No hippos or crocs or any sign of life, other than the geese wandering the camp. Woke up at 05:00, then again at intervals. Decided to just stay awake and watch the sunrise. Didn’t get much sleep anyway, the bed was a bucket seat and it was very hot and stifling under the mosquito net. And that noisy fan didn’t help either.
Everyone was awake by about 07:30 anyway and having coffee while enjoying the rich kaleidoscope of the sunrise. Today we are off to Buffalo springs, on the same road that will take you to Somalia. Packing everything up is a breeze, since the dishes and everything is done for us. By 09:00 we’re back on the road. Going well, until we discover that Mattie and Dirk turned LEFT instead of RIGHT into the main road. We spend the next 20 minutes chasing them and trying to catch up. They eventually realise that we’re not there and turn around on their own. With everyone now facing the correct direction we continue on.
We make a quick pit stop and I almost hurt myself. I take a pee-pee against a very smart looking fence that's making this soft tick-tick-ticking sound. Quick evasive action!
Anecdote: never pee-pee against an electric fence.
The rest of the journey starts off quite pleasantly. Then it gradually deteriorates into broken, jagged potholes. The mountain pass clearly had some heavy rain a while back and big rocks are strewn everywhere. Before long, I’ve made up my mind. The only reason why I wouldn’t call this the worst road we’ve travelled is because it’s shorter than that horrid Dodoma route. The high ground does afford us a nice view of the lake below, however. But everyone got rather tense, because it’s hard on the vehicles and the passengers. While I was driving I just caught a movement in my side view mirror and had to make a quick stop . The Cadac gas cylinder was hanging next to the back canopy window, by a relative thread of a elastic strap!
It didn’t get any better once we reached that big road going all the way to Somalia. They’re building the new highway here, but we still have to drive on the gravel. We did get a short reprieve a bit later when we could (at last!) drive on a smooth stretch.
At around 15:20 we arrive at the Buffalo springs national park. Shocking. They won’t even let us in the gate to check the lodge without paying. And for camping you get NOTHING. No facilities at all, not even a toilet. For $60 per person, excluding the vehicles. The so called “park” doesn’t even have a fence around it. The other guys fight with them but they’re adamant. Not worth our while we decide, but we’ve been travelling for a few hours now on very rough road. We make the call to push on, another hour or more to the next town and camp posts. Asphalt quickly turns very dangerous, because there are short stretches that lulls you into complacency before surprising you with very deep potholes that are impossible to miss, not only because of the other traffic and bikes, but because they stretch the entire road surface. The alternative is to risk going off road, but you could easily flip your car like that.
There’s also a heavy military presence in the next town. Annelie and I could feel the tension creep onto us as our group got all sorts of stares from men in camo brandishing heavy weapons. We have to wait at a security check, blocked up with trucks and busses and army personnel forming up into a convoy. Most of the trucks are jammed with everything from people to medical supplies, and troops. The others reckon this is a convoy getting ready to travel to Somalia. The tension was palpable.
We hurry along as best we can, between the potholes. Still very hard going, and we climb another 1000 m in no time flat. The Bullet STRUGGLES up the hills, for some reason losing all its bite. The others carry on and we play catch up. The landscape is very pretty at least, with lots of commercial farming activity. Marieke mentions that the greenhouses we were passing are rose nurseries. I also spot fields of corn. BY 17:00 or so we reach and cross the equator... again. Stop to take pics anyways, but my smile is false. I’m fucking wrecked. This road man, this road... And Annelie is still on the heavy drugs, so lots of tension between us as well. I’m also pissed off since I couldn’t do my typing in the car like I’d usually do (but this is a manufactured gripe. I’m really just battered and bruised from the hard days driving).
A few minutes later we roll into Noromoru, but get lost a bit trying to find the access road to the camp. We eventually locate it and drive the pathway next to the train track to the gates. Very nice lodge and camp site, we opt to camp. They facilities are suffice, they have a little kitchen area with big basins, a fridge and chairs. And as an added bonus all the water here is from an underground spring, so we have an opportunity to refill all the water tanks.
Annelie and I setup quite a far ways from the rest. It’s quite windy and stormy, to match everyone’s mood. But then a magical thing happens. The clouds clear a bit, just enough to reveal Mount Kenya! Everybody seems to forget the hardship of the day. It’s quite rare to actually see these big mountains, ala Mount Kilimanjaro, since their almost always hidden behind cloud cover. I snap a few pics.
We’ll be staying here for 2 days, so it’ll give me some time to look after Annelie and to regroup.
The stars are out tonight. I read back in Arusha that the new moon is on the 22nd of July so it should be the best time to see the milky way in all its glory. Annelie is already in bed, I stay up after everyone to take a few extra long exposures of the stars. Takes a while, for every say 4 minutes, it takes the camera 4 minutes to produce a pic. Happy with the tests, I setup for a 30 minutes exposure, lay in bed a bit and bring the camera inside the tent once it’s done. I’ll leave it to process and check it out tomorrow.
Highlights: Not electrocuting my vee-vee
Awesome sunrise
[G & A], out
Don’t need a credit card to ride on this train
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