Karibu Kenya, Safari Njema (Welkom in Kenya, Voorspoedige reis)

The road to Nairobi is brand new although they are still working on it at places. For the most part though it is a pleasure to drive to Nairobi. To get through the Border was one big pleasure. It took us 45 minutes to pass through both borders. The officials were friendly and very efficient. The only less nice experience were the Masai woman who harassed us at the Kenya border post. They do not take NO for an answer and tapped on the windows, talking at the doors, hanging on the side mirrors and kept on walking from the passenger window to the drivers window. Otherwise, it was the nicest border posts yet! We had our first sight of the type of scenery one sees on TV….beautiful thorn trees, grassland, Maasai herding their cattle and hundreds of…….donkeys!!

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Then we saw Nairobi…..and hit the chaotic traffic.  It is indescribable If one drives like a South African, you will never reach your destination. In Nairobi, you push your vehicles nose into the traffic and someone will stops to let you cross or enter a lane or whatever.  It took us 2.5 hours to drive the 10km to Jungle Junction.

We are camping at Jungle Junction. For so long we read about and heard about this famous overland spot that it feels unreal to be part of the overland hub. Lots of overlanders leave their vehicles here and fly back home to continue their trip later on. JJ’s is moving premises the end of July so look out for their new address.  We met people from all over the world doing an Africa overland trip staying over here. The German guys that are travelling for a year through Africa that we have seen camping at the Point in Mossel Bay, a German guy on his way home to Germany from Namibia, a Dutch girl bicycling from Kampala to Mombasa and the best of all Chris and Julie driving from the UK back to South Africa who’s blog we followed since they started their trip. They are camping next to us and is also going to the Masai Mara at the same time as us. We had such a good get-to-gether last night while it was raining and we all sat under our porch to keep dry and eating leftovers

Camping next to a stationary truck

The Austrians that left for Turkana

and their trucks

The big trucks are in good company

Arno had the problem with the right front wheel that we had since they worked on the Hilux in the Kruger, fixed and the bakkie has been greased and looked over from front to back. We are hopefully ready for the rest of the trip.

I tried to bake rusks again which worked out perfectly because there is an oven in the kitchen.  Only one problem….the small colony of Japanese backpackers took over the kitchen and put the oven off. Arno eventually made fire and we baked the tray that was in the oven in our bread pan  and is at the moment busy drying it (toasting it) over the coals. It seems that it is working. The rest of the dough are freezed in our Engel and will be baked and toasted as we go along. Africa (with the Japanese interfering) is a tough continent!

Braaing wors and drying rusks

Our dried rusks ‘n Boer (en sy vrou) maak ‘n PLAN!

Our Osiyeza friend Chris and Arno

Julie in JJ’s dining room doing admin.

Tomorrow we are all going to the Masai Mara, so hold thumbs that we see a river crossing because the animals are on the move!