Kenya

Mail sent Wednesday 17 November 2004
Once again the border crossing and paper work went smoothly, thank you Jesus.  The only unsure thing was getting 3^rd party insurance for the GS – the ‘sales men’ quote between 8000 & 3500 KSH (US$107 &US$47) a rip off deluxe.  Johan went and spoke to the customs official and he took Johan to another insurance office and the boss told us that it was not necessary if we had a carnet!  So we took the chance and headed for Nairobi, when we were stopped at a police block we showed the carnet and it was no problem.  The closer we got to Nairobi the greener the scenery.  There are lots of masai herdsmen/boys along the road with their goats and cattle.   We also saw some giraffe and camels and quite a lot of donkeys.   We stopped in a quiet area to have a snack break – a lettuce, banana and dried guava sandwich – when the Lord sent us a pizza deliveryman!  No jokes! I hadn’t even finished making our sarmies when this guy stopped with his 4 boys, to chat about the GS. His name is Said (a muslim) and he was on his way to watch some rally drivers but is a biker and has a Africa-Twin and just had to stop to chat to us.  AND he had a spare pizza in his car!!  They bought pizza for lunch and got given a ham and pineapple pizza by mistake – being muslim they couldn’t eat the ham!!  So he gave it to us.  It was really, really, really yummy, thank you Jesus.  Said also told Johan about a better road to take so that we did not have to travel through the town of Nairobi to the Nairobi National Park Services campsite.  A really nice guy.  We found the campsite with no problem and pitched the tent on lovely lawn.  It is a real overland hangout, lots of tourist and about 6 overland trucks.  It was nice to see that some of the tourists were quite senior (60 years +); they had to put up their own tents, help with cooking and dishes.  Praise the Lord, real adventures folk.

Oh, I thought it would be really warm here being so close to the equator (1` south of equator) but brrrr it is chilly!  The altitude here is 1800m.  We had a busy day looking for the Embassy of Ethiopia, Eritrea, Yemen and Saudi Arabia.   We got our visas for Ethiopia and they cost us US$20 each (it costs US$70 for Americans - ouch!!)  We got to the Eritrea Embassy as they where closing for lunch but they did tell us that we would be able to get a visa, the Yemen and Saudi Embassy’s (when we eventually found them) were both closed because of the Eid public holidays for muslims.   The reason we are going to these Embassy’s is that we are looking for an alternative route other than Egypt.  As our carnet is not valid for Egypt we will not be able to get the GS into the country without paying about 400% the value of the bike to the border officials!!  We have only had bad feedback on Egypt from all sorts of contacts, overland travellers' and website chatting, so we are looking at going through Ethiopia to either Eritrea or Djibouti and across to either Yemen or Saudi Arabia and then up to Jordan. Nairobi is a lovely city, beautiful old buildings and also some very nice style modern buildings.  The streets are lined with huge trees and under most are local businesses – being nurseries, all sorts of plats, shrubs and seedlings, really healthy looking plants.  It makes the sidewalks look quite attractive with rows and squares of different colours.   The traffic on the roads flows quite nicely and only slows down near the traffic circles, which form a major part of the road system here.  There are lots of taxis, buses and trucks but the worst about the vehicles is that there are a lot of very bad ‘puffers’!  There was quite a few times that I felt that I couldn’t breath because of the fumes – urgh!!   You should have seen my face when we got back to the campsite – I looked like snoopy – my face was black except where my glasses had been!!  Really dirty.   We went on some scenic roads back to the campsite and eventually got back at 16h40. Now we are heading for Lake Naivasha and the Rift Valley.

Mail sent: Tuesday November 23rd 2004
It is official, Marsabit has got the worst mud in the world! his is what the back & front wheel looked like.Well, or so we think. Just as we think we have seen it all, something new comes our way!

 

Yesterday was the most eventful day of all, full of excitement, I even got a chance to test my abilities to fix a flat tyre in the boendoes.Just short after, we left Nairobi and went to Lake Naivasha, we stayed at the most beautiful camp site ever called Fishermans Camp. They have lovely lawns under huge acacia trees and even have hippos grazing on the lawn at night. Lots of fish eagles and many other water birds. From there we rode on the worst tar road(corrogated) we have ever been on, to Nakura. From Nakura we went to Kenricho which is the worlds 3rd largest tea growers where it rains every afternoon through out the year and yes we got wet!! On our way to Kabsabet we crossed the equator and thanks to the GPS we could stop on the exact spot. We slept the night in Eldoret at the Catholic Church. The next day we went through the most amazing scenery up and down and up and down and up and down through the Kerio Valey and the Great Rift Valley between 900m and 2400m above sea level. ( Thanks Dad for our nice wedding gift)

Through Iten, Marigat and around Lake Baringo, with more stunning scenery. It seems that every country has got some nice biking roads like the Eastern Transvaal. This is Kenya's "Eastern Transvaal" with winding roads through green scenery. That was the last of the tar road and the GS was tested like never before. The scenery down there looks very similar to Namibia and the Karoo. Then came Maralal, the town known for it's racing Camels, yes racing camels! Once a year they have a international Camel Derby. The area is very beautiful and looks a lot like north Namibia, just very much greener, because of all the rain. Then came the interesting day from Maralal to Marsabit. Extremely beautiful scenery every where. The Lord has really made this part awesome. We saw animals we have never seen before in our lives, they got the most beautiful looking Valturine Guinaefowl! We were very tempted to pitch the tent in the middle of know-where but the hyena we saw helped us to change our minds!!  Because of the 45 min delay with the flat tyre we rode the last 70km (21/2 hours) in the dark, a pity because of the beautiful area. Actually it was a blessing as we just missed the rain in Marsabit. Unfortunately we did not miss the mud, which is very very very sticky! And slippery deluxe ( Het gery soos 'n regte beginner biker in eerts rat met my voete sleep sleep en my skoene big time vol modder) The mud was so bad that the front wheel couldn't  turn freely. This morning we spent a loooong time getting the gooey mud off. Kenya is by far the most beautiful land that we have travelled through. The north of Kenya is extremely beautiful but it is very harsh and you must be tough to travel through it , but it is worth the effort Now the real adventure starts and as many others have said before me. AFRICA IS NOT FOR SISSIES. We can definately second that.

Mail sent: Sunday November 28 2004........Back in Nairobi!!!
Back in Nairobi. Why you ask? Well, just as I said in the previous e mail, just as you thought you have seen it all, you haven't! You aint seen nothing yet my broe!! I've ridden more than 140 000km with 2 BMW GS's and never had a brake down before, until a couple of days ago when smoke from under the seat puts a stop to our journey. Not an end though, just a delay, and a rather large ouch in our budget. BUT even with all the mishaps we are still enjoying every moment of our time in Africa, on African time!! You get a saying of 'n boer maak 'n plan, but I tell you, the devil (or nothing) will get a Kings kid down. What happened you ask? We will mail a longer story with photos in the week. In short, 13km after leaving Marsabit on our way to Moyale, Ethiopia at 5 am the BM's main wiring harness melted. We pushed the bike 3km (fully laiden!!! 300kg, and uphill) to a police road block

 We left the bike with the Police and  went to Marsabit to orginise transport to Nairobi. We got a tractor with a trailor to collect the bike  Then loaded the bike  onto a truck in Marsabit for  Nairobi. The truck journey is a story on its own, a 1960's Fiat with maks speed (GPS) 55km/h on downhill. 28hours (500km) later we arrived in Nairobi.  My mother's brother (Cobus) has got this saying, 'Africa is a tuff country', need I add more? We are still blessed, if you look at how everything happened it is actually a miracle that we are back so quickly in civilization. Just received a mail from a friend of ours who's Bikes back wheel broke off (BMW GS) at 130km/h!!  And God protected him and his wife, thank you Jesus!

Please pray for us, God knows what we need and we believe in him to provide in everything.Greetings and love
Sien, nie altyd die nuutste werk in Afrika nie, dis die lorrie wat ons terug gebring het na beskawing, prys die Here! As jy mooi kyk sal jy Mt Kenya in die agtergrond sien, op die ewenaar en altyd vol sneeu. Die 2de hoogste berg in Africa teen 5199m.

Mail sent: Monday November 29 2004

Charmaine's side of the story: North Kenya

The Yare Club in Maralal is where a Camel Derby is held in August every year and is a wonderful campsite.  It was a good place to relax before heading toward Wamba and Marsabit as we had heard the roads are bad in the north. We rode through some of the most amazing scenery we have seen yet, real national geographic and travel channel style stuff, and we were in it , unbelievable!   Beautiful!  Lots of Sambura herdsmen/boys with their cattle/goats along the roads.  Flat open areas with canopy thorn trees scattered in the distance and also some valleys that were quite bushy.  Some of the normally dry riverbeds were fast flowing rivers as a lot of rain has fallen over the last week.  All the plains are green with little white and blue flowers along the road and there is the sweetest scent in the air.  We saw our first Vulturine Guinea Fowls with their amazing cobalt blue feathers - really an awesome sight.  We passed many nomadic villages, with thorn bush cattle kraals and very colourfully dressed people, especially the women.  They wear huge beaded neckbands with their colourful blankets; beads are also strapped on their head in a fashion and not forgetting their big colourful earrings.  They are by far a more beautiful and colourful tribe than the Masai.  Apparently there were 2 brothers ,  one named Masai and the other named Sambura who moved into 2 different areas , the Sambura brother stayed in the north of Kenya and the Masai brother went further south to South of Kenya and North Tanzania, that is why the dress code is so similar. We eventually got to the East African Highway, which is nothing more than a very poor condition gravel road.  You would have thought that by now the government of the various countries would have improved the main highways in their countries that would aid the import/export system as well as improve on the tourism.  We had to travel quite a bit slower on this road as in some places the, middle mannetji,  was huge (sharp rocks, corrugation, sandy, muddy).  The road goes through a game reserve and it was like going on a game drive,  we saw grevy's zebra, reticulated giraffe, gerenuk (which is a weird looking buck with a long neck and a little head).  We saw loads more of the vulturine guinea fowl and loads of little dikdik.

When we got to Laisamis we decided that there was enough light to go on to Marsabit, so after having a pee over the edge of a bridge we headed north!!   Not even 10km the other side of the town we got a, porridge,  wheel.  We had heard about the very sharp stones that cut into the side wall of tyres from a german/dutch guy on a DR800 who was heading south,  he had left Marsabit that morning and had had 2 flat tyres, besides getting stuck in some mud in the area.  J checked the front tyre and we couldn't see any damage so he used the little compressor and pumped it up.  Op pad na Masabit, 3 of wat km na die foto geneem is het ons die pap wiel gehad, lyk baie soos Ceres,Calvinia area, Pad net baie slegter, but it took forever to get the pressure, Johan noticed a slight ding in the rim and even though he didn't say anything I could see that he was getting worried that we had a more serious problem, of the air leaking out the side next to the ding in the rim. When we switched the compressor off we heard a hissing noise, no Kyle and Connor it was not a snake, and Praise the Lord, Johan found a spot where the tyre had been cut by a stone.   Johan's face lit up immediately, muchly relieved he whipped out the puncture repair kit and blocked the hole. Thank you Jesus that after about 45 minutes we were on the road again.  Up ahead we could see a huge cloud burst, especially over the mountain areas but thankfully the curve in the road and the direction of the wind kept us in the dry.  We headed into areas that looked just like the Karoo except there were no big sheep farms,  I wonder why as the conditions look very similar!  We contemplated riding until dark then setting up camp in the bush (without the tent) until we saw a hyena,  that sort of helped us make up our minds that we would travel slowly all the way to Marsabit! The Lord blessed us even more as we had a night game drive,   we saw hare, rabbit, owls, gazelle, gerenuk, dikdik, and not forgetting the hyena.   We eventually got to a police road block, long closed for the night,  and rode through and not even 50m further we found ourselves in the worst mud conditions ever.   Slippery, sticky reddish mud!!   Poor J, I could feel every muscle tense as we went literally step-by-step along the road for about 4km.  It seemed to take forever, slippy sliddy, it even caked onto Johan,s boots.  I sat as still as I could and tried to keep my feet as high on the foot pegs and out of Johan's way.  My poor baby was getting exhausted.  When we eventually got into the main part of the town we asked at a fuel station where Jeyjey's was and it was only another 200m down the road but luckily this part of the road was firmer. We parked the GS in the courtyard, booked in and had a good HOT shower and relaxed.  The next morning we went for a walk to see what the road looked like but it had dried during the night so it did not look half as bad as the night before.  We took the GS out of the courtyard and scrapped of as much of the mud as we could,  the photos will explain more about the mud than I can tell.

The night before we left Marsabit we met the most interesting Croatian,  Robert Skejic , he is riding all the way from Croatia to Cape Town on a very loaded Africa Twin (2 panniers, top box and a large backpack). He speaks quite good broken English and explained to us that the road north to Moyale is the worst road he had ever ridden on, and the worst section is the 50km closest to Moyale - muddy and rocky!  He tried to show us his photos on his laptop but the poor computer was confused from the bumpy road! We were up and about and ready to leave Marsabit at 5am on Wednesday 24th November. It had started to rain again and Johan said we should head out before the roads got all mushy. Very good advice as the roads were wet but not slippery yet and not mushy. Thank you Jesus.We traveled very slowly through the rain and just a little way out of town the rain stopped. We rode through the still fast asleep police roadblock and headed towards Moyale, the Ethiopion border. We stopped about 14km out of town to take the rain cover off the tank bag and when we started going again.  j battled to get the GPS switched on - so he stopped again,   that's when a huge cloud of SMOKE come from under the seat and we smelt something seriously burning!! Even though the GS was switched off, the lights and all the flickers came on and because of the light j thought we were on fire!!!  We both baled off the GS and tried to see what was going on, but in the dark at about 5.30am we were really in the dark!!  Johan  whipped the seat off and frantically checked the fuses but the lights would not go off!  We saw that the main section of the electric wiring harness was seriously fried and we did not know what else was getting damaged.   Disconnecting the ticking ABS relay turned the lights off but then the bike would not start.!! All these things were happening so fast!!  The next best thing that Johan  did was to disconnect the battery.  We pushed the bike onto the side of the road and Johan started to strip the bike to check out the damage.

All while this was happening we saw the sun rising, God really painted the sky with beautiful colours for us.  We also started to see how beautiful the area was, that we had broken down in.  It was right next to one of the craters in the area,  awesome to look down into the center of the (now green) crater. The animal noises were also nice to hear,  donkeys, camels, goats and birds.   It drizzled every now and then and we also got covered in low cloud at one time.   I tried to help Johan as much as I could and when he saw that the GS was beyond roadside repair,   Johan put her back together again and we decided to push her to the police roadblock.  Boy, am I unfit!  Huffing and puffing, muscles straining (did I mention that it was up hill!) we pushed the 350kg GS along the bumpy corrugated gravel road.  Some locals passed us along the road and just looked at us as if we were nuts!  Then one fella helped for a bit and also gave up and carried on his way.  1.5km later some shepherd boys came along and Praise the Lord they helped us push all the way to the police road block,a total of 3km. I fed them most of Johan's, pad kos,  samoosa's and then they went on their way! Thank you Jesus.  Johan went to look for someone at the roadblock house but the guy who came from the security area was from the KBC , Kenyan Broadcasting Corporation.   He was a very nice and understanding fella.  He allowed us to push the GS onto their property and then suggested that we push it all the way to where he stayed.   Much safer and further from the road,  the police also live there, again thank you Jesus.  He also said that it would be safer to pack our stuff in his room,   wow, again thank you Jesus.  Johan decided to strip the complete wiring harness out of the bike so that it could be sent to Trefco,  so the big job began.  It took us 3 hours of dirty (because of the mud), nails breaking (for the girls!!!), cable plotting and unplugging (thank you BMW for modern plug connections) and believe it or not good-humoured work!! That can only be from Jesus!! The guys at KBC were very friendly and very helpful.  They stood around for the 3 hours watching while we worked, only in Africa!  They told us that the first bit of traffic that comes past from Moyale is at about 2pm most days.  We were all packed and heading for the road by 1.45pm.  We had no sooner walked through the security gate, than a blue landy stopped at the police roadblock and we got a lift (1.50pm).   Thank you Jesus!!  Back in Marsabit we went straight to Jeyjey's and got the folks to phone us.  Boy,do we owe you guys big time, thanx again! Johan spoke to John Carr and it was decided that the GS had to be taken to Nairobi to the BMW dealer,  so with the help of Duba (remember his name guys for whenever you are in Marsabit,  he is very genuine, honest and helpful, also a very good tour guide for the area) he organized us a lift on a empty truck to Nairobi and a bakkie to fetch the GS from the KBC,  for the next day 25th Nov.   Well, the bakkie came to fetch us at about 10.30am and we were about 100m down the road when I realized that the bakkie had a roll bar and the GS would not be able to fit under it!  We stopped the driver and climbed off,  by this time Johan was loosing his sense of humour. We went back to Jeyjey's and explained the problem to Duba,  in no time he organized a tractor with trailer,  Johan's sense of humour was definitely way out of the window by now!

By 12 o'clock we were standing on the trailer and heading out of town to the KBC.  The closer we got to the GS the more relaxed Johan  seemed to get.   Johan got busy putting the loose bits back on the GS and I packed all our things and moved them outside to load onto the tractor's trailer.  The GS got loaded next to the road,  the trailer was parked in a dip to lower the back so that it was easier to load the GS, then  Johan put on the fuel tank and the slow journey to the, cereal board, started (2km's the other side of town where we had to meet the truck).  Bless his soul, the tractor driver took us on a scenic route through the village but when we got to the, cereal board,  we were told that the truck had left!  Only to discover when we got back to Jeyjey's that the truck driver had gone to look for us,  but of course he missed us because we were on the, scenic tour!!  But Praise the Lord, the truck driver came back to Jeyjey's and we could load/push the GS from the trailer onto the truck. At long last we were on our way, the driver and his assistant thought it was hysterical that these 2 mzungu's (white people) wanted to sit on the back of the truck and not in the cab!!  I got prepared for a very cold night and maybe even a wet one but Praise the Lord, He not only gave us a full moon so that we could see the animals, He also gave us a warm night and He sent the rain ahead of us, yip, it made the roads very mushy and our trip slow going, max 20km/h on the gravel section (half the distance) but we didn't get wet.  It was loads of fun sitting on the trucks roof with my love,   quite romantic , who of you can say that you have been kissed on a roof of a 1950's Fiat truck in the middle of the desert in north (only just) Africa?!! Thank you Jesus for making our adventure even more adventurous!  We didn't see many animals along the way (I think because of the rain) except for goats, camels and donkeys.  The odd little dikdik was the only wild game we saw but we were blessed with abundant bird life,  pale chanting goshawk, yellow necked spur fowl (francolin), vulturine guinea fowl, crowned plover, spur winged plover, black faced sand grouse, white bellied go-away bird, montane nightjar, speckled mouse bird, lilac breasted roller, hoopoe, red-billed hornbill, swallows, drongos, bulbul, boubou, golden breasted starling, superb starling, black headed weaver, speke's weaver, white headed buffalo,weaver, white browed sparrow weaver, pin tailed whydah, blue capped cordon blue, and lots of others! ....................Blessed, I tell you!

The truck stopped in some of the villages along the way, only for the drivers to check the truck and trailer and to stretch their legs and to have a widdle!  Oh, the only place for me to widdle was in the back corner of the truck,  at night this was easy and Praise the Lord, I only had to go for a widdle during the day when the truck stopped in Isiolo, I climbed up over the back railing of the truck and went to a local road side hotel's loo's, urghy!  In Africa you learn to hold your breath before you go into a loo, hover and do your business, then get out of there as soon as possible,   hopefully before you faint from lack of oxygen.  Oh, and always carry pieces of toilet paper in your pockets!! The scenery from Marsabit to Isiolo is mostly wild and bushy.  Very beautiful with little or I should say few people along the way.  Then from Isiolo the tar road starts and there is more development and huge farms, tea, coffee, veg (tomato, cabbage) and other plantations ? I'm not sure what!  It is extremely beautiful and green all around Mt Kenya.  We could see the snow on the top from the north side but south of the mountain clouds blocked the view.  All along the way we could see that heavy rain had fallen, fast flowing rivers, flooding in small villages, streams next to and flowing across the road.  This is the little rainy season,  I cannot imagine what it must look like in the heavy rainy season.  I'm sure that a lot of people must get cut off from the rest of the world for quite a few days during that time of the year. The truck stopped in the north of Nairobi city in a not so nice area.  The driver was pretty pooped and had arranged for a bakkie to take us the rest of the way.  There was a bit of a dispute on the fee as we asked to be dropped off at the Upper Hill campsite instead of BMW!  The reason being that it was dark and BMW was long closed for the weekend!  Anyway we eventually moved the GS from the truck onto the bakkie and went on another amazing ride!  I thought the traffic and dala dala's in Dar where bad, you should see this mob!  Rules of the road do not exist with these guys.  The bakkie driver (an ex bus driver,  need I say more!!) was telling me how, stupid,   the bus drivers and taxi drivers are as they just do what they want to do,   but he was doing the same!  The vehicles ride so close to each other, sometimes 4 up in a 3-lane road and then some come careering past on the left of you,   yip on the pavement! The pavements are pretty trashed in this town!  I'm sure you couldn't even get a piece of paper between 2 vehicles as the drivers force themselves across each others lanes. Oh, they also hoot at each other and shout at each other, never a dull moment.  You should hear some of the hooters/horns on these vehicles, they sound like ships horns and the busses are decorated with colourful running and flashing lights, reminded me of the Christmas lights on the houses in Edgemead! 

I was extremely happy to see the Upper Hill campsite and even happier to hear that they had hot showers.  32 hours later we off loaded all our goodies and then the GS.   Thank you Jesus for looking after us and getting us, with the GS, to a secure environment. We set up camp, SHOWERED (we were rather grubby little children and our clothes?.. I had to soak them overnight in omo,  filthy!!) and then had a good meal of soup, salad and veg lasagna.  I was soo happy to crawl into the tent and snuggle next to Johan. We have discovered on the map in the campsite office that the campsite it perfectly situated for tourists without their own transport.  About 2km west are the shops and internet café, 2km northeast is Nairobi central and 3km east is the BMW garage, Praise the Lord!!  Nairobi is quite clean and by far the most western orientated town that we have been in.  Lots of new modern buildings, park areas and trees along the roads,  a pretty town.  The people are really very friendly as well but we have been warned to be careful and to be on the look out for conmen!  Upper Hill campsite is pretty neat,  just rather noisy! Or I should say the neighbours are noisy ? the yucky doof-doof stuff but thank fully only on the weekends. The bird life is good here , paradise fly catchers, red billed fire finches, white browed sparrow weaver, baglafecht weavers and they seem pretty used to people as you can get quite close to them.  Oh and lots of black kites,  Connor the ones with feathers that look like an eagle!! The GS has an appointment with Doc Chris at Mashariki Motors, BMW Nairobi tomorrow,   so you will have to wait for the next email to hear the prognosis.
By die uitkykpunt van die Great Rift Valey, 80km noord - wes vanaf Nairabi
  

Een van die mooiste gesigte van die Rift Vailey, Mt Longonot, 'n uitgestorwe vulkaaniese berg, 2300m hoog, en ons kyk af op die berg! Op daadie punt was ons 2650 bo seespieel.

We are still patiently waiting for the spare parts from Germany for the bike. We took it to the BMW dealer in Nairobi and now we have to wait. The bike is still under warranty and praise the Lord they are fixing it for free. We also got a new front shock under warranty. It is just the wait thing that gets to us sometimes. And every day money is spent on food and accommodation that we did not budget on, but Dad is the King and we are just hanging in here. If any one of you now somebody in Nairobi that has a spare room or a spare peace of lawn for us,please be so kind to tell the about us.  In this time we have become good friends with Robert, a Croatian with a Africa Twin on his way to RSA. He took us one evening to Carnivores restaurant. A very interesting place with Camel and Crocodile on the list of meats you can eat as much as you wish. Needles to say we decided not to be vegetarian for that night and we ate some of all. Crocodile meat was the best!   The other nice thing we did was the Elephant Orphanage. They had 9 small elephants of ages 6 weeks to 14 months, too cute! There is also a baby Black Rhino of 16 months.  By Friday we will know what goes for what  with our bike.