Day 49: Ntangamo to Kigali

The road to the border is just as pot-holed as yesterday but we manage it in two hours.

Crossing into Rwanda is one of the easiest borders we have found. The customs people are polite, smartly dressed in uniform and formalities are kept to a minimum. Even the currency dealers didn’t put up a fight and they were so good humored that we split our Ugandan shillings and gave them each some business.

Yet another border and thankfully the last

The run down into Kigali is an easy one which takes an hour. A lot has changed here since our last visit but we find our way to the Presbyterian Church guest house without trouble.

Kigali

Since Dunfermline we have driven 8,500 miles, have met new friends and lost some weight. The past weeks blend together into what seem like now distant memories. Would we do it again? We aren’t sure, but this has been an experience neither of us would have missed. Perhaps one day.

Day 48: Kampala to Ntangamo

Travel weariness has started to set in. We are now within a day of Kigali and the temptation to press on rather than absorb the countryside we are passing through is too much.

Our hotel last night was only a few miles from Kampala. Before long we are entering the city and find modern office blocks, banks and other trappings of city architecture that could be anywhere in Europe. What isn’t European is the traffic which is definitely African. There is no order or sense of discipline. At junctions the strategy is to force a way across the other vehicles using the horn and little else. Motorbikes are everywhere, and usually right where you are heading.

We find our way out of the city and follow the long road sout-east to the Rwandan border. This is tarmac but the quality leaves a lot to be desired. Pot-holes are everywhere and big enough that even the trucks and buses slow down. This is frustrating. We want to press on but find that the brake is being put to as much use as the accelerator.

This is farming country. We pass fields of maize, sugar beat and, increasingly, banana palms. Occasionally there are herds of long-horned cattle.

Long horned cattle

We stop at a small village and are besieged by dozens of boys each wanting to sell their produce. Half a dozen arms press goat kebabs and baked bananas against the window. We buy some of each and wish we hadn’t. The bananas were edible, the kebabs weren’t.

We aren’t going to make it all the way to Rwanda today, particularly on these roads, so we stop at Ntangamo for the night. This is one of the few times during the trip that we have pulled up before sunset and it gives us time to wander around. This is not a big place and it is clear that they haven’t seen many white faces. The children wave at us. The adults just stare. Across from our guest house, storks settle on a roof. These are large birds by any measure and serve to remind us that we have come to foreign territory indeed.

Storks

Day 47: Eldoret to Mukono (near Kampala)

We are not unhappy at leaving Eldoret and its noise. A local club kept us awake with its music until the early hours only to be replaced by the shops around us starting their day at 3am. We hazard a guess that this must be the Muslim part of Kenya.

By now we have Kigali in our sights and with only two more borders to cross we are eager to press on. Eating is whatever we can find on the road so a local market provides an opportunity to buy some lunch for later in the day. In Kenya the currency is shillings and we are charged “ten bob” for two avocados. The Kenyan 10/- is a coin and not a note, so “queer as” sprung to mind.

A Kenyan settlement

Crossing borders is a skill that we are beginning to get the hang of. The knack is to be able to identify the fixers that attempt to guide you through the customs process. Throughout Africa we have been plagued by these people who work on the basis that in return for accompanying us through the various offices, we will reward them with money. In the north this was a service worth paying for as the process is chaotic, few people speak English and even the immigration people don’t seem to know what is going on. In Egypt it confused us that the policeman who took charge of us was the fixer and wanted paid for his trouble. Having crossed several borders and finding that getting passports and vehicle processed isn’t difficult, the attentions of these fixers starts to become a little irritating. At the Uganda border we had a dozen of them arguing with us, and each other, about who saw us first.

We leave the fixers to fight among themselves and had our passports stamped. Next job is to change our Kenyan shillings into Ugandan shillings. The strategy here is to wait until a tout comes and offers money. We ask his rate and tell him his friend over there has offered better. This really upsets them and before long we have a gaggle of dealers around us arguing about who saw us first and therefore has the right to sell us his currency. In Ethiopia we had managed to get a couple of dealers bidding against each other and improved the rate by half a point but here in Kenya the idea of competition has still to catch on. We end up choosing one using the “one potato, two potato” basis, do the deal and move on.

A little way down the road into Uganda we pull up into a lay-by where a troupe of baboons are crossing the road. Infants ride on their mother’s back or else hang on underneath. One adventurous female comes up to the vehicle and peers into the open window at us. It is a moment of magic but the spell is broken by me reaching for the camera. She moves off. It is tempting to offer them some of our bananas but I suspect that if we did we might encourage more attention than is comfortable. It would be easier getting rid of the border fixers than hungry baboons.

Into the afternoon we pass around the north shore of Lake Victoria and meet an old friend. We first met the river Nile way back in Cairo. Our route has brought us down the banks of this great river through Egypt and Sudan. We parted company at the source of the Blue Nile, the Blue Nile Falls, in Ethiopia. Had I remembered my history and geography better I would have recollected that the White Nile starts its course further south at Lake Victoria. As we cross the river a railway runs beside the road. Two giant cranes above the track were built by William Errol and Sons of Glasgow. There is a lot that is strangely familiar in these parts.

We stop for the night a few miles short of Kampala. The guest house is cheap and clean. On the menu is stewed goat which is tough to chew and has a strong venison-like taste. If ever I get goat to cook, I think I will marinade it in something first. Having seen many goats through Europe and Africa it strikes me that there are two types of people in the world. There are those that don’t know where their meal has come from and there are those that know what their meal ate for breakfast before they killed it. I have an uneasy feeling that sooner or later we will be joining the second group.

Day 46: Isiolo to Eldoret

When we arrived in Isiolo yesterday, the vehicle looked as if it had been doing some serious messing about in a desert somewhere. The original green had been turned into battle camouflage with sand covering everything, including the engine. This morning we emerge to find that the hotel porter has given her a wash and we set off looking like real tourists again. I think we were making the hotel car park look untidy.

First stop this morning is Mount Kenya. At over 15,000 feet there are glaciers at the top and this is the second highest peak in Africa. Unfortunately the mountain is covered in cloud today and there is little to be seen.

As we drive around the base of the mountain we cross the equator for the first time. Our road heads due west taking us alternately between the northern and southern hemispheres.

We made it this far - we might as well photograph it

Eldoret has been chosen as a resting place for the night because it puts us within striking distance of the Ugandan border tomorrow. We arrive after dark and can sense something of the lawlessness we have seen elsewhere. Along the busy main street shops are protected by heavy steel grills as is the stairway into the guest house we find. The town is busy and the air is filled with music turned up to full volume from every little shop. This isn’t a peaceful place, and is made less peaceful by the sound of heavy trucks rattling their way to and from the border.

We are starting to feel fatigued by the journey and are glad of a nights rest, even if it looks like a prison. Tomorrow we should cross into Uganda and, roads permitting, Rwanda the day after.

Day 45: Marsabit to Isiolo

This is day two of our cross-country ride into southern Kenya. In truth we aren’t looking forward to another day like yesterday but there are no options.

We refuel at the small filling station in Marsabit and the attendant tells us there has not been rain in over twelve months. Elephants are dying in the reserve. The people here are nervous.

The strategy for driving over this road is to go as fast as possible (anything over 10mph is good) whilst trying to find any soft ground that hasn’t been compacted into solid corrugations and at the same time avoiding rocks that might destroy a tyre. The arithmetic is simple, 150miles, 10mph, 15 hours. We can only hope there are faster stretches further down. Like yesterday, it is like driving over cobbles that have been ripped up and set in concrete.

A camel train makes its way across the desert rocks

Every now and again we cross a concrete bridge over a river. Each tells the same story. The dry beds, one easily 100m across, have not seen water for a long time.

There is more traffic on this section of the road than yesterday. Mostly trucks carrying workers or tankers taking water north.

Dry desert, northern Kenya

Eventually, with 50 miles to go, the going improves a little but this is still another ten hour day. Isiolo is a relief with its new tarmac road. This is a small town which serves to connect the Kenyan road network with the Ethiopian border to the north. There are more churches here than anything else and there is even a branch of Barclays bank along the high street. There is a strange familiarity here. The cars drive on the left and the road signs are the same style as used at home. At the hotel, fish and chips are on the menu.

Talking to the hotel manager we are at last within striking distance of Kigali. Hopefully, two days should see us into Uganda and another two to the finish line. We are looking forward to that.