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

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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!”