MOYALE TO NAIROBI
We entered Kenya at the border town of Moyale, and spent our first night free camping with Marc & Dela in the back of a massive police compound. You couldn’t get more secure or cheap, especially after the campsite we planned on staying in wanted to charge us US$15 each.
The next day we drove to Marsabit in convoy with Marc & Dela, which took us 10 and a half hours to drive just 250 km. The dirt road from Moyale to Marsabit is the worst road we’ve driven on to date. The surface is in absolute bits and full of:
Corrugations (series of regular bumps with short spacing in the road surface), which shake the jeep like a kid's rattler...
…hard & soft sand…
…and gravel & rocks…
We lost a wheel nut, the jerry can holder underneath broke from bottoming out, one of the batteries leaked, steering fluid leaked and the back window motor and brakes got so caked in dust they barely worked. Poor Podge was in the horrors with what the road was doing to his baby!
After spending the night in Henry’s Camp in Marsabit, we continued along the bad road to the Umoja women’s camp in Samburu traveling the last few km on glorious glorious asphalt.
The Umujo Uaso Women’s Group is made up of about 60 women who escaped from brutally violent and abusive domestic situations. They set up a village and campsite in the area where the motto is “Where Women Rule”.
On our second day there I woke up with what I thought was the worst hangover I’ve ever had. As the day went on my entire body started aching and I was feeling like complete crap. Spent that day and night in my tent with a whopping fever hoping I hadn’t caught malaria. The next day I found out I had Rift Valley fever from a mosquito bite... not nice!
The next morning when we were getting ready to leave, we met an amazing girl from Nairobi called Dola. She had an old guitar with her and after hearing we were leaving said she’d give us a quick performance. Brilliant musician with an amazing voice and really infectious personality.
When she finished playing I said I’d swap her something for one of her CDs. When I produced my guitar case from the back of the jeep she actually fell on the ground screaming. I had intended leaving the guitar in Africa anyway and though this was the perfect person to give it to. So after sticking an Irish flag on it and signing it, she gave us a quick tune of Jambo Bwana (absolutely class song!!!). It was great to see my very first guitar go to a good home.
NAIROBI
After our memorable encounter with Dola, we all headed south to Nairobi. Almost all overlanders going through Nairobi stop off at a place called Jungle Junction (JJs). It’s a compound/hostel/campsite/garage located in the Embassy belt of Nairobi and owned by a sound German guy called Chris. After the terrible road from Moyale, most people generally need to get a few repairs done to their jeeps/motorbikes and what better place to choose. As nice as the area is, there were two gunshots one night down the road where two guys were shot dead trying to break into a compound. At least we knew we were safe :).
At JJs myself, Podge, Michael (Germany) and Mark (England) decided to do ‘the kilo challenge’ as you can get a 1 kg fillet of beef for about 5 euro in the local butcher. I made my famous pepper sauce to accompany it. As tasty as the meat was, it was a hell of a lot of work. We all managed to finish it, however it proved to be a bit too much for poor Mark who fell short with about 200 g left. Still, he put up a valiant effort for an English man ;). Sorry Mark!
Myself, Mark, Podge and Michael
Unfortunately Mark and his dad Tony had to cut their Africa trip short and head home after Tony crashed his motorbike in Rwanda breaking his leg in three places. They’re two lovely lads we first met in Egypt a few months ago. Get well soon Tony!
After a week in JJs (and a lot of steak), Collette and Maxie (Podge’s parents) flew into Nairobi to travel around with us for a few of weeks. It was great to have the newest members of the Global-Slacker team on board. Our first outing was to the giraffe sanctuary in Nairobi. You can feed them and they even give you a kiss if you’re lucky, scooorrrre…
After finally seeing some semi-wild animals, we wanted to see more. So the following day we set off for the Masai Mara game reserve. A long drive on crap roads, but soo worth it.
MASAI MARA
The Masi are a tribe who live beside the reserve. They all wear a red tartan garment over their shoulders and carry spears to protect themselves from wild animals. Here's a fine example...
We spent two days in the reserve driving around in the jeep. Unbelievable experience. You could easily spend a month in the place.
Me, Maxie, Podge, Collette and Janer
Here are some of the amazing things we saw (watch out National Geographic)…
- Elephants & hippos (me thinks hippos are scared of elephants)…
- Crocodiles sitting in the sun. Crocodiles are only found in two places on earth; the northern and southern hemisphere…
- Vultures eating the shit out of a wildebeest...
- Water buffalos eating the shit out of grass…
- Wildebeest crossing the Mara River…
- Wilder beasts that never made it across the Mara River getting the shit eaten out of them by more vultures…
- A cheetah…
- A gazelle…
- A cheetah chasing a gazelle…
…a cheetah killing a gazelle…
…and cheetah cubs eating a gazelle…
- Lions; menacing and terrifying, they have been menacing and terrifying people for over a decade…
- And monkeys, lots of monkeys. Interestingly, researchers believe that monkeys make up over 80% of the worlds monkey population…
Anyway, all good things must come to an end and we headed back to JJs in Nairobi and watched Ireland v S. Africa in a hotel in the city… the less said about that the better.
Next day, we headed for the coast stopping one night at Red Elephant campsite in Voi. Here’s David from the campsite. I told him I’d put him on the blog. He’d some great stories about Kenya.
TIWI BEACH
After two days on the road, we arrived at Tiwi Beach just south of Mombasa… pure paradise; white sand, palm trees, warm sea, coconuts to drink, fresh fish on the campfire and good auld Tucker beer. Marc & Dela were already here when we arrived.
We all loved it so much we spent a whole week and celebrated Janer’s 25th birthday Saturday night…
We’re just back in Nairobi today and heading off to some lake and game reserve with Maxie and Collette tomorrow. It's a tough life, but someone's gotta do it!
No comments:
Post a Comment