Rattling our way to Ethiopia

Two days of relaxation and some more curio shopping later Campbell, Kaspuur, one giant wooden box and I were detouring back to Nairobi. “Haven’t they done Nairobi” I hear you say? Yes, either we completely wreck our car on the infamous Isiolo – Moyale road that has claimed many a traveler with the weight we were carrying or we ship the weight home and hopefully do less damage. So, after finding a curio shop that makes wooden boxes we packed our Kitibikai (aka dead body), other artwork and odds’n’sods and drove to Nairobi that day.

The morning at the shippers. Yes, that is all our stuff lying about the place >>>
Shipping was an interesting experience. We had an audience of over 30 onlookers in the cargo terminal of the airport while we weighed our newly acquired box – 135kg WHAT!!! How have we been driving with so much dead weight? I’m not sure if it was a mzungu thing or that they really don’t see a shipment like this on a daily basis but we were centre stage.

With that out of the way Team America rejoined Kaspuur and off we rattled, bounced, slammed and swerved up the east trans-African “highway” to Moyale. No-one can adequately describe how bad this road is, you have to experience it for yourself in order to get a sniff of what the ordeal entails – it’s corrugated, desolute, baron, rocky, volcanic, sandy, dry, nomadic and incredibly muddy in parts after the rains. Four (Team America & Kaspuur) exhausted overlanders rolled into the town that marks the halfway point, Marsabit, with a real sense of having just survived something major.

For two years Campbell and I have been talking about this stretch of the journey and hoping that the landy we chose would make the trip. We chose well. Although she was punished, Kaspuur put in a stellar performance. I, however, didn’t do as much. Poor Campbell drove 80% of the first leg to Marsabit with Danny helping out while I decorated the landscape with my own personal breadcrumb trail. Hansel and Grettle have nothing on the trail I left. Whatever bug I had required a day of recovery in the arse-end of nowhere, Marsabit, where there were facilities close by – a definite requirement. 12hours of “shaken not stirred” had not done my stomach any good.

Campbell taking a moment to admire the nomadic scenery ... while eating a bowl of Chocos>>>

Our last few sunlight hours on the Isiolo - Marsabit leg. We still had several hours of driving ahead of us in the pitch dark with nothing but our headlights to guide the way >>>

Believe it or not, this is one of the good stretches of this road. The gravel-like shards are asking for a fresh wheel to puncture >>>

We made it to Moyale the next day feeling almost nostalgic at having crossed one of the biggest milestones in our trip. Little did we know that we were about to get sent back through Kenya by a disgruntled border official.