Nairobi to Nairobi

Our Christmas break was very successful; we really had a break and that’s why it was quiet on our blog for a while. But we are back on the road! So we left you in Nairobi where we celebrated Christmas Eve at Karen Camp with two overlander truck drivers Ben and Nathalie, Lorraine and some locals (aka KC’s or Kenyan Cowboys, white people who are born in Kenya). On Christmas day we packed our stuff and headed for the Kenyan coast, which meant a detour through Tsavo East National Park. We have a tendency to run late for leaving national parks and this one was no exception. We spotted two spotted hyenas and an elephant herd so we ran an hour late. So far all the gate officers had been really friendly so we put our money on a cheap bushcamp spot near the gate. It was our lucky day.

The next day we drove from Tsavo East to Malindi where we ended up staying for 6 days. The Italians have discovered Kenya in Malindi, so the ratio Kenyans vs Italians is about 1:1 during winter holidays. As you know the Italians love their food, so for six days we had a very welcome pizza and pasta diet. Besides the good food, it came across that it is good diving in Kenya, so Richard decided to get his Open Water diving license. On one of the dives we were joined by two Kenyan sisters with their boyfriends who live in Australia. As it turned out their dad owns one of the biggest resorts in Malindi where every year they organize a big event for New Years Eve. They invited us to their party and since we didn’t have any plans it seemed like the perfect excuse to spend a lot of money on rolling into 2014. Actually, what really pulled us over was the free breakfast they promised us when you stayed up until 7 in the morning (as seasoned partymakers we obviously managed to stay awake that long and we got rewarded with the best free breakfast we had ever had). The first day of 2014 was spend a little hung over sunbathing in the resort.

From Malindi we went straight to Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. Firstly we wanted to climb it, but after Mt Kenya we decided that just seeing the mountain from below was good enough. We met up with Simon and Lore (the Belgium couple that provided us with information about shipping from Aqaba to Port Sudan) and Lores sistes Maaike. Their Volkswagen 4x4 has a broken gearbox and they’re waiting for two months already to get a new one because it cannot be fixed anymore. To kill some time and still see something of Africa they’ve rented a two-wheel drive. Unfortunately it is impossible to go off-road with that car, so we offered them a ride to Serengeti and Ngorngoro National Parks in Tanzania. This ‘offer’ ended up in a four day excursion along Lake Natron through Serengeti to the Ngorongoro crater back to Arusha.

Lake Natron is really beautiful and home to 80% of all the lesser flamingos in the world. The deepest part of the salty lake is only 40 cm, but it stretches over some 150 kilometers from Tanzania into Kenya. The road towards it runs along a major rift fault and volcanos dominate the area. The route is majestic with massive grasslands and grazing giraffes, zebras and impalas. It is a 120km off-road trail along which three villages try to rip you of all your money in what must be one of the best tourist traps ever. They have built an improvised gate which you cannot pass without paying 10 USD per head. Of course we had very little interest in paying this unexpected fee so we hassled for at least 45 minutes at the first gate, ending up paying ‘only’ half. Because of the hassle dawn came already and in the dark we passed the deserted second gate as well as the third without paying. We put up camp literally in the lake. The next morning we got surrounded by local kids begging for food and trying to sell home-made jewelry. We restraint ourselves from buying and giving and we headed for the Serengeti gates at Klein’s Camp. But nothing more than that. Even though we had passed the gates during the night the locals had noticed us and insisted that we’d pay the fee after all (actually, the guy was blocking the rivercrossing with his motorcycle so we could not get passed him). To make matters worse we even had to pay for bushcamping (15 USD each) and for watching flamingo’s (random amount) and the car (20 USD). I beg your pardon? We weren’t driving round Serengeti and Ngorongoro to pay an amount equal to that of the two national parks together! So we put up a scene. We tried being nice, being angry, shouting, crying and laughing. Anouk even yelled at one of the officers if he would please shut up for a second and then we decided to just tell them we didn’t have enough money on us to pay them. Eventually, after two hours of discussion and going back and forth we ended up paying 10 euros each, so again no winners but we were allowed to pass.

Serengeti and Ngorongoro were easy passings after the Lake Natron debacle. Still, entry fees are rather expensive (60 USD per person for Serengeti and 40 USD for the car, 50 USD for Ngorongoro conservation area, 40 USD for the car and 30 USD per person for camping and 200 USD for entering the crater). Since we were with our own car we tried to save some money by hiding Lore under the seat, which worked perfecly. Both parks were really nice with lots of animals, the side tracks and trails are ok, but the main roads are really horrible. For fellow travelers reading this blog; if you want to go to Ngorongoro Crater yourself, just buy the gate pass at the park HQ and show up at the gate. They don’t ask for your guide and let you in, just beware that the gate you enter is only an entrance and closes at 4, the exit gate is to the northern side of the crater and is open until 6.

Our initial plan was to drive through Serengeti into Kenya and onwards to Uganda, but the expedition with our Belgium friends brought us back to Arusha and eventually Nairobi. The last couple of days we were again at Karen Camp. It was a successful couple of days. We applied for a Burundi visa (which was issued in 1 day for 90 USD, location: first floor International House, city hall road, opposite of the Hilton Hotel) and we finally managed to get our solar system and fridge working after buying a solar-type battery and new multimeter to sort out the wiring. We also met 5 other couples at Karen’s who came from Southern Africa, an opportunity we used to exchange stories and information, a nice barbeque on our arrival and plenty of beers. We also discovered that Eastern Africa is far from the hot place we imagined it to be; temperatures during the night drop to a couple of degrees above freezing resulting from the high elevation of this part of Africa, with Nairobi at 1900m and the roads often taking us close to 3000m (comparable in altitude to the French alpine village of Alp D’Huez and the slopes on which you ski). This also means that our car produces an enormous amount of black smoke upon flooring the pedal due to an out-of-balance diesel and air mixture, but compared to the other local vehicles around it is hardly noticeable.

At the moment we are heading to Uganda through the rift valley again, which is a true geologist’s paradise, where we hope to cross the border on the 13th of January. After that the plan is to do Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi, but as plans here change faster than the exchange rates, we will just take it one day at the time.