realized we hadn’t asked for any details about the camp site.  When we had said we’d like to camp at Eluai public campsite they simply said “okay” and that was it.

So here we were, late and racing towards our camp while losing the meager light that was left, having no idea of really where we were going.  The map that they gave us was very general, just a dot in between two roads.  Tracks 4 Africa had it marked clearly, so we put our faith in the GPS, but when we made it to the supposed turn there was no road at all.  Hmm.

It was dark by now, so we doubled back, the GPS showing an alternative approach.  Sure enough there was a muddy small track off the main road with no sign.  We took it, and crept into the tall grass.  A Rutted muddy track, and more and more it seemed we might be in the wrong spot.  No sign, a little used road.  We figured regardless where we found ourselves we would just camp and sort it out in the morning, but with grass a meter high all around camping would not be that great without at least a small clearing.

I zoomed way in on the gps and we followed the merest suggestion of a track in the grass and watched the screen for guidance, creeping along.  Finally we found a tiny clearing around an old termite mound and we called it good and made camp.  This is fully wild, no other people, no lights, no fences, just us in the bush of the Mara.  If it wasn’t for our late arrival we would have been thrilled.  Even so, after we got a fire going and after a much needed beer settled down a bit it was really nice to be out there all alone under the stars.  We couldn’t wait to wake up and see where we were in the morning.