africa-overland

28th September.

We’re now in Kenya, having done the infamous Bandit road form Moyale (the border town) and Marsabit. This is a 250km stretch of road that is notorious for high-jacking and bandits. The advice is to drive fast and don’t stop for anything. Unfortunately in checking the car before we left I found that one of the rear suspension bushes had worn through on the 10 hour drive to and from the Bale Mts. I had to replace it before we left. I was unable to buy the bush itself and ended up having to buy a whole shock absorber for 60$ and fit it quickly, this done we set off. Thankfully we had no trouble on the road from bandits. The only trouble was the road itself. I know I keep on going on about the roads but this was something else. I would gladly drive on all the crappy roads we’ve done so far, even the Lalibela – Addis stretch, than drive on that road again. Imagine someone has knocked down and house, all the rubble, bricks and concrete everywhere. Then imagine driving over it. The road was just volcanic boulders everywhere. It was so bad that even trying to drive carefully I snapped the new shock absorber I had bought in half. Imagine what the road has to be like to snap a shock absorber! Their job is to absorb shocks and this one broke in 3 hours! The 250km stretch took us 6 hours and we finally pitched up in Marsabit. We are now in territory that Henry and Ali know well as they’ve both spent a lot of time in Kenya. So we headed straight to the Marsabit Game Reserve to camp. This is an amazing spot overlooking a lake where you could see Cape buffalo gazing whilst we were cooking dinner. The reserve is on an extinct volcano that rises out of the desert that is northern Kenya. We drove to the top and all around you is dense forest on the hill and then in at the bottom of the volcano is desert in every direction. It is very weird but also stunning.

Looking back up the Bandit road, although it was a crap road it was very beautiful. Below is Lake Nakuru National Park

Marsabit crater and game reserve

29th September.

Did another 6 hours today on the builder rubble to get to the Shaba Game reserve. This is right next to where the BBC film their Big Cat Diary series, the Samburu GR. Because of this all the tourists go there and not to Shaba, even though they have the same animals, and thus the reserve is totally deserted. We actually camped right in the reserve. When we got to the campsite it was full of buffalo that we had to wait to move off before we could set up. We then went on an evening game drive and saw elephants, buffalo, zebra, giraffe, dik dik, and impala. Then next morning we got up at sunrise and went on another drive and amazingly found 5 juvenile male lions eating a kill. Somewhat worrying to think that this was only about 10km away from where we’d camped the night. This was amazing; we watched them for a while and then continued. We saw little after this and finally headed back to the campsite to clear up and move on. Today (30th) is the day we saw goodbye to the boys. It is weird to think that we’ve been travelling with them for over a month now. We have arranged to meet up in the Mara though in 2 weeks. It is been excellent being with them and the Mara should be a good laugh.

The river at Shaba Game Reserve and the hills in the distance

1st October

Having left the boys yesterday we drove the short distance to the Naro Moro River Lodge, where we are basing ourselves for our attempt to summit Mt Kenya. It is a hard walk really but I’ve got to make it should a bit more dangerous and exciting than that haven’t I! We also had our first bit of proper road kill yesterday. This enormous (about the size of a turkey), beautiful and now very dead eagle decided to fly into the front of our car whilst we were doing about 80km. We’re bloody lucky it hit the roof rack above the windscreen because it would have gone straight through the screen and ended up on our laps! As it happened it hit the rack, fell onto the bonnet and got edged between the windscreen and the spare tyre, all this was happening whilst I was screeching (or grinding to a halt because the brakes are making a funny noise and I can’t work out what it is!) to a halt. Once stopped I had to use the shovel (!) to get it off the bonnet. It’s a shame really because it was beautiful, but obviously a little thick if it thought it could win by head butting 3.5 tonnes of landy! I knew we’d get some proper road kill on this trip but I didn’t think it would be an eagle. I bet there aren’t many people that can claim that.
Anyway, we’re now camping at the lodge and had our first proper hot showers for a month yesterday. Thank god! We also ate in the restaurant and properly pigged out on the buffet. You’ve just got to get your moneys worth when it’s a buffet. We’re going to spend the next few days cleaning out the car. Look up bull dust on the internet. It is this really fine dust, like flour, that gets everywhere. Everything we own is covered. We’re also waiting for our map of Mt Kenya to arrive and then we go up the Mt. This should be on Tuesday.

The view back down the mountain on the way up. In the distance are the Aberdares Mountains

The view of the summit from Mackinders camp. You can't see Point Lenana as it is behind. The path up is round to the right and up the massive scree slope.

6th October

We just got back from climbing the mountain and although you don’t really climb it, it is a bit more difficult that the hard walk that I’d imagined. On the first day we drove up to 3000m and camped at the met station for the night. Early the next morning we started going up the mountain properly. On this day you walk about 9km in distance and ascend 1200m! The first 900m of this are through what is called the vertical bog. This ranges from damp to glutinous, sinking, suck your boots off mud. It took us 4 hours to get through this and when we finished we’d actually only walked 3km in distance but gone up 900m. That makes it nearly 1 in 3 steep and all through sinking mud. Not a lot of fun! If ever you see the words vertical bog on a map remember to avoid it like the plague. The rest of the walk is ok, you walk about another 6km up the Mackinder valley with some stunning views of the summit and of in front of you and of the Kenyan plains behind you. The place where you camp is called Mackinder’s camp and it is at 4300m. Which is bloody high when you get there. Even though we’re on the equator this camp is only about 200m below the snow line. Having nothing to do and because it gets pitch dark at 18.30 we cooked some dinner and went to bed. During the night a massive storm blew up and it poured with rain. When we got up in the morning there had been feet of snow of the mountain above us. It made me realise that this is actually a serious mountain. Apparently they get several people who die on it ever year! Anyway, the plan for this day (Thursday 5th) was to walk to the next hut called the Austrian Hut. This is a small hut at 4800m and 200m below the summit. It is only about 2.5km from Mackinder’s but the entire walk there is up a massive scree slope. This section took us 3 hours, just to go 2.5km along and 500m up. It was bloody hard work and slightly worrying because we did this for 3 hours on Mt Kenya, we have 6 hours of it to come on Mt Kili! Anyway, we got to the Austrian hut by early afternoon and had another long wait until 5 the next morning before we went for the summit. It was amazing being that high, there is absolutely no vegetation. Everything is frozen solid, the temperature in the night drops to -15 and there is snow everywhere.

The hut is also above the Lewis Glacier which made for some stunning views. We got up at 5 the next morning feeling pretty rough, although I don’t seem to suffer from altitude sickness that badly it still makes you feel pretty crap being that high. Amy woke up feeling really bad but we decided to go for the summit anyway as we had the ranger with us. The final section is only about a 750m walk and 200m ascent. However, this is as close as you can get to technical climbing without using ropes etc. You basically scramble up a scree ridge until you hit the edge of the glacier, you then climb up the snow and ice until you reach a flattish bit 5m’s below the summit. The final bit involves climbing up a 2m cliff and onto the flat top, called point Lenana. As you can imagine the views are spectacular. You can see for miles and we were really lucky in that there wasn’t much cloud and so could see clearly. If fact, you can actually see My Kili which is 300km to the southeast. This is the furthest you can see between 2 points of the earth’s surface. Unfortunately Amy got really sick about 20m below the summit and had to be taken down by the ranger. As is always the case with altitude sickness you feel better as soon as you descend. So by the time I got back to the hut she was ok and we started the walk back down to Mackinder’s and then to the Met St. I’m not sure what I prefer, walking up or walking down scree. Walking up is much longer but walking down makes your legs much more sore. Anyway, we both felt pretty good as we headed down. As you head into more oxygen you can literally feel your body filling up with energy. We were both really pleased with ourselves, thinking that we’d back at the car in no time and then back to the lodge for showers etc. However, the vertical bog soon knocked this out of us. Walking down it is bloody hard too! As you step down your feet sink into the mud which makes you lose your balance, I lost count of the amount of time we both fell over. Much to the amusement of the porters who steamed by us like we were standing still. Although to be fair we were standing still a lot of the time because we were so knackered! Halfway down we suffered the only casualty on the mountain. My trusty walking boots that I’ve had for 10 years and have gone everywhere with me finally broke. The vertical bog sucked off one of the soles! This then made walking down even more fun. I was basically walking with one boot and one sock! Anyway, we got down and back to the lodge, had our showers and then had another excellent meal in their restaurant. I was really pleased with how we coped on the mountain. We were the only people we saw that didn’t have either a guide or porters. We carried all our own stuff and navigated our way up and down. Hopefully this bodes well for Kili where we will have all those things and simply have to walk.

Point Batian and Nelion from Point Lenana. They are the true summits of Mt Kenya, only reached by technical climbing. Somewhat out of my league!

The route to the summit from Austrian Hut

Friday 13th October.

We had a good couple of days relaxing at Fisherman’s camp. The place is right next to the river and at night the hippos come up to graze on the grass around the campsite. They are stopped form coming right into the camp by an electric fence. However, they can still get to within a few metres of your tent. It was excellent. We tried to do all our internet stuff yesterday with little success. We turned up at the first place to be told “no internet, go to next place”, so we went there. No internet either, all the phone lines are down. So we were told to come back later. So a couple of hours later we went back. only to have the following conversation:
“Internet?” I asked,
“Oh yes, it is working now” was the reply.
“Excellent, could I just log onto one of the computers then?”
“Oh no, there has been a power cut and the computers won’t switch on, you must come back later”
“doh!” said me.
So we toddled off and went back a bit later.
“Internet?” me
“Oh yes” internet lady
“Power?” me
“Oh yes” internet lady
“Tremendous, could we just log on then?” me
“Oh yes” internet lady
“Errr, it doesn’t seem to be working” me
“Oh yes, there is no internet in Kenya today, you just come back tomorrow” internet lady.
“Arse” me.
So feeling rather defeated and bemused we went back to the campsite to make burgers!
We’re now in an area called the Transmara. It’s a huge expense of land just north of the Maasai Mara. It isn’t a national park, just countryside effectively. However, as there aren’t actually any fences in the Maasai Mara the animals are free to wander where they like and subsequently there are loads up here. Just driving down to the river we saw elephants, zebra, about a million wildebeest and loads of other things. In fact we came rather too close to seeing one elephant. We’d just seen a herd with a coupe of babies etc and were driving off when we saw this massive bull elephant. Apparently these can be really aggressive but normally will leave you alone if you leave them alone. Not this one though, he was mightily pissed off that we were there and although it would be an exaggeration to say he charged right at us, he did trumpet and flare his ears and start to move quickly towards us. He never got closer than 50m’s though, mainly because we both reversed back up the track pretty quick smart! It doesn’t cost anything to come into this area but it is still full of animals. We’re camping next to the river, where we can see loads of hippos but no crocodiles as yet!

A male lion in the Mara and a zebra and baby in Nakuru NP

Monday 16th October

After our lack of internet in Naivasha and having struggled to get reliable internet anywhere, we decided to head into Nairobi because we’d heard that you are guaranteed good access there. We had to go past Nairobi anyway so it’s not out of our way. Due to the fact that Nairobi has some security issues (to put it lightly) we are now actually in a suburb called Karen. For those of you that know your colonial history this is traditionally where all the ex-pats live and is actually a very nice, affluent and safe area. We found an excellent campsite run by a couple of ex-overland truck drivers and are now going to stay here for a couple of days.
The Mara was brilliant. If you imagine what the archetypal Attenborough style views of Africa are then you are probably thinking of the Mara. Huge rolling grass plains with millions of zebras, wildebeest, antelope, lions etc all over it, huge hills in the background, enormous towering rain clouds in the distance. The Mara is truly stunning and well worth a visit. We did 4 game drives when we were there and saw all the animals you can think of. We even saw a female cheetah and 3 cubs. The only thing we didn’t see was a leopard, but you can’t have everything. So it was a successful couple of days I reckon! We’re leaving Nairobi on Wednesday to head to Amboseli Park for a night and then into Tanzania, where we going to do our second mountain of the trip. This is Mt Meru, which is the 4th highest in Africa standing at about 4600m. By the time we finfish that we should be only a couple of days away from doing Kili. Bring it on!

Piczo