Kenya - Part 5

Saturday 15^th December

We have been back on the road since last Tuesday after Don returned from Durban late Monday night with a few life savers: chocolate, biltong, mosquito repellent and hair dye. It felt like Christmas had come early this year.

Before Don left for Durban we had already made the decision to go back to Lake Turkana once more even though it meant a round trip of about 1400 km. Crazy for sure, but not only did we all hugely enjoy that remote part of northern Kenya but there is clearly some unfinished business up there as far as Don and Ian’s ‘bucket list’ is concerned. Decided to up our travel insurance from silver to gold (only joking!) just in case of more ‘extreme fishing’. Perhaps sky-diving into the lake with a harpoon will finally hook that Nile perch!

With the front shock absorber fixed (again!) we first headed south to spend a couple of days in two of Kenya’s most famous game parks, Tsavo East and Tsavo West. The reason for doing that was that we plan to enter Uganda via Lake Turkana which is in the north west of the country so we wanted to see these game parks before leaving the south of Kenya for good.

Even though both parks are right next to each other they are famous for very different reasons. Tsavo West has an uninterrupted view of Kilimanjaro and  if you are lucky you see that classic postcard picture view of the mountain in the background and a  herd of elephant strolling in the foreground. As bad luck would have it Kilimanjaro was almost totally obscured by clouds and there were no elephant anywhere near the mountain.

Tsavo East is best known for it’s large elephant population (12,000) and winning it’s fight against poaching which had reduced the numbers from 30,000 in 1967 to as low as 5300 in 1988.  At that time it looked like the elephants would be wiped out completely. Luckily the international ivory trade restrictions, in place since 1989 had an immediate effect on the numbers of new elephant corpses being found in the park. Another important new but less publicised policy was brought in at the same time which meant that poachers were shot on sight. When you see the photographs of elephants lying on the ground with their tusks literally hacked off their faces covered in blood it does seem justified.

Anyway, we had a great day having many sightings of elephant. To me, Kenya and elephant are synonymous and I just love them. Kenyan elephant are by far the largest in the world and their presence is awe inspiring especially when you get close to them like the ones in the pictures below.

We left the Tsavo East yesterday at the crack of dawn and started to head back north, crossing the equator a third time in four months.  We had no idea how far we would get or what was ahead in terms of overnight camps, but at around 4pm our ‘Tracks for Africa’ GPS showed ‘the only camp in the area…’ , clearly an entry made by some previous travellers on this stretch of the road.

Anyway we decided to give it a go and of course there was no camp, just a  clearing in the bush with shady acasia trees and lots of fresh elephant droppings so we knew we were in for a treat. 

It turned out to be the most beautiful bush camp we have stayed in so far and by the time we had cooked our tuna pasta we were surrounded by elephant on all sides although it was pitch black dark so we didn’t see them but certainly heard them.

We had bought fresh fruit that day and found ourselves in a predicament of not knowing where to store it. Ian & Heather have previously been in a situation where an elephant came right up to their truck and searched for fruit with its trunk whilst Heather was fast asleep and oblivious to it and Ian watching on from a distance not knowing what to do next. So we decided to put all the fruit in a cooler box and leave it well away from our trucks. It turned out the elephants didn’t feel like fruit on this occasion and we had a very peaceful night. 

Monday 17^th December

We arrived in Marsabit in the Kenyan far north on Sunday and decided to spend a day in Marsabit National Park before heading west towards Lake Turkana.

This park is totally different from any other we have seen so far, it consists mostly of impenetrable wild forest with two beautiful volcanic crater lakes. It also is home to long-tusked Marsabit elephant as well as lion, cheetah and buffalo.

The dirt road through the park is mostly steep and it is not advisable to enter the park after rains. Unfortunately, the park office had run out of maps but we were reassured that it was impossible to get lost because '...there is only one road'.  Well, guess what?

It was sunny when we entered the park and we had a magical day driving through dense ancient forest with an abundance of birds, butterflies and spiders in webs stretching right across our track. 

By mid-afternoon we hit trouble. Ian was driving  a few kilometers ahead of us and it soon became apparent that we had taken a wrong turn (remember there is only ONE road in the park!). The track became very steep and narrow and in places totally overgrown with long grass seemingly heading nowhere.

In parts trees were leaning heavily towards the track or obliterating it altogether. We were just trying to avoid one of those tree branches by driving almost on the bank when there was a terrible noise coming from our roof and it turned out that the tree had sliced straight into our rooftop tent.  We immediately radioed Ian and Heather who were out of sight but luckily within radio range because we were totally stuck. The branch was deeply embedded in the tent and the one tool we don’t carry in our truck is a saw.

At this point Ian and Heather had also realised that we had gone wrong somewhere and had already started to head back. Out came the tools and Ian started to saw the branch which was no easy task since the wood was very tough.

This all happened on a slope with I & H’s truck facing ours and suddenly the branch was cut loose and our car started to roll since the only thing holding it in position had been the tree branch. Ian was still sitting on top of the truck holding the saw,  I was trying to jump in from the passenger side to pull the handbrake but it was Don who managed to jump in on the driver’s side to swing the car round and hit the brake to avoid a collision with Ian’s.

All this happened it a split second and someone somewhere was watching over us! Phew!

We turned back and found the ‘right’ track to the volcanic lakes, relieved that we had a lucky escape. The crater lakes are beautiful and you get a real sense of the forces of nature when you see the size of them as well as the volcanic rocks strewn all around, this time more the size of a small cars.

We started to head back and then, guess what…? It started to rain!

We were already halfway to the gate so we didn’t worry too much since it was only about an hour’s drive to the exit, but after crawling up a particularly steep hill we came around a corner and saw Ian’s truck stuck in ditch. The sandy track had become so slippery due to the rain that with each attempt to drive out he was digging himself in deeper and deeper.

Out came all the big toys: ropes, winches, spades etc. Heather and I started to collect stones and wood to create friction under the wheels, ignoring the third bit of advice we were given at the entrance gate: don’t get out of your car!

Eventually, an hour later and covered in mud we managed to winch Ian out by securing the winch to the large tree and off we went. Or so we thought!

Next, it was our turn to get stuck. Whilst we were all busy getting Ian out of the ditch the slope we were on had become increasingly more slippery and as soon as we started to pull off the car started to veer into the ditch no matter what we tried to do to prevent this from happening. At this point our tyres had become covered in deep mud and there was no effective tread  left to provide any traction. So we started our third rescue operation for that day and eventually Ian managed to winch Don out.

We managed to get to the gate by driving/sliding/slipping at 5km/hour but at least we made it out before the gate closed. Back at our camp we were relieved to find that only the tent cover was ripped but the structure of the tent was intact.

That night the cold beers tasted better than ever and hey, guess what?

                                         Another tough day in Africa….