Down Lake Turkana and into Kenya

Heading south the weather quickly warms as the altitude drops and by the afternoon we are basking in sunshine. Approaching Lake Chamo we come across our first baboons by the road. The plan is to camp by the lake for

the eve so we stop in Arba Minch the town for supplies and beers, due to a lack of bottles the wont sell the beer +

bottle only the beer so an old water bottle is produced and filled for us as a take out. 

Heading out to our first official safari type park, its after 5 and there is no one ate the entry gate and its open and unmanned so we get a free entry, bonus!  We follow the track through the thick bush for 7 or 8 miles down to the lakeside.Its starting to feel like the Africa I think of from books with thick bushes of 4 inch thorns and trees with strange nests hanging from them. We pass plenty more baboons crossing the track and in the bushes. The birds are

increasing all the time with some spectacular shapes and colours.

Setting up camp on the lake shore a large Eagle sits in a tree hunting and eventually getting his dinner.

We were hoping to se hippos and  at a safe distance crocs. As the light goes though we see neither but many large splashes during the night means something is out there.

The following day we head down to Omorate the final town on our route through Ethiopia. It an out of the way place with over 200 km's of gravel road to get to it once the tarmac runs out.

The landscape becomes drier with a mix of lower scrub and trees covering the sand. Looming up out of the bush are many huge termite/ant mounds.They say this is one of the more remote and untouched areas of Africa where people still live in very traditional ways. Certainly the locals are dressed in some pretty bright and authentic looking outfits. Clothing has become a lot more optional for some as well! Although hardly any of the men is to be seen out and about without his trusty AK-47.

 The only other cars we see on the road are almost certainly tourists on escorted drives or aid agency vehicles. Its not quite that untouched.

By mid afternoon we reach Omorate and easily locating the Immigration compound we do the formalities to get stamped out. Its not a busy place the officials have to come across the road from chatting in the shade and unlock their respective rooms. The immigration man is a lovely old boy with huge glasses and a very shaky hand. We keep our entries short for him, neither of us has the exact date on us but we agree the 25th sounds like a good day to put down.

This far out their are no banks or even a rash black market money changers so we drive about town and find a likely looking local. We kick about for half an hour while he visits various places to round up enough Kenyan shillings to complete our exchange.

I pass the time checking out an old series land rover from Kenya that is up getting supplies. Its closer for them than heading the long drive down Turkana for a similar sized town. I get info on roughly where the turn off is for Kenya, its not marked as such just a track into the bush.

Heading off down this track its a series of sandy tracks through light bush and trees crossing numerous dried up riverbeds. Population is light but there are small villages of little domed huts ringed by walls of thorns. Groups of now naked children run out to meet you and the adults are either in full local dress with ornate hair do and headdress or have on a football shirt.

We find a suitable quiet spot up a dried up riverbed for the eve, although in the quiet out here the local goat herders can still be heard clanking in the distance.

Thorn ringed villages

The following day is spent at a leisurely pace crossing the

variations between lovely sand tracks and horrid rock

fields. And of course hundreds more dried up river beds

with a liberal splattering of drops to catch you out on

any place you might actually get any speed up. Mainly a

day of 1st and 2nd gear. We get to add some more African

animals to our 'seen' list. A couple of kinds of antelope

some tiny deer like animals and more birds.

Not far from the shore we camped up near the edge of a sea

of grass, the kind I imagine a lion might be hiding in.

Just for good measure we have been making fire in the

evenings now. Apparently most animals fear fire and at the

least it keeps the flies away. Gives a little comfort when

you hear the hyenas howling in the dark!

A few days before somewhere a few hundred kms east of

Omorate just before we left the range of mobile phones we

had exchanged messages with Bod & Tadhg the Irish boys we had travelled with a before. Already in Kenya they planned to come up and meet us on the shores of lake Turkana. So a gps point was agreed upon and a day. 

Another remote campsite

We had camped only about 50 Km's north of the position so taking a very leisurely start we headed down the 2 hours it took to cover 50 Km's and by pure luck both cars arrived within 20 mins of each other.

After climbing a small outcrop a nice spot was found for the rest of the afternoon and night. Right on the sands of Lake Turkana’s beach. Untouched almost only a few foot prints of animals and not another tyre mark in sight. Lake Turkana is a big lake and produces reasonable waves, a afternoon swim washed away the last few days of dust and sweat. The water is warm enough and the only thing to not make our stay to long in it was the fact its full of crocodiles. None in sight but still best to be cautious, im no Steve Irwin.

The highlight of the day was the case of beer and fillet of beef they had brought up! A welcome sight indeed. A good fire was made and some of the tastiest tender beef melted into mouths. The price of beef in Kenya means a full fillet of beef costs only around £10, bargain.

Tadhg & Bob with steak & beers!

2 landrovers where they belong in the wild

The following day we wound down more tracks and the villages started to get bigger with proper buildings and even some boasting themselves as hotels. They still looked like 1 or 2 room tin roof buildings mind.

Parts of the area have suffered tribal conflict and bandits in the past and unsure exactly how safe we were we made good inroads into the dense bush between the hills of  Losai National reserve and found a good spot in a big rock bowl.

 

The following day we finally reached the last stretch of the Moyale road with its famous corrugations. The 15 odd miles were more than enough for us and shook a few more bits loose. One spotlight was left dangling and one of the suspension bolts that had been problematic came loose again creating an interesting/dangerous steering wobble. Went we finally reached the tarmac after some 500 miles off-road we quickly tightened up up the offending bits and were on our way. Apparently this road also has bandits and even the Army guys who had stopped to do collect something out of the roadside had lookouts posted with guns. I cant say it felt unsafe but you never know what lurking in the bushes I guess.

One thing that was there, were Ostriches another to tick of the list. We had planned to stop in at the Safari park at Archers Post the Samburu national reserve. Knowing they are expensive we were planning to only stop in a choice few however here they wouldn’t give us a full 24 hours if we lfet the park to camp outside in the cheaper campsite they initially want $80 just to camp inside plus the $140 entrance fee. If we went out we would have to pay another $140 to re-enter the following morning. A bit miffed we headed south a hour and a half to Nanyuki catching up with the Irish again and camping with a new friend of theirs with the intention of getting up early and doing the Samburu park in a day. However the guy who’s land we are camping on is a safari outfitter and his son has taken us on some local drives into the bush which are fantastic. For starters there are no other groups of vehicles about and you get to go to some much more wild feeling locations.

We have seen Elephants, Giraffes, Zebra, Boar, Gazelles, Antelope, Buffalo and a host of other animals including some fantastic birds.

We are also on the Equator now some 9250 miles since we left home