Kenya

by Kathy

27th Sep – 2nd October (Malaba – Eldoret – Lake Nakuru – Nanyuki – Isiolo – Marsabit – Moyale)

Kenya was the very first country I visited outside of Europe and the US in university holidays in 1997, when I was 19. I remember getting off the plane in quite a haze and being the victim of a bit of a heist within minutes, being whisked off to the taxi driver’s brother’s so-called ‘safari firm’. It was probably the luckiest scam ever, as we ended up in the Masai Mara game reserve completely unplanned and enjoyed a fabulous, if rather, erm, budget, safari.

I also remember being rather overpowered by Nairobi’s sights and smells, accidentally sleeping in brothels, saying ‘Jambo’ inanely to little children who then tried to pinch the sunglasses off my face. I remember the endless but stunning journey out to Mombasa by local bus and the beautiful sight of the Indian Ocean. The whole trip made quite an impression and I remember it in some detail unlike any other trip since.

I was quite excited, then, by the prospect of a return trip to Kenya, a wee bittie older and, ideally, a bit wiser to see what had changed. Alex was equally as excited to visit a country where his parents had lived some 30 years previously. And as if to add to this frenzy of excitement we had picked up a couple of ‘Landi to LDN’ exclusive guests, Robbie and Jessy who live and work in Silicone Valley, CA, for the first leg, helping to completely revitalise our tired chat, music collection and even future business planning.


I guess the weirdest change entering Kenya this time was being able to communicate. Despite a few teething problems similar to Tanzania (saying once again that our journey had been a great big red salty sausage) I soon got back into the flow. The other major observation, compared to Tanzania, Uganda and Malawi was the sheer amount of industry and commerce at a local level. Even very small trading centres had all sorts of goods and services and major towns indicated on the map were just that (unlike western Tanzania)! Our first port of call, Eldoret, was such a huge sprawling industrial centre it would dwarf Malawi’s national capital. I don’t know if that marks a change or not; I read that Kenya had recently fallen off the EU’s ‘Developing Nation’ list, whatever that means. But you do get the feeling that Kenya has usually been one step ahead of its neighbours, at least from an economic development point of view. And nice as it was to communicate in Swahili it wasn’t really all that necessary. On our first morning I stopped to greet two women running our guesthouse and they replied with great gusto, only to return to their conversation, I soon realised, in English.

In saying that the driving still wasn’t particularly straightforward, getting caught once again after dark on a partially constructed road to Nakuru. Once we finally arrived there after 9pm there was momentary panic to find Jessy and Robbie a transfer to Nairobi that night, in time for their early morning flight!

Once resolved Alex and I literally passed out at the first guesthouse, waking early to enter Nakuru National Park. The park itself was really stunning, with an enormous amount of wildlife in quite a small area, centred around saltwater Lake Nakuru. The stars of the show were the huge pelicans that circled like arial bombers and the flamingos as far as the eye could see.

After Nakuru Alex and I kept to back dirt roads to weave across country to avoid Nairobi and take in the sight of Mount Kenya. We seemed to cross the equator 5 times in a few hours, each crossing duly marked with a Fuji Film or other sign and a curio shop. Without GPS we couldn’t really verify that we were indeed making another crossing or simply witnessing quite wily business acumen.

From Nanyuki we started north through Isiolo and on to Marsabit. At Isiolo the tar finished and it was an almost entirely Muslim town, which we entered on the eve of Eid. It was really an enormous shift in such a small space of time. It marked the end of eastern Africa with its overlapping languages and cultures and the start of northern Africa & Arabia….We then, at 11am, threw ourselves onto the Isiolo – Marsabit – Moyale desert road, which slowly sapped our energy, water supplies and spare parts.

Alex and I have been driving on all sorts of roads and in all sorts of conditions since we left the UK and are generally pretty happy off-road. I don’t think, however, we’d ever driven on such pronounced corrugation through such heat for such a long period. We swapped driving strictly every 1 hour to keep refreshed and our speed up, and it was a long, long couple of days. Yet the sights on the way were amazing! Huge herds of camels, cattle and small animals like dik-dik constantly appeared and disappeared. Masai people were everywhere on the southern section of the road, walking huge distances in such heat. In the northern section the Berber people replaced the Masai, still with camels and cattle a-plenty.

Anyway, several punctures, new shocks and about 14 hours driving later, we finally approached Ethiopia. At one of the final outposts in Kenya one Berber lady spotted me and said ‘Faranji!’ and thrust her hand through the car window looking for some money. I guess at this point we sadly waved goodbye to wonderful, relaxed Kenya and approached Ethiopia with some apprehension.