Kenya’s most scenic spaces are to be found north of the Equator. To experience them, we loaded up the Forester, charged our batteries and left for Marsabit on a 4-day photographic trip that ended up being a 7-day adventure.
#TembeaKenya #AfricanTravel #OnetouchLive #TheBigNorth
For many years, The Big North was a forgotten territory. Lack of infrastructure meant only resilient pastoralists and opportunistic bandits called this home. But around 15 years ago, Kibaki’s government decided to prioritise tarmacking of the A2 from Isiolo to Moyale.
The resulting stretch of smooth asphalt has since opened up counties north of Isiolo to adventurers seeking to soak in the beauty of the semi arid lands. Here, landscapes hug the skies where jagged mountains quench themselves by sipping waters from the occasional rain clouds.
We broke free from the craze that Nairobi can be before sunrise on 24th April 2017.
We were @mumbi_muturi @Wanzalla and @PeteJomo
Silvester the faithful was our preferred mode of transport.
After breakfast at Java Nanyuki, we realised the Safaricom network was down. All our money was on Mpesa and the Java PDQ was on the Safaricom network as well. We somehow managed to put together enough coins to settle the bill and continued with our journey, no money in hand.
At #Timau, we found the wheat had been harvested and cows allowed to graze on what was left for breakfast.
Only #NSSFTwitter can remember Golden Morn. This was it.
A few kilometres north of Isiolo, we met @NyamuJim who was walking 617kms, from Nairobi to Marsabit, to raise awareness for elephant conservation. In such a long journey, great company is important, so Jim wasn’t doing this alone.
A stone’s throw from Archer’s Post (apparently named after a Mr Archer from them days) is Mt Ololokwe, aka Ol Donyo Sabache. This mountain has a huge invisible stop and shoot billboard wrapped around it.
So what were we to do?
We noticed children playing duf mpararo in a pool of rain water about 200 metres from the road. We approached them wondering how we’d ask to take their photos. They saw us and started calling out ‘Picha! Nipige picha!’ asking to have their photos taken.
So what were we to do?
We still had over 200kms to go to Marsabit. Because of the numerous photography stops we’d made, darkness was threatening to catch up with us despite leaving Nairobi early.
But there was so much beauty surrounding us we couldn’t resist making other stops.
The road was mostly flat once we left Isiolo, with the horizon clearly visible most of the way. After Laisamis, we started climbing, a sign were getting closer to Marsabit. As we lost light, we still made another stop, about 10 kms before Marsabit to shoot the sunset.
We finally got to Marsabit National Park a few minutes after 7pm. We were pleasantly surprised to find out camping at Abdul Camp that has electricity and hot showers was just Kshs200/- per person, and that Safaricom was back up, allowing us to pay via Mpesa!
The light from the starry skies above faded as the sun pieced the morning clouds, illuminating the beauty of Abdul Camp. Thick fog engulfed us. And as the smoke from the breakfast campfire danced with the fog, we packed our cameras and set out to explore Marsabit National Park.
It was the rainy season and clouds had shed their weight overnight. This made the road to Lake Paradise very slippery. We swung and twisted, Silvester’s symmetrical AWD being pushed to the limit as it’s 2-litre engine grunted to break us free from mud and gravity.
It was a drive through hell to get to Paradise.
Along the way, we stopped to take in the beauty that hid in the forest’s thick undergrowth. We were told elephants descend to the lower altitudes during the rainy season as they don’t have symmetrical AWD to tackle the muddy slopes
After driving a few more kilometres, angelic birds provided the perfect soundtrack to a most magnificent view of #LakeParadise!
Mt Marsabit is a volcano that rises 1,700m above the surrounding arid areas, acting as a barrier for moisture-filled winds that travel from the Indian Ocean, across flat lands in Somalia and northern Kenya.
On finding a towering Mt Marsabit, the moist winds form clouds that turn into rain, feeding a tropical rainforest that is surrounded by deserts. In the rainy season, the craters fill with water and that’s how we have Lake Paradise.
We later descended to Marsabit town for an Ethiopian-inspired lunch and some car repairs. Silvester’s right front stone guard had come off due to the mud that we’d had to manoeuvre through. We got that fixed and drove a few kilometres south of Marsabit to take in the sunset.
The following morning, we started the journey back to Nairobi, with a planned overnight in Melako.
As expected, we made several stops to take in the beauty that surrounded us, starting with Mt Moile.
At Merille, we were met by rangers from #Melako Community Conservancy. We parked Silvester, got into a Landcruiser and headed to explore the semi arid rangelands of Melako.
Our first stop was a #Rendille Manyatta where we got to make some portraits.
Melako is a Community Conservancy, meaning that the Rendille, who call the area home, get to fully benefit from the tourism, conservation and commercial activities that take place in the vast expanse.
One morning in July 2010, the rangers at Melako awoke to the cries of a 2-day old lesser kudu that had been abandoned by it’s mother, about 80 metres from Lchoro Camp, during a severe drought. They adopted the orphan and named her Nkuo.
The rangers hand-raised Nkuo, becoming her sole care givers. When we visited, Nkuo considered Lchoro Camp home and had become very used to humans that she was okay with us petting her.
In the evenings, Nkuo roams the conservancy, returning to Lchoro at first light. These nightly escapades had resulted in her mothering 7 offspring as of when we visited. Unlike their mother, Nkuo’s totos avoid humans.
The following morning, we were reunited with Silvester, and decided to head to Sera Conservancy, which hosts a rhino sanctuary.
From Sereolipi, we negotiated about 50kms of unkempt gravel in Silvester, his belly receiving the occasional scrub from stones that dotted the road marked by ‘cruiser-cut ruts.
At Signal Hill, we got out of Silvester and noticed there was a growing oil pool underneath. A closer examination revealed a stone had slit the sump, sending transmission oil out of the engine. The oil was pouring… fast! There was nothing we could do to stop it.
We were stuck.
In a rhino sanctuary.
50kms from the nearest town.
With poor phone network.
What were we to do?
Hmmm…
Track rhinos!
We got into a Sera Landcruiser and under the leadership of their expert tracker, drove for kilometres on paths that bushes were slowly reclaiming, thorns leaving indelible marks on the sides of the ‘cruiser.
We left the safety of the ‘cruiser, and were ordered to walk stealthily… silently… in single file… keeping a distance of a few metres between us. If we chanced upon a rhino and it attacked, we were to seek refuge behind the nearest bush.
And the bushes weren’t many.
What had we gotten ourselves into? Tracking black rhinos is stuff that whypipo do! When we heard we were visiting a rhino sanctuary, me I thought we’d go somewhere I’d see rhinos behind an enclosure of sorts, and pet them through a fence.
But here I was, walking in the footsteps of a tracker armed with nothing but an aerial in one hand, radio in the other, desperately looking for the nearest bush to hide behind incase a rhino was tracking me and not vice versa.
My silent thoughts were interrupted by the unexpected sounds of heavy feet pounding the dry ground as a rhino that none of us had seen emerged from some bushes not far from where we were, and run past us!
Response from the startled tracker: “That’s not the one we were looking for.” 😂😂😂
Dude! A two-ton two-horn-wielding prehistoric creature just run past us, trampling bushes that are supposed to be our shelter and all you can say is, “That’s the wrong one”!?
We continued tracking the ‘right rhino’ and after a few heart beating minutes, we spotted it, hiding behind bushes, and I behind the tracker.
On the way back to where we’d left Silvester, we spotted a heard of elephants, with a mother very protective of her young.
As the sun set and with Silvester grounded, we knew there was no way we’d get back to Nairobi as planned. We weighed our options, which was just one – sleep in Sereolipi.
@Wanzalla was booked for a shoot in Nairobi the following morning. With no public means heading out of town, he hitched a ride in a Canter headed to Nanyuki at around 2am.
@mumbi_muturi @PeteJomo and I checked into what would be home for the next three days.
@Wanzalla @mumbi_muturi @PeteJomo Nestled between acacias in a land unspoilt by time, Al-Hamdhu Lodge offers a quaint getaway for anyone visiting northern Kenya. It’s 8 rooms are exquisitely furnished with a bed and chair.
Toilet paper and single-use soap are sure to make your use of the facilities more manageable. To keep you warm, the mabati roof is designed to ensure nights are as hot as days. All these for the discounted price of Kshs400/- a night.
This was our breakfast joint the following morning. Nyokabi's. We had tea served with a rumour of milk and a sack of sugar in each cup. ‘That’s how they like it here” Nyokabi told us. We used it to down mandazis. We’d had the same meal for dinner the previous night.
The management of Sera and Lewa Conservancies were very helpful in helping us find a mechanic who would help us fix Silvester. They also sent one of the Sera rangers on a motorbike to help ferry the mechanic from Sereolipi to the grounded Silvester.
Ndung’u the mechanic left Isiolo in a matatu and alighted at Sereolipi a few minutes to noon. Toolbox in hand, he jumped on the back of the Sera motorbike and took the one-hour plus ride into Sera to fix Silvester. We in the meantime found a shade, sat, and waited.
We then started looking for a source of meat we could sink our teeth in for lunch. We found a butchery, a couple of hundred metres outside town. They usually don’t prepare the meat they sell but were willing to do so for us.
And since they didn’t have seating, the lady who runs the butchery allowed us into her living room where she had our hands washed before serving us our sumptuous lunch. Talk about customer service!
After speaking to Ndung’u on phone about the state of Silvester’s repairs, it became clear that the fix would take more than a day. With commitments to attend to in Nairobi, @mumbi_muturi got into a ProBox and left for Nairobi via Isiolo.
@mumbi_muturi Ndung’u the mechanic got back to Sereolipi at around 5pm, sump in hand and dusty from head to toe. He planned to head back to Isiolo that evening and have it repaired first thing the following morning.
And there was evening, and there was morning – the second day.
After performing repairs in Isiolo, Ndung’u got back to Sereolipi at around 12pm with the fixed sump in one hand, and transmission oil in the other. On the back of the Sera motorbike he was and off to finish his mission.
@PeteJomo and I took the time to tour Sereolipi. Not that there’s much of town to tour. If it wasn’t for the bumps on the highway that passes through town, you’d easily pass Sereolipi when driving on the A2.
Bongo’s Shop is the most happening place in Sereolipi. His is the only source of ice-cold sodas and water. It is also the local bank, giving residents remote access to their funds with mobile money and agency banking services.
When hunger struck, Peter and I returned to our meat source only to find they’d run out. So we crossed the highway and went to another butchery that had plenty.
We asked the lady manning if she could also prepare the meat for us. She categorically refused, and told us we’d have to wait for her boss to return from wherever he’d gone to okay it. This was despite us being ready to pay for the service.
So we bought the meat from her, crossed the highway and went back to the lady who had prepared meat for us the previous day, paid her to repeat the favour, and waited for it to get ready.
At around 4.30pm, the familiar grunt of a boxer engine driving into town livened our spirits. Silvester was back!
We left Sereolipi with the intention of getting to Nairobi. However, the heat had sapped our energy so we decided to sleep in Isiolo and got back to Nairobi the following day.
What started off as a 4-day trip in The Big North had ended up being a 7-day adventure. We were happy to be back in Nairobi but immediately started wondering when we’d get the chance to return to northern Kenya.
In the 11 years I had Silvester, this is the only breakdown he had during a trip. It was also one of the last trips we did.
You can catch up on more of our adventures here :
Ndung’u the mechanic left Isiolo and alighted at Sereolipi a few minutes to noon. Toolbox in hand, he jumped on the back of the Sera motorbike and took the one-hour plus ride into Sera to fix Silvester.
We in the meantime found a shade, sat, and waited.
For lunch, we started looking for a source of meat we could sink our teeth into for lunch. We found a butchery, a couple of hundred metres outside town.
They usually don’t prepare the meat they sell but were willing to do so for us. And since they didn’t have seating, the lady who runs the butchery allowed us into her living room where she had our hands washed before serving us our sumptuous lunch. Talk about customer service!
After speaking to Ndung’u on phone about the state of Silvester’s repairs, it became clear that the fix would take more than a day. @mumbi_muturi had commitments to attend to in Nairobi so she boarded a ProBox headed for Isiolo.
Ndung’u got back to Sereolipi at around 5pm, sump in hand and dusty from head to toe. He planned to head back to Isiolo that evening and have it repaired first thing the following morning.
And there was evening, and there was morning – the second day.
Ndung’u got back to Sereolipi at around 12pm the following day with the fixed sump in one hand, and transmission oil in the other. On the back of the Sera motorbike he was and off to finish his mission.
@PeteJomo and I took the time to tour Sereolipi. Not that there’s much of town to tour. If it wasn’t for the bumps on the highway that passes through town, you’d easily pass Sereolipi when driving on the A2.
Bongo’s is the most happening place in Sereolipi. His is the only source of ice-cold sodas and water. It is also the local bank, giving residents remote access to their funds with mobile money and agency banking services.
When hunger struck, @PeteJomo and I returned to our meat source only to find they’d run out. So we crossed the highway and went to another butchery that had plenty.
We asked the lady manning if she could also prepare the meat for us. She categorically refused, and told us we’d have to wait for her boss to return from wherever he’d gone to okay it. This was despite us being ready to pay for the service.
So we bought the meat from her, crossed the highway and went back to the lady who had prepared meat for us the previous day, paid her to repeat the favour, and waited for it to get ready.
At around 4.30pm, the familiar grunt of a boxer engine driving into town livened our spirits.
Silvester was back!
We left Sereolipi with the intention of getting to Nairobi. However, the heat had sapped our energy so we decided to sleep in Isiolo and got back to Nairobi the following day.
What started off as a 4-day trip in The Big North had ended up being a 7-day adventure. We were happy to be back in Nairobi but immediately started wondering when we’d get the chance to be back in northern Kenya.
In our 11 years together, this is the only breakdown Silvester had while we were on a trip.
You can catch up on our other adventures here
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