Zimbabwe (previous blogs to follow) - to view the whole Zimbabwe blog with pictures, click on the Zimbabwe section on our website...

The following morning we drove to the Zimbabwe border at Nyamapanda, having carefully hidden various “contraband” including the satellite phone, laptop, video camera and thousands of US Dollars under the spare wheel on the roof. The idea in Zim is not to give them any cause to believe you are a journalist – or you are in big trouble!The border was slow but the Zimbabweans were friendly and all the people going in were carrying sacks of maize and other foodstuffs that are now so hard to come by in Zimbabwe. The man from whom I bought the vehicle insurance, said to me quietly “we in Zimbabwe are suffering, because the old man will not die”. All over Africa we are (unsurprisingly) subjected to sob stories but here we knew they were true! It was only about two hour’s drive west to Harare through some beautiful scenery but it was also painfully obvious that the farmland was deserted, scorched and empty. Many of the trees lining the road were host to Mugabe election posters with ridiculous propaganda slogans. We all wanted them as souvenirs but knew better than to take them down – immediate arrest would follow if caught.We arrived at the lovely Glen Lorne area on the outskirts of Harare where David and Clare Peech were extremely kind in having the four of us to stay for three nights. The house was amazing and although the electricity and water were off more than on, we still had a very comfortable stay and are immensely grateful to the Peech family for being so generous. Harare really is one of the nicest cities in Africa and in better times must have been a great place to live. Now all the banks have queues so long outside that some people sleep there so they can withdraw their money – the maximum amount you can withdraw is about 50p (UK) but a packet of biscuits would cost about three pounds if you could find them. Daily power cuts have been the norm for three years and some whole areas of the city are without any water at all – it’s difficult to imagine how people survive.

From Harare we drove down to Gweru and stayed at Antelope Park, where we rode horses in the bush and walked with a pair of lion cubs – fantastic! Then on west, to Bulawayo and the Matopos Hills. We had the whole place to ourselves as there are really no tourists anymore and visited Rhodes’ grave up on its lonely granite Kopje. We camped that night by a lake and the following morning Harry set to work on changing a broken shock absorber on the front right wheel – luckily we carried a spare one. However disaster struck when the high lift jack seemed to topple in slow motion and the car crashed to the earth, landing 3 tonnes of weight solely on the brake disc and very narrowly avoiding Harry’s legs, as he’d been working on the suspension. It was a tense few minutes as we struggled to get the car back onto the jack and prayed there was no significant damage – fortunately there wasn’t and everyone was hugely relieved – I do not trust those bloody jacks ever, however careful you may be in giving them a firm base plate etc!!

We left Matopos and headed north from Bulawayo for Hwange National Park to visit a Tusk sponsored project. It was “The Painted Dog Conservation Project” dedicated to saving the wild dog. Peter Blinston, who runs the show, kindly put us up for the night and showed us around the project the following day. There are so many elephants in the area (40,000 ish) that we had to be accompanied by a guard when walking from the kitchen outside to our bedrooms at night – the noise of crackling branches and ripping trees was deafening. It was very interesting to see the workings of the project and it’s great to know that our raised money is going to such worthwhile causes.Our last stop in Zimbabwe was of course, Victoria Falls. Here we spent three great days – white water rafting, bungee jumping etc and generally relaxing before Botswana and the run! Camping at the Vic Falls Rest Camp was very convenient for town and as business is so terrible at the moment all the activity companies are very willing to negotiate – US Dollars only of course. We actually had quite a good time at the casino in one of the hotels, which was pretty empty and for once most of us finished in the black – but being Zim the casino did not physically have the cash to give us – so that was that!So after ten brilliant days in Zimbabwe we drove to the Botswana border at Kazangula. For all its problems Zimbabwe is still a great place to visit and my favourite country of the whole trip.
Toby

Kenya 2, Naivasha to Arusha

Through the small railway bridge and up to the main gates, Pembroke House (my old school from days living in Africa) lay completely as I remembered, though the surrounding hills seemed to have diminished. Green due to the recent rains and impeccably kept, the playing fields crept out down to the loose vegetation of the African bush which in turn led up to the shear sides that determine the Great Rift Valley. Our stay in Gilgil with Sam Cooke, the new headmaster, saw us kindly invited to a barbeque further up the valley, during which numerous kind invitations were offered, most notably a coffee farm up on the Ngorongoro Crater by Leon and Aideen Christianarkis. Our drive the following day to Lake Naivasha led us past the infamous Happy Valley Club, to meet the recently televised Cycle of life team, who having cycled through the Kalahari were embarking on their last leg. A group of five including the fastest person to cycle arounnd the world, Mark Beumont, we were very lucky to question them on certain points of the Kalahari before enjoying a combined photo shoot for Tusk. We all returned to the Campbell-Clauses’ following this meet for the night. The following morning we left for Borana, friends the Dyers’, estate North East of us. Driving past Treetops and through endless wilderness we eventually arrived. Set upon a small kopje their lodge had enviable views of their private safari reserve. That evening we drove out up to a favored sundowner haunt, overlooking a waterhole. With the sun dying, the animals and the flow of iced beers, Kenya was assured of its position as a favorite and certainly a place to return to. A further couple of days were spent here game driving and enjoying the Nanyuki club, the latter inducing many drunken injuries from the surrounding thorn trees and the pool.
From the freedom of Borana and Naivasha we drove south to Nairobi, staying with Jane Barseby in Karen. Though Nairobi was congested to bursting point and we were forever finding ourselves trapped in traffic, drinks at the Norfolk reflected the old Kenya we had seen earlier. A last supper in Carnivore, one of Nairobi’s last big game restaurants, saw us dining on crocodile and several Bucks before we continued onto Tanzania the next day. The following evening we returned to our traveling routine, staying in Arusha’s Masai camp. It proved to be a very colorful set up providing all the essentials. However our stay here was extremely fleeting, serving merely as a springboard for the eight hour push up to Leon and Aideen Christianarkis beautiful farm on the edge of Ngorongoro crater. Their stunning coffee farm perched on the edge of the park enabled us to have an unbelievable sundowner overlooking elephant territory, setting an amazing introduction to Tanzania.

Rob

Kenya - Lake Turkana...photos to come

The famous Moyale to Marsabit "Shifta" (bandit) road has enjoyed a fairly fearsome reputation in recent years with roaming Somali bandits massacring villages and ambushing the sparse road traffic. During the planning of this expedition I had been told by others that it would be a case of "driving as fast as you can without crashing". The reality for us was very different - we had met a couple of German diplomats, Marcus and Erich, on the way down to the border in Ethiopia and agreed that we would avoid the painfully slow official convoy and create our own 'convoy' of just two cars. The benefits of travelling with the Germans soon became apparent when on the hour, for five hours, Marcus would pull over and announce that he was getting "dehydrated" and needed a beer. The started at 10 am and as they were carrying 260 beers with them, there was no shortage and everyone was expected to keep pace (drivers excluded of course!)

The road itself has a legendary reputation not just for bandits but for its own sheer physical condition - often labelled "the worst road in Africa", the five hours of almost continuous corrugations combined with large random rocks sitting in the middle of the red rocky dirt road, made driving a pretty demanding and tiring experience. Throughout the 250km road we saw only 3 other cars , but passing through an army checkpoint we agreed to give an off-duty soldier a lift to his village - his uniform and G3 automatic rifle made this more appealing to us as we now had an armed guard for free! Stopping for yet another beer between two craggy hills, he told us that this was one of the Shifta's favourite ambush points and he personally had killed "many" of them here - the fighting was a regular occurrence until only a few months ago but it seems the army have now finally got a grip. We dropped our soldier off at his village - Turbi, famous in Kenya for the terrible massacre, including a large number of school children, in 2005.

The bush surrounding the road was wild, dry and unmistakably "African". It's too dry for much game but there were a few ostriches, camels and impala roaming about. Eventually we arrived into Marsabit - a small frontier town but with reasonable services to offer and the Germans and us chose a decent campsite outside the National Park. We built an excellent fire and barbecued some fresh steaks while continuing to erode the stockpile of beer. Alex was the last to bed and manged to shoo away the hyena that was creeping about having clearly smelt our steak.

The following morning we de-camped and hit the road (track) back northwards and west towards Lake Turkana. The drive up there took all day and truly was one of the most memorable journeys of the trip so far. That northern area of Kenya must be one of the most unspoilt wildernesses left on the continent. Under a burning blue sky the rocky little track soon gave way to pure fine sand as we neared the Chalbi Desert, before morphing into a peculiar talcum powder style orange dust that penetrated every seal in the car and covered the windows and panels like a snow storm. Often Low Ratio was needed to pull us through the worst sections and our average speed that day cannot have exceeded 30 mph at best - fun driving though!

Countless little dik-dik, impala and other small game would scatter off the track as we approached. At one point a pair of jackals trotted out of the bush and hardly seemed afraid of us at all - I suppose they have so little human contact and so have nothing to fear.

Gradually a range of impressive hills rose up and the terrain began to change from thorny acacias and scrub to an empty rocky expanse caused by ancient lava and resembling the moon or Mars.

I happened to be sitting on the roof and could see two tribal looking men up ahead - both armed with rifles. Rob stopped as they requested, and up on the roof I was willing him not to do so - it turned out that they were harmless but we were later told not to stop for anyone - the area is tribal, violent and lawless and killings are so common-place they hardly even feature in the papers.

Towards early evening we reached the crest of a hill to be met with the stunningly beautiful view of Lake Turkana stretching ceaselessly below - often known as the Jade Sea it is bluey-green in colour and so salty that its shores are dry, brown and barren - an unforgettable place to visit.

We had arranged to stay with a family of American Missionaries at Loiyangalani where they had been living for 14 years. They were incredibly good to us and they seem to have an amazing set-up. They built their house themselves and generate all their own power through wind and solar panels but by late evening the power tends to run out so candles and torches are a necessity. Robbie, the 16 year old and a great guy, is quite used to bringing in gun-shot wounds etc on his quad bike to be treated. The house is deliberately built almost like a fortress and they live under the constant threat of tribal raids, although they are hugely respected by the local people.

Robbie and Kevin, a hardened ex US army sergeant who has done his time in Iraq and now wants to help others, showed us around the area. We climbed a high sandy hill with incredible views of Turkana. It took half an hour to climb up in the blistering heat but only 30 seconds to run down the sandy slope. Then on to a rocky beach on the lake shore where we wallowed in the shallows - proper swimming would not be clever - crocodiles are no joke in Turkana and they are both numerous and vast. I managed to bog the car down quite badly in the heavy shingle and it took all our efforts to free it, and no small amount of tyre shredding.

That evening we took quad bikes and a hefty pump action shot gun down to a small pool hidden in the rocks about a mile inland from the lake. As we climbed down the rocks to the pool we heard the loud splash of the resident croc flopping into the water to hide from us. Robbie brewed some chai on a small fire and we watched the sun setting over that bizarre but captivating landscape. In case you're wondering, the shotgun came along merely as a self-defence weapon - rabid animals, crocs or worse - humans. The majority of the people in the area dress and live in the traditional tribal manner that has not changed forever. Old women are bare breasted with stretched ears, deliberate scars and a huge amount of beaded necklaces that build up to form a huge collar. The average tourist may see this further south but there it is less genuine and more designed to attract interest and hence money - at Turkana tourism is minimal to non-existent and its rather nice to know that this ancient way of life still continues.

Loiyangalani is merely a collection of tiny round huts built from branches and sticks - the men all carry spears or perhaps rifles and the neighbouring tribe, just a few miles further north is renowned for some quite sinister behaviour. For the men to be able to marry, they must first acquire a pair of human testicles - unfortunately this practice still goes on today and whether it involves slitting open a pregnant woman and removing the foetus' own or raiding villages, it's one of those less pleasant facts of tribal Africa. Loiyangalani itself was used to film the violent ending of the film "The Constant Gardner" and one can too easily imagine the tribal raids taking place.

After a fantastic couple of days in the wonderfully remote expanses of Northern Kenya we headed south to Maralal where we spent only one night before pressing on south to Lake Baringo. We were able to camp about 10 metres from the shore and the hippo's trampled around so close to our tents at night that I seriously thought they might tread on us. Baringo has plenty of hippo's but is also stuffed with crocodiles. Our area of shoreline seemed to be very popular with the smaller ones and one evening while we were sitting in the car sheltering from a rainstorm, Alex appeared like a crazed maniac holding a 3ft long crocodile in his hands. He'd managed to sneak up on it and blind its evil yellow eyes with the torch before pouncing on it from behind with one hand firmly behind its head so it couldn't move. Of course we all touched and stroked the little monster quite carefully but I stupidly went too far, and treating it like a friendly terrier, stroked its head from in front of it. By now it was probably feeling rather threatened and pissed off and in a fraction of a second managed to snap down on the end of my finger. It was only a 3ft baby but believe me those jaws were still very powerful and I was lucky to have only received a few lacerations on the end of my finger and not worse.

There was much blood and noise but we cleaned the cuts and a week on, it is healing nicely. The following morning we took a boat out onto the lake and went out to one of the islands to do some cliff jumping which was good fun until a large green snake slithered out onto the rock we were using and the boatman labelled it a green Mamba (they're terrified of snakes and always over-dramatise so it was quite probably something harmless but none of us being snake experts we decided to call it a day!) Swimming at the edges of the lake would be suicidal but out in the middle tends to be freer from crocs.

Anyway we spent a great couple of days at Baringo and I shall get on the next blog sometime soon. Until then, hope everyone's having as good a summer as us,

Toby

Apologies!

Clicking on the "Journey Blog" on the website should direct you to here, so read below for our latest updates or look in "Archives" to the right. Its not ideal but should work...
We are halfway there with the blog, as you can probably see by our back dated posts. We have now been able to get them up, the only reason being that we have at last reached the civilised world (ish!) with a decent connection...Please do keep coming back for more exciting reading though.

Back to Khartoum and onwards to Ethiopia

Back to Khartoum and onwards to Ethiopia

Having recovered from our first breakdown, which had been resolved by changing the old fuel filter, we were still making good time through the expanses of Sudan, east of Khartoum. Our delay was rewarded with the infamous Haboob, a sandstorm that turns day into night, and that we had wanted to experience despite the unpleasant heat it generates in a car with closed windows. We crossed the border having completed the extensive paperwork required by the authorities. This was after we had already had our passports checked and recorded numerous times en route due to the web of frustrating and unnecessary checkpoints. Although by western standards the Sudanese border crossing was convoluted, the change on the Ethiopian side was marked. From whitewashed buildings and guards in some form of uniform, the immigration and customs offices were now mud huts and numerous askari sat around, the ubiquitous AK47 the only mark of their status as border officials. We quickly gathered a group of young hangers-on, eager to practice their English and possibly earn themselves a quick dollar for their help. It seems that everywhere we go the car gives people a false impression of our non-existent wealth and raises expectations of free flowing tips! The customs post is actually 35km from the border so we set off to register the car at Shendi. We also completed the task of changing our dollars for local currency having been let into the bank by yet another AK toting guard.

Once completed we departed for Gondar, a town that excited Rob due to the guide book description as the ‘Camelot of Ethiopia’. However we were in for another setback. Crawling up the steep roads of the highlands we once again began to lose power and eventually ground to a halt on the edge of the road. We knew that it was probably the same problem, caused by a blocked fuel filter; however it also confirmed that our main fuel tank was the source of the problem, rather than the residual build-up of filth in an old filter. We had been warned after our first breakdown that the fuel in Gedaref was unreliable, but we were about to find out how bad it really was! The two day old filter was in the same state as the old one had been and now we were unable to remedy the problem having already used our spare. We shook out the sludge that had accumulated and rinsed it with fuel from our reserve tank that we had kept from Egypt and knew to be decent stuff. Meanwhile team mechanic Harry had got to work on the pipes that undoubtedly were also troubled by the influx of water and grit. It seemed that the filter was not the sole problem but the fuel lift pump had also given up the ghost. Luckily we also had a spare, but after our initial joy at finding the problem and its remedy, the new pump did not fit the old pipes of the fuel lines. After much debate we settled on the only option left to us: Superglue and Quicksteel. A true bodging job was done but we had been there for four hours and it was now dark, a situation we had intended to avoid in Africa, unless absolutely vital. All shattered from the stress and effort that this had caused, we ground on for twenty minutes until the now familiar troubles began to reappear.

This time we found ourselves next to some road construction machinery, and decided to put up camp for the night rather than attempt to fix the problem again. We piled out and Rob and Harry had a look at a steam roller, having spotted that its fuel filter looked similar to our own. I sleepily was sorting out some personal gear at the side of the vehicle whilst Toby was collecting the teams’ sleeping gear from the rear of the car. Suddenly, from the still blackness of the shadows a harsh challenge was shouted and then we heard a sound that we are all familiar with from Hollywood. It was the cold steel clunk of a bolt being worked on an automatic rifle and was very real.

In the shadows several figures crouched nervously behind the thick steel roller of one of the machines and they hustled with the urgency of danger. Our reactions were quick and we all made sure we stood in plain view with our hands in the air, shining torches on ourselves to convince the guards that we were harmless white-skinned tourists, in a spot of trouble and not the shifta that they evidently thought we were. Toby quickly thinking, but moving with the deliberate movements required by the tense and potentially deadly situation climbed into the front to consult the language section of Lonely Planet to find ‘greetings’ in Ethiopian. With no working vehicle our only option was to make friends with the people who were at that point on the other end of a rifle. I cautiously moved forward to where these men now began to emerge from as Toby shouted in a friendly manner ‘ greetings in Ethiopian’, and we echoed his words eagerly, ensuring they got the peaceful message. The weapons were still held up in an aggressive manner but the barrels were now dipped, and I edged forward to shake their hands, still not sure how they might react. ‘Salaam aleikum’ I grinned at them in reflex having spent the last month in Arabic countries and being the first phrase that came to my lips. I shook their hands and saw their flashing white teeth in the dark as they came forwards in relief at our friendliness. I think they were almost as scared as we were, the danger being that their twitching fingers had been poised over the triggers and the possibility of a shot being fired was real, but now the rush of adrenaline relaxed us and we explained our situation.

I awoke in the morning to the rumbles as an excavator revved and poked my head out of the tent. The driver smiled down and soon I was chatting away. His colleagues crowded around us as we sleepily got ourselves together and one agreed to work on the Land Rover to see what he could do. We eventually drained half the tank to see what apart from diesel was in there. Litre upon litre of water and sludge poured out of the plug hole. Finally we were ready to depart and having painfully maintained the usual pretence of being an avid football fan to amuse our enthusiastic Ethiopian fan club, we hit the road.

One more time we pulled over and reluctantly drained the remainder of the tank having discussed the cost of money spent on fuel versus time spent fixing problems caused by the dirty fuel. The locals all crowded round and eagerly bottled the filthy stuff for their own use, as we failed to communicate the reason we were ditching it!

The hotel in Gondar was pleasant and we all enjoyed the first beer for a while that we had promised ourselves whilst we struggled to fix the vehicle. As time went by we all agreed that the attractions of the waitresses were growing, but it is not a problem as we all know that sleeping with a virgin cures AIDS…

Today we spent on a boat and on Lake Tana and visited one of its many monasteries. Tomorrow we are on the road again, next stop, the British Embassy, Addis Ababa.

Alexander Budge

Khartoum to Ethiopia:

Khartoum to Ethiopia:

We left Khartoum bound for the Ethiopian border at Gallabat on the evening of the 10^th July. Having pulled off the road just before dark, somewhere just West of Wad Medani, and spent the night within the mud walled compound of some friendly locals. During the night it began to spit with rain, the first we’d encountered since leaving the UK; the wind blew hard and the temperature was at a bearable level, so already the climate was changing. The next day we drove beyond Gedaref, now within just three hours of the border. It was an interesting day of driving as we witnessed a complete transition from arid desert plains to wet and muddy green hills. We pulled off the road in search of a suitable camp and within 30 seconds were deeply stuck in oozing, black, glue-like mud. As we’d attempted to cross a six foot wide strip of smooth muddy ground the front wheels broke through the thin crust-like surface and the vehicle literally nose dived into a narrow boggy ravine. A passing Tata truck kindly pulled us out and so we were able to set up camp on the drier ground of the hill.

Certainly it was a night to remember…After supper, during which I was stung by what we could only just identify as a tiny squashed scorpion in my boot, the four of us swept the area around our camp with torches and, within 30 metres or so, we discovered two puff adders, an unidentifiable black snake, several 8 inch millipedes as thick as your finger, and so many scorpions that we lost count. In fact there was a worried squeal from Toby’s tent soon after he retired for the night – a scorpion was attempting to snuggle down with him, and it later became evident that they found him particularly attractive – perhaps they thought he was one of them?! As I opened my tent in the morning to crawl out a large scorpion instantly scuttled in and hung to the roof, some 8 inches above my head…We were not sorry to see the back of the place!

Afternoon saw us clear Sudanese Customs at the border, only to be told by the Ethiopians that we’d need to drive the 8 hours back to Khartoum to get the right visas. Our patience was wearing thin but there was no choice but to about turn and drive through the night – all too aware of the warning we’d received to “be out of the country by Monday…” We’d been driving for little over an hour when the engine began to decelerate and lose power of its own accord. My instant reaction was that we had a likely fuel problem but, inexperienced with these particular symptoms and unwilling to cause any avoidable damage, I telephoned my half-brother, Peter, back in the UK. Amazingly my mobile had reception while the Sat phone was being stroppy about satellites. Peter, an avid Land Rover man with huge experience was able to guide me through the diagnosis and solve the simple problem of a gunked up fuel filter. It’s amazing to have that sort of help – you can be stranded on a dark desert road in remote Sudan and have instant advice from an armchair across the world! Little did we know this was only the beginning of the problem…..

Harry

Aswan to Khartoum....at last...!

On the ferry were two other whites, in fact the only Westerners we’d seen in the Sudan yet, a Kiwi and a German. The German was particularly interesting, aged 21 he is attempting to cycle alone to Cape Town. He was completely mad and I only hope he gets a good deal of luck on his side as he seemed to have very little forward planning – crossing the Nubian desert at this time of year would kill most people…Good luck Adrian!

The four of us have come to the conclusion that the Nubian people of the desert of Northern Sudan are among the most decent and genuine you could ever hope to meet. After leaving Wadi Halfa, which is the Sudanese border post on Lake Nasser, dock for the ferry and barge, and undoubtedly one of the most God-forsaken out posts on earth, we headed south across the desert, destined eventually for Khartoum…Outside of Wadi Halfa the tarmac ceased, to be replaced by vague desert pistes. These were generally rocky with huge tracts of corrugations (thousands of closely packed ridges which vibrate the vehicle and everything in it, so much so that nuts undo themselves, electrics are shaken loose, you can’t hear yourself think – all in all they are an overlanders nightmare, and a persistent one at that!) Often the tracks descended into deep heavy sand which meant progress was slow and the going was tough. And the heat! At somewhere around the 50˚C mark the heat was undoubtedly our worst enemy. If you can imagine there is no air con, no swimming pool, no cold drinks even – only the breeze created by the movement of the vehicle, then you will understand just how uncomfortable things can be. Trying to rehydrate your constantly sweating body with iodine flavoured bath temperature water, is far from refreshing – in fact it makes you feel worse.

On the second night we appeared out of the desert on the bank of the Nile. There is about a 50 metre fringe of browny-green on either side of the huge river and then its pure desert again. Where we stopped for the night was in a tiny fishing village and we camped on an ancient old mans scrap of land by the river. He was sitting fiddling with his fishing nets when we arrived and was delighted to have us on his patch of earth. He was a toothy old boy in a flithy robe and leads such a simple unspoilt life but was so friendly and generous (as all the Sudanses are). They have nothing to give but always offer us tea or water or food. He took us down to the river and excitedly stripped off his robe and dived in, so we followed. Amazing to cool down and wash some of the sweat and filth off. But you can't go far out as there are huge crocs (up to 7 metres) around! Leaving the village the following morning there was a crude wooden tripod on the fringes of the desert with an animal hanging from it by its hind legs. We looked closely and saw that it was either a hyena or a large jackal, semi decayed. A local came up and told us it was a "wolf" although I think thats just their word for jackal but we weren't sure. That evening we camped in the middle of nowhere and at about four in the morning we were all sharply woken to the howling and strange barking that was anything but a dog. It sounded almost crazed and wild and was getting closer and closer to our tents. Sleeping in those tents with the fly sheet rolled back is just like being under a mosi net and you feel bloody vulnerable to marauding animals. We all shone our torches quickly around the area to scare the animal away, which seemed to do the trick - but nobody slept particularly well for the rest of the night. My only real worry is that if the animal was rabid it could easily have mauled any of us through our tent netting and being literally hundreds of miles from anywhere it would be a serious problem. Walking around the campsite with a torch after dark is always quite interesting as depending on where we are (how sandy or scrubby it is) you see countless little gerbils scurrying around, large light beige scorpions with evil curled over stinger tails right in the campsite as well as huge camel spiders etc - that is why we don't just sleep in the sand without tents!

We’re staying here in Khartoum with the British Defence Attache who has been very kind in giving us the use of his house for three days. It’s also very interesting to hear reliable and up to date information about what is really going on in this country. With recent and future events it seems that Khartoum is rather an exciting place to be at the moment…would suggest keeping an eye on next weeks news…! (written on the 10th July.)…In fact we were warned that President Bashir was about to be indicted and that we should be out of the country by Monday. As it turned out we crossed the border that day and later met a German overlander who was close behind and had witnessed rioting and tyre burning etc; he said “he thought it was time to leave!”

The blog was typed and ready but this USELESS internet lost the whole bloody thing. Afriad we leave now so it will have to wait another few days.....Harry

Egypt. Part 2.

Well, after ending on a rather uncertain note in the last blog concerning our brush with the Egyptian law, I'm pleased to say that thanks to Alex's hard work while the rest of us were diving with dolphins in the Red Sea, we had our license eventually returned. In fact it was no simple process and without the help of a local taxi driver I think we might still be there! From Hurghada (a Russian built modern resort that has little to distinguish itself from Malaga, but for its diving), we headed South West to Luxor. Luxor is a great cultural city which straddles the Nile and is host to numerous ancient temples as well as the infamous 'Valley of the Kings' and the tomb of Tutankamun. After a couple of days here we joined the 'essential' (in fact far from it, but still a legality) police convoy South to Aswan, spending the three hour journey staring into the grinning faces and barrels of the AK47s in the pick-up in front. We spent three nights in Aswan, Egypt's most southerly city (town really), and spent a good deal of time faffing with the traffic police over the necessary paperwork to leave the country, handing back number plates etc. Otherwise we had a pretty relaxed few days there, sailing on the Nile at sunset in a local feluca, visiting Kitchener's Island and the great High Dam which holds back the waters of Lake Nasser. On our second day we went off for a drive in search of a quiet spot on the river where we could fish, swim and cook up some lunch to test out all the gear before the 'real deal' the following week. We came across a small Nubian village (the Nubian people are actually from the south, i.e. Sudan, and very different in nature to the Egyptians.) I think we provided quite some amusement to the locals who surrounded us, staring in fascination at our every move, before bursting into excitement at the prospect of taking these 'white boys' for a swim in their neck of the river. We spent the rest of the afternoon diving and swimming in this croc free part of the Nile, along with our entourage of local boys determined to show us how everything was done.

So on the morning of Monday the 30th June we drove the half hour to the ferry "port" beyond the High Dam and then spent the best part of the day clearing customs and attempting to get the Land rover onto its barge without rendering it incapable of driving ( which judging by the one attempt made by the local blokes before we realised, would certainly have been the case!) Not only did it have to get over a foot high metal lip and then stop in a space exactly its own length, there was also the problem of getting from the land onto the barge with only make-shift ramps that clanged out of place with each attempt...while the gap between land and hull widened against the straining ropes. At last we got the vehicle on the barge and then left it far behind, being surrounded by a phenomenal amount of food and junk destined for the Sudan, while we steamed South into the sunset and Lake Nasser.

Arrival and first few days:

Right well I'll apologise firstly for the lack of action on this page until now; unfortunately the whole thing was in arabic and impossible to get in to. Problem solved!

We arrived in Alexandria last Tuesday morning having flown via Cairo and prepared to spend a good week trying to release the Land Rover from the port - the Egyptian customs/import system is notoriously bureaucratic and we hadn't heard a good word about it. Toby and I spent the first couple of days buzzing around the city with our Egyptian agent, Mohammed Abdul Aziz, from "government office" to government office getting various bits of paper stamped. This was a pretty frustrating process since queues don't seem to have been introduced here yet. Instead, everybody pushes and shouts and waves their papers in the air in an attempt to force their way to the front. Amongst this babbling arabic chaos you have to get passports, carnets, licences etc stamped but not lost. Luckily Mohammed was a pretty big chap and didn't seem to have too much of a problem in forcing his way to the front. So I think we have our agents size to thank for the fact that we were cleared in four and a half days and had the Land Rover released and ready to drive south on Saturday! We'd spent alot of time in Alex having last minute bits of kit altered, checked and made. Rob and Alex found a particularly cheap metal worker who was welding bits and pieces for us right up until we left. Fuel costs 9p a litre! It cost about 8 quid to fill up our tank, it would be over 100 in the UK...in fact its cheaper than water!

On Saturday night we arrived in Cairo, having driven the two and a half hour desert road from Alex. We stayed the night with some friends of friends who were amazing in putting us up at extremely short notice. An evening of air con, western food and a shisha bar ensured we were ready to hit the real road south on Sunday....but first the pyramids . We drove to Giza, just south west of Cairo and had a good look at the pyramids and sphinx, which were pretty impressive and just as you'd imagine, before heading east in the evening to the Red sea. The town we had been told to head for turned out to be non-existant...or "under construction" and after being kicked off the roof of a hotel we'd found to sleep on, we rolled out our mats on a car park floor (we didn't want to camp out of town as we'd been advised against it, "attack would be likely"!) So this morning we drove the 4 hours to Hurghada, a Red sea resort about half way down Egypt. The only hiccup was caused by a particularly miserable git of a policeman....and it may actually be quite a big problem. We were flagged down at one of the usual check points and the surly bastard confiscated our Egyptian liscence, claiming we'd been doing 118Kmph. Well firstly they had no way of measuring our speed and secondly, you'd be hard pushed to get a fully loaded Land Rover in the 40 degree desert to do this. We pointed this out, even offered him to drive it and see for himself...Alex produced his British officers ID card and claimed we were in a hurry to get to the British Embassy in Khartoum (you have to be pretty selective about showing that sort of ID) but still the miserable git refused to return our liscence..."smoothing the way" was denied and "insh Allah" we'll be able to pick it up in Hurghada tomorrow, along with a 10 quid fine. But the problem is that we just don't know if it really will be there, initially he was adamant that we would have to pick it up in Alexandria in a weeks time! Anyway we'll see....I'm rambling, so until next time....Harry

Botswana - Trans-Kalahari Run

We entered Botswana near Kasane to the North-East and spent our first night camping just outside the town. Toby had been feeling pretty ill since leaving Vic falls in Zimbabwe and was by this time looking half-dead in the back of the car and asking to see a doctor. We very quickly found a small surgery and managed to get Toby into the doctor immediately. He was given a shot of Rocephin and very quickly began to react to the drug. Within minutes his whole body had stiffened and ceased up and his breathing was becoming laboured while his heart rate soared. The doctor acted extremely quickly and got a steroid jab into Toby’s arm and hooked him up to an IV drip. Luckily he began to recover and the doctor diagnosed the incident as a “severe anaphylactic reaction”; we do not know whether or not it really was an anaphylactic shock but, whatever it was, the doctor said that he was dealing with seconds, not minutes!

With no time to hang around recovering we were all up at 5:30 the next morning for a drive into Chobe National Park. It was a fantastic game drive during which we saw just about everything, including a leopard, a pair of lions, and a recently dead elephant covered in vultures. We then drove the very remote route from Kasane to Savuti, right through the heart of Chobe and largely unexplored by most tourists. During the two day drive we only came across two other vehicles, not bad considering we were in one of Africa’s most well known reserves. As we drove deeper into the park the track became much sandier and eventually became extremely heavy going. The engine was continually overheating and even with the tyre pressures right down the vehicle was seriously struggling to pull its load through the sand. We were stopping every 10 minutes to cool off so decided to take the bonnet off, change the air filter and disconnect the snorkel pipe. All this, combined with the evening drop in temperature, allowed us to make good ground and we arrived at Savuti camp just after dark. In the gloom of dusk we saw a whole herd of elephants loping along in the bush; they were in size order and each following the animal in front so made for a truly fantastic sight in the fading light. That night we heard a good deal of trumpeting and the occasional lions roar in the still distance.

The Trans-Kalahari Run: "The world's first relay run/foot crossing of the Kalahari Desert":

Once in Maun (we camped at the Sedia hotel – very good value) we were able to spend three days devoted to preparation for the impending Kalahari crossing. A great deal of time was spent making lists, buying food and supplies, last minute repairs and checks, route planning, collating information, and thoroughly packing the vehicle with all the equipment. I must admit that at this point I was extremely concerned about the weight we would be carrying into the desert. As a team we have done a reasonable amount of remote desert travel before, not least in Western Sahara and the Sudan. However this occasion was somewhat different due to the vast quantities of food, water and fuel that we needed. The entire food load for the nine day crossing was carefully weighed, as was the entire contents of the vehicle, including add-ons such as bull bars and steering guards, and the result was a shocking figure – the Land Rover was packed up to and over its maximum pay-load (the equivalent to carrying 56 full jerry cans!). This was not a sensible position to be in and had I heard of others venturing into a remote desert with bad driving conditions in a vehicle that was up to its pay-load I would have thought them to be extremely stupid. However we had ditched every non-essential item in order to shed weight and had meticulously calculated all the quantities so simply had to make do…

From Maun we drove down to Ghanzi, a one horse desert town about an hour and a halfs drive from the Namibian border. For us, Ghanzi marked the start point of our Kalahari foot crossing, and we camped at the only guest house in town: the Kalahari Arms. At 0530 on the 7th September we began our attempt at " the worlds first relay run across the Kalahari Desert", or the first official foot crossing. I was lucky enough to draw the lot to be the first runner, so with the golden ball of sun rising to the East I set off, heading South out of Ghanzi on the Trans-Kalahari Highway. By 11 am we had covered 40 Km and were suffering somewhat from the heat. Toby and I drove back to Ghanzi for a final top-up of the fuel tanks and a chance to buy some ice for the cool box, while Rob and Alex sat under one of the dwindling trees and cooked our pasta and corned beef lunch.

As I mentioned, at this point we were still on the tarmac of the Trans-Kalahari Highway and, as such, we had decided to make good time by running our 20 km per person at a reasonably fast pace. This proved to be a mistake; by late afternoon, after I had finished my 20 Km, I felt totally exhausted and was suffering from the intense heat (37 degrees centigrade) and dehydration. When you are in that state the thought of another 8 days of such bodily torture is hardly a cheering one. Drinking dyralite and hoping for the best after a short night's sleep is all that will help...

Mid-way through day two we pulled off the tarmac road and ran through gravelly bush for some miles until the gravel eventually turned to sand. From this point forward we were on deep sand until day nine. That evening we passed through a small village, unmarked on any of our maps or GPS mapping. The light had by this time faded and since we were still only about 20 Km's from the tarmac road we were not surprised to come across another vehicle. However, while we were not surprised by its prescence we became rather unnerved by its behaviour. For several Kilometres we had noticed that it was following us from a distance of about a thousand yards. However, it appeared that it was attempting to be stealthy since every time we stopped they would switch of their lights and engine. This went on for some time while we tested them by continually stopping to judge their reaction. Each time they too would stop and switch off their lights. While we had another few kilometres to run to finish the leg, it was already 2130 and we were all feeling drained and ready for a quick meal and sleep. But we did not want to camp out in the bush with another vehicle behaving so peculiarly knowing our position while we slept. We have been followed by other vehicles on previous occaisons, and not always with the best intentions, so decided to get out of sight "covertly" while our pursuers were still keeping their distance. We switched off our lights and using the moon light pulled off the track and into the bush. We ploughed through the bush for about 50 metres and then parked up side-on to the track. We unfurled the awning down the side of the Land Rover so that the windows and paint would not reflect the glare of their headlights. We then quietly and without light set up camp and were pleased to see the other vehicle pass us by, clearly without any idea that we were now behind them. Such situations are relatively frequent and it might seem pathetically neurotic to act in the way we did, but, when you're in such remote spots it really is better to be safe than sorry and remain suspicious when in doubt.

"Beep beep beep beep"...once again we were woken by the cursed digital watch at 0530. It always seemed that we were in our deepest sleep at this point since everyone was extremely reluctant to get up. Or perhaps it was because of the relative extreme cold outside our sleeping bags. While it is more or less a myth that the temperatures fluctuate between extremes over day and night in the Sahara, down here it was a different story. Certainly it can be very cold in the Sahara but this is generally seasonal and so in summer it will be 45/50 c during the day and around 20 at night. In the Kalahari we were experiencing 37c during the day and a drop to nearly freezing by early morning. So, crawling bleary eyed, out of your sleeping bag and unzipping your tent to the still freezing air never seemed like a good start to the day - particularly if you were runner number one, since you'd have to be away within a few minutes. Our reasons for early mornings and late nights are obvious: to avoid the heat and get as much distance covered as possible before it simply became too hot to run. However, after discovering that the heat was too intense between the hours of 10 and 5, there didn't seem much time within a conventional working day to get the distance covered. So, on the grounds that we would need to sleep for at least 6 hours per night we had no choice but to keep moving throughout the day. Thus, we would begin at around 0545 and finish for the day at about 2130, then cook, set up tents, admin, and eventually sleep. In order to avoid heat exhaustion (and probably death!) we would plod as fast as we could during the hot hours, and then run as fast and as far as we felt able when it was cool. In this way we were still able to move 80 km per day, even with the sand and sun against us.

On the morning of day three, we had decided to break down the 10 km sections into four sets of 5 km per person per day. This way we were still covering the same distance but in more manageable chunks, in an attempt to aviod over exposure to the heat, and maintain a continuous pace. Of course this meant that ones run now came around twice as often as it had before, with much shorter rest periods between the bouts of exersion. That morning, whilst Harry was running, a couple of km's behind the car, we saw what looked like a long yellow stick lying across the narrow track. It wasn't until our wheels were almost on top of it that we realised it was in fact an extremely large, bright yellow snake - a Cape Cobra! (incidentally the most aggressive and venomous of all the African cobras - death in 30 minutes!) This particular one was 7ft long and as we drew level with it, it raised its neck and head and the hood flared widely out, in that classic cobra style. Out of pure curiosity we had actually stopped the vehicle and had any of us leant out of the drivers side windows we would have been able to touch the snake - it was that close. It danced on the spot and repeatedly attempted to strike at the front tyre - this was one very angry snake! Soon enough it slithered off the track and through the grass, rather amusingly stopping every 10ft also, rising it's head and flared hood to keep a very beady eye on us. With this dangerous and now angered creature lurking just off the track we decided to retreat to where Harry was still plodding, and guide him through that section in the hope that the vehicle would scare the snake well away.

That was by no means the only snake we came across that week - another huge angry Cape Cobra that also struck at the tyres, and several little sand vipers - small but highly venomous and worryingly camouflaged in the sand. In fact on one occasion, I was running only two or three minutes behind the car and couldn't miss the still, freshly dead body of one of these vipers, lying in the rut that I was running in. It had obviously perished under the Land Rover wheels only minutes before - who knows if I would have trodden on it if it had not! Then only minutes later we saw another one crossing the track and then another - there must have been a nest very nearby. We were well aware that if any of us recieved a bite, particularly from the cobras, or mambas, there was very little or no chance of making it out alive - even if we were able to call in an aeroplane it would not arrive quickly enough to save a life.

Perhaps now I should explain some more about the actual running. It was clear to all four of us that it was as much a mental battle as a physical one. However, the terrain was stunningly beautiful - sharp, clear, blue skies and low, yellow savannah grasses studded with scrubby thorn bushes sprouting from the fine orange desert sand. It would be a misconception to beleive that all of the Kalahari is rolling golden dunes, like much of the Sahara. While these do exist, largely towards the south west, most of the desert is lightly vegetated in the form described above. When running, one would be totally alone, surrounded by this beautiful wilderness and its unusal quiet stillness. Sometimes I would stop, look around and simply appreciate the remoteness and splendour of this corner of Africa; a piece of Old Africa - unchanged over the centuries and unspoilt by human habitation.

Every now and then the silence would be broken by small antelope - often Duikers, darting across the track and disappearing into the bush or the rustling of small creatures hiding at the edge of the track - I think we, as the runners, were as alarmed by their noises, as they obviously were of us.

The sense of paranoia or danger was stepped up on day five, following the discovery of numerous large lion prints in the sand, confirming the animals presence in the immediate vicinity. The prints must have been fresh because the fine sand would be blown smooth in a few hours. It was at this point that we came across a rare vehicle bouncing its way towards us through the sand. The occupants turned out to be a very large, red faced South African hunter and his two gun-boys riding in the back of his truck. He inquired from us as to the whereabouts of any Eland, that he was out to shoot, whilst we inquired from him as to the whereabouts of the local lion population. His reply, in a thick Boer accent was as follows:

"There are many lions and they can be anywhere at any time. Particularly though, they like to come to the track at night....we heard them roaring nearby all last night!" With this reliable information, along with the discovery of the prints, we decided that it was now time to keep the vehicle much closer to the runner and to cease running at sundown. The main bonus of this was that we gained extra hours of sleep, although we were camping right in the middle of the track, precisely where we had been told the lions like to roam at night!

The fourth day of the run, saw us reach the half way point of Hukuntsi - a village right in the middle of the Kalahari, where we were able to top up on fuel and water before carrying on into the wilderness. Whilst filling up with fuel in the village a local man came over to me and in broken English said,

"How is the run going? - you know you are famous here." This was very encouraging to hear and somehow the news of our exploits had reached the local population.

to be further continued....

South Africa (pictures on the way)

On our second day in the country the run came to an end and all four of us shared the relief of no more forced running in the heat. Psychologically we had been geared up for nine days, and had we had to press on further, I think tempers would have got decidedly more fractious than they already were!
We drove on to Kuruman, a nothing town really, in the far north of the Northern Cape Province and camped at a decent campsite outside town. It became clear that night that Rob’s health had taken a bit of a battering, through no weakness of his own. Since the early days of the run he had been having terrible night sweats and coughing every night without fail. He wasn’t sleeping much as a result but was very good about it and was eventually diagnosed with Lymes Disease in Cape Town – basically tick fever, which wasn’t surprising given the ridiculous abundance of the little blighters literally swarming up our legs during the run!

From Kuruman we drove south east to Kimberley and were amazed to find that we could afford a night in the renowned Kimberley Club – a fantastic colonial relic full of fascinating objects from the early diamond days and the Boer War – it was our reward to ourselves after the rigours of the run. The following day we visited the infamous “Big Hole” diamond mine, that had made so many of the early British settlers, most famously Rhodes, into millionaires. A vast open crater that now hosts a deep lake sits right on the edge of town and much of the original machinery and head gear has been preserved as a museum. De Beers’s headquarters is still there and although mining in the area has ceased, it is still the diamond-sorting centre of southern Africa. The tour ended with a trip into the vault and I think we are now all experts on all the different types of diamonds, and there are many.

We decided on an impulse, because the weather down in the Western Cape was rubbish, to drive east into the Orange Free State, to Bloemfontein. Here we spent two nights, still in recovery really from the run, so not doing an awful lot except enjoying the modern comforts and good food of civilised South Africa. From here we dithered, with only five days left of the trip – could be make the long haul to Ishandlwana and Rorkes Drift and actually have enough time to spend there, or should we let some of the pressure off and drive south along the garden route to Cape Town? – we decided on the latter and will have to save Kwa-Zulu Natal for another trip.

So south to Port Elizabeth (PE) we drove through endless brown rolling veldt and the temperature began to drop as the clouds rolled in – it was a shame the trip had to end in winter but I’m sure we’ll all get back to SA in the future. We did the garden route from PE and Alex jumped the highest bungee jump in the world, at Storms River near Plettenburg Bay. We overnighted at George and then spent the next day sunbathing for the last time at Mossel Bay. Several huge whales were wallowing not far off shore and a pod of dolphins were jumping just a few metres from the beach – sights the South Africans can take for granted, but appreciated by us.

We made the obligatory pilgrimage to the windswept, desolate landmark of Cape Agulhas – the southernmost tip of Africa, and watched the sun set over the two Oceans – Indian and South Atlantic. As the sun went down over the horizon I think we were all suddenly aware that something great was now ending, and so in a rather subdued mood, I drove the car on her final leg to Cape Town.

Arriving at our cousin’s place in Constantia, we were welcomed with a bottle of champagne and the expedition was now well and truly over. We only had three nights in CT and enjoyed the Mossops hospitality and good restaurants as the weather was terrible and we couldn’t even climb Table Mountain. On our final day, the 25th September, after one hell of a car washing session, we drove her down to Table Bay Harbour and personally put her into the container that is now somewhere in the Atlantic on the way home…

We flew out of Cape Town that evening and I think I speak for all of us, when I say that I really did not want to leave that continent. It has been the trip of a lifetime and isn’t likely to be forgotten anytime soon.

Toby

Zimbabwe

The following morning we drove to the Zimbabwe border at Nyamapanda, having carefully hidden various “contraband” including the satellite phone, laptop, video camera and thousands of US Dollars under the spare wheel on the roof. The idea in Zim is not to give them any cause to believe you are a journalist – or you are in big trouble!
The border was slow but the Zimbabweans were friendly and all the people going in were carrying sacks of maize and other foodstuffs that are now so hard to come by in Zimbabwe. The man from whom I bought the vehicle insurance, said to me quietly “we in Zimbabwe are suffering, because the old man will not die”. All over Africa we are subjected to sob stories but here we knew they were true!

It was only about two hour’s drive west to Harare through some beautiful scenery but it was also painfully obvious that the farmland was deserted, scorched and empty. Many of the trees lining the road were host to Mugabe election posters with ridiculous propaganda slogans. We all wanted them as souvenirs but knew better than to take them down – immediate arrest would follow if caught.

We arrived at the lovely Glen Lorne area on the outskirts of Harare where David and Clare Peech were extremely kind in having the four of us to stay for three nights. The house was amazing and although the electricity and water were off more than on, we still had a very comfortable stay and are immensely grateful to the Peech family for being so generous. Harare really is one of the nicest cities in Africa and in better times must have been a great place to live. Now all the banks have queues so long outside that some people sleep there so they can withdraw their money – the maximum amount you can withdraw is about 50p (UK) but a packet of biscuits would cost about three pounds if you could find them. Daily power cuts have been the norm for three years and some whole areas of the city are without any water at all – it’s difficult to imagine how people survive.

From Harare we drove down to Gweru and stayed at Antelope Park, where we rode horses in the bush and walked with a pair of lion cubs – fantastic!

Then on west, to Bulawayo and the Motopos Hills. We had the whole place to ourselves as there are really no tourists anymore and visited Rhodes’ grave up on its lonely granite Kopje. We camped that night by a lake and the following morning set to work on changing a broken shock absorber on the front right wheel – luckily we carried a spare one. However disaster struck when the high lift jack seemed to topple in slow motion and the car crashed to the earth, narrowly avoiding Harry’s legs, as he’d been working on the suspension. It was a tense few minutes as we struggled to get the car back onto the jack and prayed there was no significant damage – fortunately there wasn’t and everyone was hugely relieved – I do not trust those bloody jacks ever!!

We left Matopos and headed north from Bulawayo for Hwange National Park to visit a Tusk sponsored project. It was “The Painted Dog Conservation Project” dedicated to saving the wild dog. Peter Blinston, who runs the show, kindly put us up for the night and showed us around the project the following day. There are so many elephants in the area (40,000 ish) that we had to be accompanied by a guard when walking from the kitchen outside to our bedrooms at night – the noise of crackling branches and ripping trees was deafening. It was very interesting to see the workings of the project and it’s great to know that our raised money is going to such worthwhile causes.

Our last stop in Zimbabwe was of course, Victoria Falls. Here we spent three great days – white water rafting, bungee jumping etc and generally relaxing before Botswana and the run! Camping at the Vic Falls Rest Camp was very convenient for town and as business is so terrible at the moment all the activity companies are very willing to negotiate – US Dollars only of course. We actually had quite a good time at the casino in one of the hotels, which was pretty empty and for once most of us finished in the black – but being Zim the casino did not physically have the cash to give us – so that was that!

So after ten brilliant days in Zimbabwe we drove to the Botswana border at Kazangula. For all its problems Zimbabwe is still a great place to visit and my favourite country of the whole trip.
Toby

Kenya

Kenya - Lake Turkana...photos to come

The famous Moyale to Marsabit "Shifta" (bandit) road has enjoyed a fairly fearsome reputation in recent years with roaming Somali bandits massacring villages and ambushing the sparse road traffic. During the planning of this expedition I had been told by others that it would be a case of "driving as fast as you can without crashing". The reality for us was very different - we had met a couple of German diplomats, Marcus and Erich, on the way down to the border in Ethiopia and agreed that we would avoid the painfully slow official convoy and create our own 'convoy' of just two cars. The benefits of travelling with the Germans soon became apparent when on the hour, for five hours, Marcus would pull over and announce that he was getting "dehydrated" and needed a beer. The started at 10 am and as they were carrying 260 beers with them, there was no shortage and everyone was expected to keep pace (drivers excluded of course!)

The road itself has a legendary reputation not just for bandits but for its own sheer physical condition - often labelled "the worst road in Africa", the five hours of almost continuous corrugations combined with large random rocks sitting in the middle of the red rocky dirt road, made driving a pretty demanding and tiring experience. Throughout the 250km road we saw only 3 other cars , but passing through an army checkpoint we agreed to give an off-duty soldier a lift to his village - his uniform and G3 automatic rifle made this more appealing to us as we now had an armed guard for free! Stopping for yet another beer between two craggy hills, he told us that this was one of the Shifta's favourite ambush points and he personally had killed "many" of them here - the fighting was a regular occurrence until only a few months ago but it seems the army have now finally got a grip. We dropped our soldier off at his village - Turbi, famous in Kenya for the terrible massacre, including a large number of school children, in 2005.

The bush surrounding the road was wild, dry and unmistakably "African". It's too dry for much game but there were a few ostriches, camels and impala roaming about. Eventually we arrived into Marsabit - a small frontier town but with reasonable services to offer and the Germans and us chose a decent campsite outside the National Park. We built an excellent fire and barbecued some fresh steaks while continuing to erode the stockpile of beer. Alex was the last to bed and manged to shoo away the hyena that was creeping about having clearly smelt our steak.

The following morning we de-camped and hit the road (track) back northwards and west towards Lake Turkana. The drive up there took all day and truly was one of the most memorable journeys of the trip so far. That northern area of Kenya must be one of the most unspoilt wildernesses left on the continent. Under a burning blue sky the rocky little track soon gave way to pure fine sand as we neared the Chalbi Desert, before morphing into a peculiar talcum powder style orange dust that penetrated every seal in the car and covered the windows and panels like a snow storm. Often Low Ratio was needed to pull us through the worst sections and our average speed that day cannot have exceeded 30 mph at best - fun driving though!

Countless little dik-dik, impala and other small game would scatter off the track as we approached. At one point a pair of jackals trotted out of the bush and hardly seemed afraid of us at all - I suppose they have so little human contact and so have nothing to fear.

Gradually a range of impressive hills rose up and the terrain began to change from thorny acacias and scrub to an empty rocky expanse caused by ancient lava and resembling the moon or Mars.I happened to be sitting on the roof and could see two tribal looking men up ahead - both armed with rifles. Rob stopped as they requested, and up on the roof I was willing him not to do so - it turned out that they were harmless but we were later told not to stop for anyone - the area is tribal, violent and lawless and killings are so common-place they hardly even feature in the papers.

Towards early evening we reached the crest of a hill to be met with the stunningly beautiful view of Lake Turkana stretching ceaselessly below - often known as the Jade Sea it is bluey-green in colour and so salty that its shores are dry, brown and barren - an unforgettable place to visit.

We had arranged to stay with a family of American Missionaries at Loiyangalani where they had been living for 14 years. They were incredibly good to us and they seem to have an amazing set-up. They built their house themselves and generate all their own power through wind and solar panels but by late evening the power tends to run out so candles and torches are a necessity. Robbie, the 16 year old and a great guy, is quite used to bringing in gun-shot wounds etc on his quad bike to be treated. The house is deliberately built almost like a fortress and they live under the constant threat of tribal raids, although they are hugely respected by the local people.

Robbie and Kevin, a hardened ex US army sergeant who has done his time in Iraq and now wants to help others, showed us around the area. We climbed a high sandy hill with incredible views of Turkana. It took half an hour to climb up in the blistering heat but only 30 seconds to run down the sandy slope. Then on to a rocky beach on the lake shore where we wallowed in the shallows - proper swimming would not be clever - crocodiles are no joke in Turkana and they are both numerous and vast. I managed to bog the car down quite badly in the heavy shingle and it took all our efforts to free it, and no small amount of tyre shredding.

That evening we took quad bikes and a hefty pump action shot gun down to a small pool hidden in the rocks about a mile inland from the lake. As we climbed down the rocks to the pool we heard the loud splash of the resident croc flopping into the water to hide from us. Robbie brewed some chai on a small fire and we watched the sun setting over that bizarre but captivating landscape. In case you're wondering, the shotgun came along merely as a self-defence weapon - rabid animals, crocs or worse - humans. The majority of the people in the area dress and live in the traditional tribal manner that has not changed forever. Old women are bare breasted with stretched ears, deliberate scars and a huge amount of beaded necklaces that build up to form a huge collar. The average tourist may see this further south but there it is less genuine and more designed to attract interest and hence money - at Turkana tourism is minimal to non-existent and its rather nice to know that this ancient way of life still continues.

Loiyangalani is merely a collection of tiny round huts built from branches and sticks - the men all carry spears or perhaps rifles and the neighbouring tribe, just a few miles further north is renowned for some quite sinister behaviour. For the men to be able to marry, they must first acquire a pair of human testicles - unfortunately this practice still goes on today and whether it involves slitting open a pregnant woman and removing the foetus' own or raiding villages, it's one of those less pleasant facts of tribal Africa. Loiyangalani itself was used to film the violent ending of the film "The Constant Gardner" and one can too easily imagine the tribal raids taking place.

After a fantastic couple of days in the wonderfully remote expanses of Northern Kenya we headed south to Maralal where we spent only one night before pressing on south to Lake Baringo. We were able to camp about 10 metres from the shore and the hippo's trampled around so close to our tents at night that I seriously thought they might tread on us. Baringo has plenty of hippo's but is also stuffed with crocodiles. Our area of shoreline seemed to be very popular with the smaller ones and one evening while we were sitting in the car sheltering from a rainstorm, Alex appeared like a crazed maniac holding a 3ft long crocodile in his hands. He'd managed to sneak up on it and blind its evil yellow eyes with the torch before pouncing on it from behind with one hand firmly behind its head so it couldn't move. Of course we all touched and stroked the little monster quite carefully but I stupidly went too far, and treating it like a friendly terrier, stroked its head from in front of it. By now it was probably feeling rather threatened and pissed off and in a fraction of a second managed to snap down on the end of my finger. It was only a 3ft baby but believe me those jaws were still very powerful and I was lucky to have only received a few lacerations on the end of my finger and not worse.

There was much blood and noise but we cleaned the cuts and a week on, it is healing nicely. The following morning we took a boat out onto the lake and went out to one of the islands to do some cliff jumping which was good fun until a large green snake slithered out onto the rock we were using and the boatman labelled it a green Mamba (they're terrified of snakes and always over-dramatise so it was quite probably something harmless but none of us being snake experts we decided to call it a day!) Swimming at the edges of the lake would be suicidal but out in the middle tends to be freer from crocs.

Anyway we spent a great couple of days at Baringo and I shall get on the next blog sometime soon. Until then, hope everyone's having as good a summer as us,Toby

From Baringo we drove to Gilgil:
Through the small railway bridge and up to the main gates, Pembroke House (my old school from days living in Africa) lay completely as I remembered, though the surrounding hills seemed to have diminished. Green due to the recent rains and impeccably kept, the playing fields crept out down to the loose vegetation of the African bush which in turn led up to the shear sides that determine the Great Rift Valley. Our stay in Gilgil with Sam Cooke, the new headmaster, saw us kindly invited to a barbeque further up the valley, during which numerous kind invitations were offered, most notably a coffee farm up on the Ngorongoro Crater by Leon and Aideen Christianarkis.

Our drive the following day to Lake Naivasha led us past the infamous Happy Valley Club, to meet the recently televised Cycle of life team, who having cycled through the Kalahari were embarking on their last leg. A group of five including the fastest person to cycle arounnd the world, Mark Beumont, we were very lucky to question them on certain points of the Kalahari before enjoying a combined photo shoot for Tusk. We all returned to the Campbell-Clauses’ following this meet for the night.

The following morning we left for Borana, friends the Dyers’, estate North East of us. Driving past Treetops and through endless wilderness we eventually arrived. Set upon a small kopje their lodge had enviable views of their private safari reserve. That evening we drove out up to a favored sundowner haunt, overlooking a waterhole. With the sun dying, the animals and the flow of iced beers, Kenya was assured of its position as a favorite and certainly a place to return to. A further couple of days were spent here game driving and enjoying the Nanyuki club, the latter inducing many drunken injuries from the surrounding thorn trees and the pool.From the freedom of Borana and Naivasha we drove south to Nairobi, staying with Jane Barseby in Karen.

Though Nairobi was congested to bursting point and we were forever finding ourselves trapped in traffic, drinks at the Norfolk reflected the old Kenya we had seen earlier. A last supper in Carnivore, one of Nairobi’s last big game restaurants, saw us dining on crocodile and several Bucks before we continued onto Tanzania the next day. The following evening we returned to our traveling routine, staying in Arusha’s Masai camp. It proved to be a very colorful set up providing all the essentials. However our stay here was extremely fleeting, serving merely as a springboard for the eight hour push up to Leon and Aideen Christianarkis beautiful farm on the edge of Ngorongoro crater. Their stunning coffee farm perched on the edge of the park enabled us to have an unbelievable sundowner overlooking elephant territory, setting an amazing introduction to Tanzania.
Rob