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four days in kenya
Written by Jerem   
Monday, 20 February 2012

At the border Ethiopia / Kenya is the city of Moyale, known for both its remoteness and dangerousness. The road from here to the rest of Kenya is now by far the worst of the whole 'Cairo to Cape town' trip, being a stretch of 380 kilometres of what you dont like as a road, including small stones, big stones, trenchs made by the trucks during the rainy season and corrugations. Moyale is also the host of some conflicts between different tribes, reaching a critical level with the coming presidential elections. Fortunately for me, the army arrived in town 3 days ago and the place seems quiet again. It is important to start the journey south from here at dawn in order both to avoid the heat and be sure to arrive in some kind of a city before dusk.

early start from Moyale early start from Moyale

The nice thing with driving these kind of remote roads early in the day is you can see many animals, such as monkeys, fox, antelops. The 'road' is at first like a straight trench is the bush...

moyale to marsabit 1 moyale to marsabit 1

moyale to marsabit 2 moyale to marsabit 2

... and then goes down to the deserted plateau of Dida Galgalu.

moyale to marsabit 3 moyale to marsabit 3

moyale to marsabit 4 moyale to marsabit 4

As there is almost no traffic on this road, there are very few repairs too. Usualy the minimum is done aftter every rainy season, just enough to allow old trucks or 4x4 to pass through.

moyale to marsabit 5 moyale to marsabit 5

Half way are some old volcanoes and a small city where overlanders usualy spend the night.

volcano near marsabit volcano near marsabit

As it was middle of the afternoon, i decided to continue to the second part of this bad stretch of road.

marsabit to laisamis 1 marsabit to laisamis 1

Late afternoon is a good time to spot wild animals too

marsabit to laisamis 2 marsabit to laisamis 2

This part of Kenya is inhabited by Masai. Most of them live in small settlements, but few live in villages

Masai Masai

The next day, i reached the asphalt road again (a brand new one !), spotted again free wild life and eventualy felt i was out of the desert.

laisamis to isiolo 1 laisamis to isiolo 1

laisamis to isiolo 2 laisamis to isiolo 2

As i approached mount Kenya, the road goes up again

mount kenya mount kenya

My next destination was the lake Naivasha and 'Hell's gate' national park which is one of the few parks in africa where you are allowed to walk free in the middle of the wild life

lake naivasha lake naivasha

hell's gate zebras hell's gate zebras

hell's gate girafe hell's gate girafe

Next day, i rode west towards Uganda

naivasha to uganda 1 naivasha to uganda 1

naivasha to uganda 2 naivasha to uganda 2

I came to see a new kind of asphlted + corrugated road...

trenchs in the road trenchs in the road

... and finaly reached the border with Uganda after overtaking a 10 kilometres queue of stopped trucks

truck queue at the border truck queue at the border

 

 

Comments  

 
#1 Wangjing 2012-03-10 00:50
Zebra n giraffe !