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February 17th – 22nd, 2022

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.