Kenya - Nairobi

It has been a strange week for us in that we have done very little. We arrived back in Nairobi at the Jungle Junction camp on Sunday and are still here, planning our next move and waiting for our Sudan visas. This is quite an amazing place; it is a sanctuary for travellers from all over Africa. It has a workshop attached to it so the boys have had the cars serviced and all the screws and bolts tightened. There is also a fully equipped kitchen here so Heather and I have been pre-cooking and freezing meals for the next leg of our trip. And of course legs shaved and hair dyed (decision made!). We have also had a chance to catch up with family and friends which was great.

What is so special about this place is that travellers from all over Africa (and Europe) seem to know about it and there is a constant stream of people who are either on their way up north like us or on their way south and the info exchanged here is more valuable than anything you may read in your travel guides or hear in the news.

I took some pictures of other overland vehicles here since some of them are pretty unique. A few on them are for sale so I thought I would just mention it to our Oxford friends who said they would really like to join us on this trip...

Ben and Lin?

Steve & Julia?

Tony & Mel

Val & Jim? (sorry guys, nothing here up to your standard)

Joking aside, what we have learned this week from people arriving from the northern countries is that  a lot of the roads we would have to be travelling on from now on are impassable in the rainy season and it appears that the rainy season has started early this year so we may have to change our route accordingly. Or else there will be a lot of this:

Our first river crossing and guess who didn't get out to check the water level?

and here is why:

Finally the Sudanese visas have arrived and we are off again. From Kenya we will cross into Ethiopia before reaching Sudan; however, due to the fact that our Ethiopian visas expire by 22nd October, we have decided to make our way to Sudan as quickly as possible now and then spend some quality time in Ethiopia, Uganda and Rwanda on our way back down, hopefully with less time pressure.

Well, that was yesterday. Today we are keeping a close eye on the latest news and may yet decide to give Sudan a miss altogether if things are not stable by the time we are ready to cross the border from Ethiopia. Currently we are heading out of Nairobi as we speak and have been stuck in a traffic jam like the one you see in the picture above for hours. 

We managed to get out of Nairobi in the end, and are now sitting in our camping chairs at the base of Mount Kenya in a lovely camp. Tomorrow we will cross the equator so we will need to find a bath to see which way the water drains. Will let you know...