Moyale Kenya

Monday 16th July 2007 Moyale Hotel – Ethiopian side
Just to the north of Marsabit the road climbed up the side and round the rim of an enormous collapsed volcanic cone, 500m in diameter, then dropped into the Dida Galgalud Desert of the rocky lava field, with camels and goats. They must live on rocks because there isn’t much else to eat.
Daves Landcruiser’s radiator is still leaking and we spent a lot of time waiting for him to solder up the leaks (which should have been fixed in Nairobi so we are getting annoyed!!!). Then he had trouble with his shock absorber and we had to wait again. This in country where bandits have been known to hijack vehicles!!!
The road was hard and corrugated for the first 100Km and one didn’t know whether to go fast and jump over all the corrugations or slower and hit all the rocks the size of cricket balls and larger. The 250Km took us 8 ½ hours, including g the 1 1/2hr stops for the Landcruiser. Parts looked like the northern Transvaal with lots of goats, camels and Boran-type cattle.
However we got to the border town of Moyale eventually and got through into Ethiopia with no problems. Now the language and writing is totally foreign, so we feel a bit unsure of ourselves, being illiterate in Amharic which is the one (of 70 languages in Ethiopia) used here. Not only is the date wrong in Ethiopia, as they are due to celebrate the start of the new millennium on 11th September this year, (it is still 1999 now), but the time is also different. They have 12-hour cycles starting at 6.00 and 18.00, so things could get confusing! Also they drive on the right side of the road!! When we got across the border Willy kept telling Brian over the radio to ‘go right’, but Brian protested that he had to go straight because Nev had already found a place to stay up the road. So Brian had already driven a kilometer on the left side of the road until he realized what Willy was talking about! Not easy.
We have been adopted by a little man (why are they all so small and thin?) who changed money for us, showed us an hotel to stay, took us to a restaurant for a traditional Ethiopian meal, is a mine of information and is taking us to the South Omo River Valley as our guide.
Don’t think of hotels or restaurants in SA standards. The hotel consists of en suite bedrooms. There is a double bed with clean linen, mozzy net and a blanket and cover, a little table and chair and two small pedestals. None of the colours match. The bathroom has a shower head and a hole for the water, a toilet pan with no seat (we have found this often, that there is no seat) and a basin. Only one tap, as there is no such thing as warm water, and a bucket of water with a jug for flushing the toilet as the water supply is erratic – there was no water when we arrived, but there is electricity from the town’s very loud diesel generator down the road (which switches off between 1.00 and 7.00. Apparently this country is very safe and we can walk anywhere at any time.
The restaurant is clean but just looks grubby and I had roast goat. Pieces served in a miniature braai with the coals on the bottom (very salty) with rolls, a chilly sauce and a small pancake-like roll of fermented teff bread, which tasted a bit like beer bread, and Nev didn’t like. He had a goat-rice dish (very salty too) which I thought was unusual and delicious. He thought it was fine.

Sunday 15th July 2007 Marsbit National Park camp site
This morning we made our way out of Loyangolani and after 50Km the terrain changed from rocks and gravel and hills to flatter, marginally more grass and smaller rocks. Then 40Km from North Horr there were stones that would make a hardware shop owner weep. Scattered everywhere were concrete stones, a layer 10cm deep for miles around. The shop-owner would have had to sweep them all up to sell them.
This gave way to flat desert gravel plains with herds of single-humped camels. Some had a bell round their necks, others were tied in a long string, nose to tail, loaded with yellow plastic barrels filled with water and tied on their backs, together with firewood, led by a woman, her clothing flapping in the wind, her heavy coloured bead necklaces holding her from being swept away.
After North Horr, a dusty conglomeration of rounded huts and brick buildings, we made our way across the Chalbi desert and into the vast (20KmX20Km at least) drying salt pan north of Marsabit. We got left behind looking at some vultures and had to drive through the pan, making our own track towards the well-used one where Dave waited. The poor Landy really had to work, and nearly boiled, but Nev wasn’t going to stop in case he got stuck like Rick did in the Magadigadi. So we kept going and made it safely. It was like being in the middle of a field of blinding white snow stretching to the horizon in all directions.
Marsabit is a really dirty town where discarded plastic bags flutter on the acacias and grass and buildings, and the goats eat the accumulated rubbish in the middle of the streets. These were the fattest goats we have seen, they do well on all the plastic! 5Km from the town was the dump with plastic bags hooked on bushes for a couple on the kilometers in a westerly direction, blown by the wind. The camp site just outside the reserve, however was really pleasant. It was a full days drive, we only arrived at 16.00.
The past 4 days have definitely been one of the highlights of our trip and shouldn’t be missed by travelers in Kenya.
We were sorry to leave Kenya, we really enjoyed it, and had no bad experiences with the people there.

Saturday 14th July 2007 Palm Shade Camp, Loyangolani
The others decided they had had enough of the wind (just as I was getting used to it), and it was too windy to go fishing so we packed up and made our way north towards Loyangolani, a Turkana village near the Lake. We rock-bounced again and after a few Km Dave’s Landcruiser was leaking water again so while more soldering repairs were being done with Will’s help on the road, Brian and we carried on ahead slowly able to admire the scenery, looking at the extinct volcanoes and speculating. Nev spotted a well with fresh water. We were amazed to count more than 40 people in this harsh rocky land where they have built houses of sticks and branches of thorn trees. Even the “Three Little Pigs” were able to build better houses than these Turkana people.
We arrived at Loyangolani. There is a lodge here, closed because it out of season, and four campsites. Nev and I decided to sleep in a banda – little individual room (to protect our tent again) so went with a guide around the tiny village of traditional huts with women dressed in traditional Turkana garb for the tourists. However they dress with their ornate and colourful heavy beaded necklaces every day, not just for tourists. The colours indicate to which family they belong. The girls get ‘booked’ when they are about 10 years old and ‘married’ at pubity. The children gatheres around us and held our hands and Brian looked like father Christmas with all the kids around him. I asked the guide where the toilets were, and he pointed to the dry river bed, saying when the rains come, they wash the place clean.
When we were taken to the hot springs surrounded by palm springs like an oasis, which supplies the town with water. There we met an American missionary who was sick and tired of the United Nations and other “Do-Gooders” dishing out free food and making the people reliant on aid that he has started work projects in the area and is busy negotiating with a foreign firm to built 100X 2Mwatt wind turbines in the area to exploit the prevailing winds. He told us that this is the LOW season for wind, being winter, and the reat of the year the wind blows twice as hard as it was blowing today. Whew! The temp reaches 64 degrees in mid summer.
In our little banda we can hear (and feel, as it isn’t wind-proof, thank goodness as it is so warm) the wind howling through the palm trees and are glad we didn’t put up our tent in this wind.


Friday 13th July 2007 windy camp Lake Turkana
Guess what? We woke up to a gale but while I cleaned out Landy, Nev changed the oil, and filters. So did Willy and Brian while Dave soldered his radiator again. Nev and Brian then went fishing and Nev they both caught their first Nile Perch of about 5-6Kg each. They give quite a good fight, and Brian’s jumped right out of the water like a marlin. Dave’s big one got away, shame.
Nev and I explored the surrounding area of rocks, devoid of cover with the wind howling about our ears and nearly blowing us off the cliff edges. On the plains where there were pedestals of tough spiky salt-resistant grass we came across herds of goats eking out a survival eating virtually nothing. Here was evidence of hyena and mice, we saw a crock, goliath heron, Egyptian Geese, Fish eagle and great comorants, grey-headed gulls and lapwings. We worked out a way to cook using a bit of charcoal and protecting the fire with stones. In the evening the wind abated slightly and Brian decided to put up his roof-top tent again. In the middle of the night he had to abandon the idea and put his tent down again and spent the rest of the sleepless night on the ground in the wind.
Our Landy was one meter away from the Lake. The water is slightly salty and has a slippery feel on the skin. It is alkaline and people and animals drink it readily. We used our own water for consumption, but the Lake water for all washing, and we swam and washed in it near the edge, too scared to go too far into the water because of the risk of crocodiles. We are getting used to the wind,



Thursday 12th July 2007 windy camp Lake Turkana
After proceeding for 15Km we came across South Horr, a tiny town in the middle of nowhere with a huge British flag flying on a pole and a white 50 something year old lady waving at us. We stopped to chat while the others went on ahead. She is married to a black Kenyan, and has become a Kenyan citizen, living now in this remote place in a little block house (nice) in the middle of nowhere with fantastic views. She is as happy as a lark and invited us in for tea. We couldn’t take up the offer as the others had left us and we had to catch up. The road wound along a contour with steep rocky mountains on either side of the valley – really stunning scenery.
The topography changed slowly over a few Km and became flatter and sandier and then evidence of the violent volcanic explosions started with rocks littering the plains in all directions. The were 50Km of stones ranging from cricket ball size to soccer ball size, and some very large boulders lying virtually touching each other, and lying in heaps in places. Black rocks, smoothed by the continual action of wind and sand glistened in the sun. No-one could have dodged that hail of rocks. There were also lava flows. Reminiscent of parts of Namibia, it was fascinating.
We continued along a rocky track and suddenly there she was, the jade sea, Lake Turkana. Blue, blue at first but as we came down the mountain to 350m the reason for the nickname was revealed. Not grass green, but a clear aqua green with the white flecks of waves whipped up by the infamous winds of the area. Not winds, gales gusting up to 60Km/hr and not less than 30Km/hr. We had been told about a camp site which was out of the wind in the south so stone-hopped along an imaginary track which hadn’t been used for months and after about 15Km found what we thought was a relatively sheltered spot under a cliff. This was remoteness in the extreme. But lo and behold, within 5 minutes, there was Samburu wanting work. No matter where you are the locals appear, out of the trees/grass and now even rocks!! We decided to employ him so that if we caught any fish he could scale, gut and fillet them, or be available for any other chores. He was quite happy. We set up camp in a gale, readied the boat, and waited for the wind to die down (it didn’t), so Will and Brian went fishing. An hour later they came back and Will had caught a 20Kg Nile Perch. It was a real beaut (Peter, our man said it was small as they are caught up to 100Kg!!), and proceeded to expertly fillet it and we had a delicious supper. It was so windy we battled to cook as the gas fire kept getting blown out.
The others put out their awnings and roof-top tents. Dave’s awning got bent with the wind so they folded their tents up and followed our lead in sleeping inside the vehicle, which we had made provision for by taking out one layer of boxes and sleeping on a mattress on a layer level with the top of the fridge. We were warned that the wind only gets harder and harder at night. The temp during the day was 34, at 21H00 was 31 and cooled to 24 in the early morning. The Landy was buffeted all night but we slept well.

Wednesday 11th July 2007 Dry River Bed Bush camp Samburu country.
We woke with a start as a church bell was gonging in our ears 10m away from our tent. There were shouts of ‘Neville, switch off your alarm’ and lots of discussion about whether the muslim shouting or the church bells were the worse! It got us on to an early start and we got to Maralal where Willy’s shock absorber bracket was re-welded.
We proceeded towards Lake Turkana, dreading the road ahead. It was not as bad as expected, except for different places where we had to go in “one low” and covered 120Km in 4 hours, having to stop for an hour while Willy soldered up the Landcruiser’s leaking radiator, as it was overheating again. Maureen and I played cards in the shade and Nev and Brian fitted the new hose to our Landy.
From the highlands of Maralal, we saw one of the remaining two commercial wheat farms, passed through areas of heavily overgrazed (the G word again – goats) then beautiful virgin forests of cedar and euphorbia, and got to the Losiolo escarpment overlooking the mountains and valleys of the Suguta Valley below.
United Nations food programmes do not realize how much harm they are doing. In the past when there was a drought the locals sold or ate their goats/cattle/sheep to live, thereby naturally reducing the stock numbers on the land. Now when there is a drought, the locals are given food and water and the stock numbers put even more pressure on the already overgrazed land. If only someone with brains would do a bit of research before “doing good”, which is harming the economy and land. We see this again and again.
The Samburu here dress in multicoloured cloths and piles of beautiful beaded necklaces. The young men have plaited beaded ropes draped around their bodies and red blankets. They all have stretched ear lobes. They are tall and lean. They have similar customs to the Maasai.
We dropped down into the valley with isolated inselbergs rising out of the scrub and found an isolated dry river bed in which to make camp. It is quiet and awesome here.
After some time four armed Samburu arrived with 303 rifles. Nev went to talk to them and found they couldn’t speak English but were friendly. I got out the dictionary and found they wanted to be our security for the night . After protracted discussion we settled for KSh200 each for the night. We felt safe and they did a good job all night by patrolling around our camp. Nev heard a hyena calling, which made his night.

Tuesday 10th July 2007 Catholic Mission, Wamba
We videoed a pair of lion mating, which they do every 8-9 minutes, and saw lots and lots of elephants which are destroying the trees. We were quite disappointed in the number of animals we saw, although the birds were lovely.
We left at about 4pm and made our way to Wamba, 60Km away and slept at a Catholic Mission where the kids bothered me with “give me sweet” and “give me biscuit”, but they left when the sun went down.

Monday 9th July 2007 Samburu camp
This morning before the sun rose and I took a photo of the peaks of Mount Kenya just before the clouds covered it again. Everyone has decided to stick together.
We proceeded towards Nanyuki where we shopped for spare hub grease covers, had some delicious samoosas and proceeded through freezing rain and 13 deg C at 2600m, through fields of commercial wheat with electric fences around, down the scarp to 800m, 30deg C in 10Km.
We got to the gate at Samburu Reserve. Samburu is famous for having a lioness who is in a habit of adopting young Oryx. She has adopted five so far, quite a story. There are also different animals like the beisa oryx (lighter than ours), reticulated giraffe (very cleanly coloured markings), gerenuk (long-necked browsers like impala), Grevy’s zebra (thin pin-stripes) and lots of pairs of dik dik.

Sunday 8th July 2007 Naro Moru River Lodge
Before we left Garissa, Government Hotel (the dust bowl) which is like a large, sprawling Karoo town, Nev spoke to a representative of the United Nations. He was overseeing the processing of food parcels to be given to the 169000 Somali refugees who were in a camp near Dif on the Kenya/Somalia border. The Kenyan police have now been given orders to “shoot to kill” any Somalis who came into Kenya, so no more were coming. Some of the Somali “Shiftas” (bandits) posed as refugees asking for food, and then the rest who were hiding and armed, would ambush the donors, shooting and killing them. So it was difficult to know the difference. In Garissa there were many Somalis who have been there a while and the Kenyan government have been accepted as Kenyans. They were very tall and lean, and wear turbans on their heads. The woman are totally covered up as they are Muslims.
We proceeded towards Thika, passing large herds of camels grazing the acacia. The huts of the locals are sticks bent over, with branches thrown over for shade, temporary housing for the nomads. We did a big shop at a lovely new supermarket while we thought the Landcruiser’s radiator was being welded, and proceeded towards Nanyuki. Running out of light we found a camp at Naro Moru. We could see the tip of Mount Kenya peaking through the couds, full of snow!! Here again, on the equator we had a chilly night. It never ceases to amaze us how cold it can get on the equator. Temperature is a function of altitude rather than latitude.