So we drove out the campsite and waited for the others to join us and off we went. There was a frantic call from Kim to STOP! Steve was washing his feet at the back of the truck and he was running after us down the road, the tap still on with one shoe on and one shoe off. Oh I wish I had got a photo of that... Steve's attempt to clean those wonderfully dirty feet!
Out of town we drove, but which way? Oh my gosh there was not a sign anywhere to be seen and the GPS showed roads that just did not exist. We wanted to get to the shore side so that Steve could have a swim. He was not listening to all our arguments of crocs and things and he was going to SWIM no matter what we said. So after driving backwards and forwards through the village we decided to just head out on the road to North Horr and somewhere along that route the road got pretty close to the shoreline. Then we could stop, have breakfast and decide what to do about the swimming.
Sure enough we got to within 50 yards of the lake so we just headed the cars off the road and right up to the edge of the lake. We asked a few locals about the crocs and they assured us that there were none there and that they were all on the other side of the lake...yea right! I must admit we had seen many fishermen on tiny boats with their legs hanging over the side so the chances of crocs didn't seem very high. So, OH YES, we all put on our costumes and dived into the water.... Steve first mind you and when he survived we all thought it was fairly safe - we had to be able to say we swam in the Jade sea.
As we were swimming we gathered our usual audience who again thought these Strange Travelers were quite mad! The music was blaring out on our sound system in the truck and we decided good time for a party! I have a fantastic video clip of five old buddies dancing away on the side of Lake Turkana watched by five totally captivated locals. I don't think they have ever seen anything like that in their lives and will probably never see it again… Mind you neither had I. Time to dish out the shirts and send them on their way so they didn't watch every mouthful we took while having our breakfast.
Swimming at Lake Turkana
Then we set off for the long hall back to Marsabit through the Chalbi desert. There was a short-cut which would have cut off a long way but Ernest said we have come all this way, we must see the desert. So off we went for North Horr, which would be our most northern point on the trip. There we would stop for lunch and take a picture, record the mileage and then start our journey with our noses turned south on our long journey back home. It was still very overcast and had obviously rained a lot over the last day or two as there was just water everywhere. So bizarre driving through deep puddles of water in the desert... Only once in a lifetime I am sure. There was a fast flowing river carrying quite a bit of water that we crossed several times and there was one huge river that was wide and carried a considerable amount of water. You would think that the desert sand would just soak up all the rain but this was not so, the large runoff was very evident. So we travelled on north across this huge desert full of rivers and waters. One river we crossed was so deep that we actually had to stop and make sure the other guys went slightly to the side or they would have been up to their headlights in water. That is one of the advantages of the The Queen; you have so much more height and from our vantage point we see so much more and can warn the guys behind us of perils that they might never see. It is such a big and blundering vehicle and sometimes I just long for the Ford F250 and all it's comforts for Ernest and I, but then I realize that to do a trip of this distance with this many people it has made a huge difference to the trip and the comfort of all of us. We are just able to carry so much stuff and gradually, as the trip has progressed the other vehicles have been able to off load their tyres, extra boxes and other heavy stuff into The Queen which just lumbers on regardless. The kitchen also make a huge difference making life so easy for us girls who just open it up when we get to camp and can start the cooking no matter where we are or what time we arrive. The shower and water that we carry has also made the whole thing, especially bush camping, just so much easier. So all in all it has really been worth the extra effort and cost that it takes to drive.
Anyway I digress. The first part of the trip to North Horr was over very rocky terrain, up a few mountain passes and then into the desert itself with its desert sand and more umbrella trees and palms with the dry river beds now with running water. We passed several camels and healthy fat donkeys, eating something that we just couldn't see as it looked so lifeless to us. And oh yes, just tons of those tiny little goats tended by tiny little boys.
North Horr is a settlement that has been built up around an oasis. We crossed the most smelly, dirty piece of water which was obviously the oasis and entered the town. Oh my gosh! We haven’t seen dirt and filth like this before, such an enormous change from the sheer beauty of the clean desert. Again you find the men just sitting around doing nothing, goats eating cardboard boxes and the woman working.... Oh Africa never changes.
We wanted to get the hell out of there as fast as we could but again found no signs on the roads or tracks should I say. We asked some local truck drivers and they sent us off in completely the wrong direction so back again to town and this time we followed the GPS and made it out into the desert again all be it on a very narrow and dicey looking track. But we had to get far enough away from the town to be able to stop, have our lunch, take our photo and record the mileage. We had done 7569 kilometers from the start of the trip to now. Yippee, we had made it through thick and thin and got to our highest point in 41 days. A local truck driver then came past, stopped to have a friendly chat and confirmed we were going in the right direction…
So now we had the journey to Marsabit but, listen to this, we had been told the Government had built a new road so it should be plain sailing like the road to Turkana. Whenever we are told something like that we should know there is going to be trouble ahead. The first part of the trip was on sand with the road ahead going in 10 different directions and you could chose whichever one took your fancy. The trees were big and pretty, there were camels, sheep and goats, a few scattered people and we had a very pleasant journey. When we reached the next town the trouble began.... We hit those dreaded rocks and a road to hell. The countryside turned into black volcanic heaps of stones with no redeeming features at all, just rocky roads that you bounced up and down on relentlessly. You always know when everyone is taking strain as the radio goes dead quiet and nobody says a word. We all just gritted our teeth and endured the ride. We had 140 kilometers to go before Marsabit and we wanted to make it before nightfall as there was NOWHERE to camp or even try and get off the road, just this endless sea of rocks and more rocks…
At one point we heard Kim say "pit stop" over the radio and we just saw him running over the rocks. This made all of us stop and when Ernest got out of the car he found the water filter had cracked and we were losing all our water........STEVE!!! He came running back down the road to switch off the valve as he is the only one who knows where it was. DISASTER. This definitely put pain to any possibility of us doing any bush camping. We had to get to a camp site to do repairs and fill up so our plight became more urgent to get to town. Then we hit a patch of sand and a virtual highway with another one of those places that you could follow any one of twenty tracks... Oh hell didn't last long and we were back to the rocks and bouncing up and down.
That is when we got this very urgent call from Ken on the radio who was bringing up the rear. "Guys, check your oil pressure, someone has just dumped about two liters of oil on the road and it might be one of us” So we all came to a screeching halt and checked the cars while Ken came up slowly behind us. No! there was nothing leaking on any of our cars so we pulled off just as he arrived. Another call in. "Hey Kim it is your car, there is a huge patch of oil right where you were parked!! Heart failure all round, Kim came skidding to a halt and at this point Ernest said "rubbish, Andrea just had a wee in front of Kim's car and that is what the wet patch was. Oh my gosh we laughed, I think all the tension of the day had just broken and then the remarks started to fly, none of which I will repeat on the blog but it did get pretty funny and we could smile again.
Anyway the race to get to town was on again and Ernest and I pulled off ahead and got there a lot quicker than the others. There were three camping sites on the GPS. One called "public camping site no 1" …not so good! The next one was “public camping site number 2”… Not so good either and the next one was "Henry's Campsite". This looked like our only choice, so we went for that one. We arrived after a few wrong turns with Ernest getting mad at me saying "why can't you work the dam thing" but we eventually arrived at the gate of Henry's Camp. We found it a bit stark with red clay and a few thorn trees but they had a toilet and a shower with hot water so we were in just as it was getting dark. The others arrived in dribs and drabs, also getting lost in town which is, as usual, pretty chaotic, but they eventually made it. Henry himself came out to greet us, he is a Swiss man who settled here years ago and is married to a local girl.
That night Ken gave me a double gin and tonic.... Oh dear I got so confused I told everyone we were having Chicken Curry and gave them Chicken a la King. Not sure if any of us knew what we were doing after a day like that! We settled in for the night listening to the sounds of the hyenas. We slept very soundly after our bad night before and our hard day of travel, but it was raining again. Oh well! It seems it is going to keep following us where ever we go…
Until Tomorrow!
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