Moyale to Marsabit (Days 47-49)
By admin. Filed in Kenya |
It was a hectic morning getting ready to leave camp—collecting laundry and charged electronics, packing up for the new truck system, and eating breakfast and filling water bottles to an accelerated schedule so the lunch truck could beat the fastest racers to the lunch stop. Adding to my frustration was the discovery that my iPhone had been unplugged in the middle of the night and had gone back into its discharge-only mode. I had just posted my new phone number the day before so I people could reach me from back home, and now—once again—I would be completely unreachable for several days.
In all, it was a fun riding day. The roads were unpaved but in good condition. The first 15k or so out of camp was a nice downhill ride. The landscape was beautiful, with red roads cutting through green shrubbery being slowly consumed by hungry camels. I stopped to watch a group of baboons for a while, and saw a dikdik once.
Mid-day, I saw Reiner stopped along the side of the road and decided it was a good place to take a break. Dave did the same. While we were standing there, a few men in camouflage garb trickled out of the bush wielding large machine guns. They smiled and waved and we walked across the road to say hello. There was a bit of a language barrier, but we were able to discern that they were part of the Ethiopian Liberation Front. Who exactly they were fighting, we don’t know. But that did explain their Rastafarian haircuts, brightly-colored bandanas, and poor English skills. I shared my candy-coated peanuts and Dave distributed some cigarettes to the group. They seemed satisfied and we rolled down the hill one kilometer to a small village. The people in the town didn’t know there were rebel fighters so close by in the hills. We had a couple of warm sodas and finished the day.
Camp was in a small village with a few strange amenities. There were a couple of shops to buy warm drinks and chapatas. Down the street there was a shop that advertised cold drinks and videos. Inside, they had two car batteries with an inverter, TV set, DVD player, and some home-made video DVDs. A solar panel sat ready to charge the batteries, but judging from the size it might have taken weeks to get a full charge. There was a fridge for the drinks, but it wasn’t powered up.
The town’s biggest feature was a tall water tower, which offered a great view of the area. I’m sure we weren’t supposed to climb it, but nobody stopped us from doing so. The water tower didn’t supply the town’s water; it was empty. Instead, brought their farm animals to the dirty pond by our campsite to drink. They also obtained their own water from the pond. We were allowed to collect our own drinking water from the pond, but weren’t allowed to bathe in the “clean†water. I don’t think anyone took them up on the offer.
Once school let out, our campsite was flooded with schoolchildren. They were very curious about us, but generally on good behavior. They weren’t trying to steal everything from us like the Ethiopian children had been. I managed to finally completely dry my laundry before a sprinkling of rain. The mildew smell still lingers, but hopefully it will stop getting worse each day.
Something to note about most of the bushes in the area is that they are very sharp. The ones next to my tent have hooked barbs all along their branches. I dropped a shirt on one and spent five minutes trying to release it from its grasp. Lots of the bushes along the road have spikes an inch or two long that are very good at puncturing tires and scratching up arms and legs as well.
From the town, we had a bit of a longer day. We were heading out into the infamous Northern Kenya desert that we had all been dreading for so long. The first two thirds of the day was actually perfectly fine. The last 20k became a bit more challenging, with the last 10k being a difficult struggle in the heat. Still, I finished the day by 2PM, and found enough space between the lava rocks to set up my tent and spend the rest of the day sitting in the shade drinking soup.
The last stretch to Marsabit was rumored to be one of the toughest days—if not the toughest day—of the tour. I found it to be long and arduous at times, but definitely easier than Dinder National Park (DNFP). The corrugations were farther apart, and the day was just over half as long. The day consisted of a lot of bumpy lava rock, lots of corrugation, a fair bit of gravel that would steer the bike tire in inappropriate directions, and a final incline at the end of the day. I was excited to pull up to the coke stop just before lunch to hear the hum of a generator running. There were cold drinks! (Cold beverages are a definite rarity in this area.) The campsite wasn’t very well flagged, so I passed it by a couple of kilometers and had to come back. Evidently several other people had done the same thing. It wasn’t the best way to end a long, hot day, but at least we had arrived at the rest day.