Hitting Refresh: Days 9 - 11 of our Kenya Overland Trip

The drive from Ol Pejeta to Nairobi was a hot, miserable one without a working air conditioner. Eric had made an appointment at Nairobi’s Toyota dealership to get it fixed early the next morning, with the hope that we could be back on the road by early afternoon. We knew we would need our air conditioner in good condition going into Tsavo and on toward the Kenyan coast.

We didn’t know where we would stay until we got to Nairobi. All along the way, we looked at hotels online, shooting for a decent and cheap one near the Toyota dealership, but as we drove, our standards kept changing and we gave in a little more and a little more until we admitted just how tired we were and just how much we wanted a no-hassle place. We were only a quarter of the way into our month-long trip, but we splurged and decided to pamper ourselves for a night. We found a deal online for Ole Sereni, a luxurious hotel overlooking Nairobi National Park, meant to cater to safari-goers staying in Nairobi between Kenya’s other national parks. We were also on safari, although hardly not the clientele this place had in mind. They were looking for the kind of people who fly to their 5-star lodges in national parks, have drivers and rented Land Cruisers; the type of people who bought safari clothes for their adventure in exotic Africa and who would be served 5-course meals during their adventure. Needless to say, on this trip, we were not that type.

We pulled up to the hotel with our Land Cruiser covered in mud and packed to the brim. We were haggard, climbing out of the car with our sunburns, filthy bodies, and (surely) body odor. Nevertheless, the concierge met us with a smile and showed us to our room. The boys could hardly contain their energy in such a small room and immediately fell to wrestling on the bed. Pax picked up his bucket and shovels, but there was no dirt around to play in.

We took full pleasure in our stay. Although what Eric and I really wanted was to collapse on the beautifully soft bed and sleep, the boys (as always) had other things in mind. So we made use of the pool, had a nice dinner, and took long, hot showers. Before dawn the next morning, Eric took the car in to the garage to get her fixed up while I stayed at the hotel until the last possible minute with the boys, eating all we possibly could from the breakfast, and then some, stuffing our pockets with apples and croissants. The rest of the morning, we were split up, with Eric at the garage with Pax and me doing shopping and errands with Leo. Upon investigation under the hood, the A/C compressor on our Land Cruiser was kaput, and the A/C gas leak was traced to a worn out evaporator behind the glove-box, so spare parts for both were promptly sourced and replaced. Thankfully, the work was done around 3pm. We settled the bill and hit the road, aiming to make it to a roadside restaurant on the Mombasa highway, where we would camp for the night.

We arrived to Jet Inn Gardens just before nightfall. It was certainly not a destination - it was practically a truck stop with a lawn, but it was a decent stop on our way to Tsavo. We were shown a nice grassy area to set up the tent. We did a quick set-up while enjoying some sundowners and while the boys played on the playground with a large sand pile. Leo declared it his favorite place yet. We had dinner and breakfast at the restaurant and slept between the highway and the railroad tracks, hearing trucks and trains pass all through the night.

Lake Baringo: Days 4-6 of our Kenya Overland Trip

After our initial first few days on the road, we headed for our first “real” destination: Lake Baringo. The scenery quickly became awe-worthy as we left the guest house in Bungoma and drove down into the Great Rift Valley, slowly savoring the stunning landscapes and pulling over here and there for a better view. The road trip we had been waiting for had found us.

We arrived to Robert’s Camp on the shores of Lake Baringo around lunchtime and did our first unpacking and our first tent set-up. It was real now. This was it. We were doing the camping and overlanding thing. And what a great place to break ourselves in! Robert’s Camp was calm and inviting, with a restaurant, bar, and good water access. But when I say it was on the shore of the lake, I mean it was RIGHT on the shore. Similar to Lake Nakuru and Lake Naivasha, both of which we visited earlier in the year, Lake Baringo was flooded bar beyond its natural banks. In all three lakes, you could see dead trees reaching out of the water far before you, their skeletons still seeming to call for help. Nobody really knows why the lakes in this region are so flooded, but one of the dominant explanations is that deforestation has caused so much soil erosion that all the dirt has washed into the lakes, filling up their beds, and overflowing their banks in recent years. This, matched with the unusual amount of rainfall throughout East Africa in the last couple of months, and the restaurant of Robert’s Camp was only a few feet away from being flooded itself.

The kids entertained themselves easily in the dirt with their buckets and shovels as we set up. After dinner, we tried out a new bedtime routine, which included s’mores around the fire. After getting Pax to sleep, I struggled to hoist him up a ladder without waking him or injuring either of us. I realized I needed a new method. From then on, I pushed him up into the tent, still awake, and, usually after a period of time getting his final energy out by wrestling and pretending to be monster trucks with his big brother, I rocked him in my lap to put him to sleep.

We didn’t realize it at the time, but Lake Baringo was our most relaxed stop on our month-long trip. We had a free day, which we started with a family boat ride. We passed the ruins of buildings affected by the flooding, with water up to their windows or roofs. We spotted all kinds of birds on our boat ride, including the Northern Masked Weaver, which is endemic to the area. Later, I took another bird-watching walk with a guide.

We wiled away our time cooking and cleaning, washing dishes and diapers, and watching birds in the process. Leo giggled as hornbills, starlings, and weaverbirds hopped up to him while he ate his lunch, anxious for a crumb or two. I even had time to write the only blog I ever wrote on our trip about our packing list. We didn’t realize just how relaxed we were. Compared to the rest of our trip, we had a great deal of free time at Lake Baringo.

In the middle of our free day, I walked out of the shower and back to our rig. The children were playing beside the car with Eric nearby. I went to put my toiletries away when I saw a sudden splash into the lake: a crocodile - no, two! - jumped into the water after sunbathing on the grass, startled by my approach. They weren’t large - about the size of Pax, but they were crocodiles nonetheless, and they were disconcertingly close to my small children. From then on, we pointed to a tree by the lake and forbade them to go past that tree, not that Pax understood a word of my forbidding. At night, we could hear hippos all around us. I had an rumbly stomach one night, but didn’t want to leave the tent on behalf of the hippos to find my way to the bathroom. I held it in, which cost me a restful night of sleep.

We got into the rhythm of the work of camping - cooking, cleaning, and handwashing laundry, including cloth diapers. We quickly realized that it was worth the reduction in work to wear clothes until they were unbearably filthy, although admittedly I had a different standard of what “unbearably” meant than Eric. I’ll let you decide who had the higher standard. We also allowed the kids to be naked as much as possible, since cleaning skin is much easier than cleaning clothes.

It all helped me realize how and why my African friends manage to stay incredibly clean while living much of their lives outside, even in the dry, dusty season. They will often click their tongues at me if I sit down on a dusty rock, for example, or even a chair without dusting it first. Now I realize, with embarrassment, that it’s my privilege of having 1) a washing machine, 2) a maid who uses the washing machine, and 3) plenty of clothes, which allows me to laugh about dirtying my clothes without much of a care. Even if my Ugandan friends have these same privileges now, I can see how past generations set up habits of cleanliness because there were consequences and work to be done when you got things dirty. No wonder they are meticulously clean in their appearance. So while camping, I was afforded none of my typical privileges. We became more cautious about getting things dirty while simultaneously accepting of the inevitable, riding out our grossness as long as we could. After all, we had no one to impress.

Knowing we had a long drive ahead of us on the day of our departure, we opted for breakfast at the restaurant so we could take off early in the morning. We headed to Ol Pejeta, via Nakuru, also knowing something wasn’t quite right with our air conditioner, which we would have to further investigate along the way.

Hitting the Road: Days 1-4 of our Kenya Overland trip

In case you were wondering, we DID survive the trip. Yes, it’s taken almost 2 months since we left and a month since we returned to show up on here. It’s taken me that long to recover. It was a TRIP. It was beautiful and fun, amazing and epic, and also hard, stressful, and extremely exhausting. It was everything - everything, that is, except relaxing.

So here I am, finally sorting through the photos and finally able to carve out the time and mind space to reflect on it all. I blogged at Lake Baringo about our packing list, but it took up so much time when there was so much else to do, so I didn’t worry about it for the rest of the trip. After all, one of our goals was to be present together as a family, and blogging did not lend itself to that. Now, as I review our trip, I’ll share the good, the bad, and the ugly as best I can. Overlanding includes it all, especially with a 1-year old in tow.

Days 1-2: On the day we planned to leave home, the Land Cruiser was still in the shop getting a suspension upgrade 3 days after they told us it would be done because they kept ordering the wrong parts from Nairobi. Eric and Leo went to the garage to just sit and wait and put pressure on them to get it done quickly. By the time all was finished, it was mid-afternoon.

They drove the car home and we loaded up as quickly as we could with all that I had finished packing that day. We told Leo to take a final pee before we hit the road, so he found a large water bottle, peed in it, and said he wanted to take it along because it was “for bad guys.” It even made the family photo we took before we set off. You can see it there in the bottom left corner. It took some time to convince him that it really was not essential and to leave it behind.

Off we went to Jinja, where we had a staff retreat. It was the “soft launch” of our trip, since we parked the car and stayed in a resort with great food and an excellent view of the Nile River. Although we were in a comfortable and familiar setting, we still had problems to deal with. Eric brought in our electricity system to charge the battery and promptly blew a fuse and Pax ran a fever for the 4th night in a row, meaning we started the trip on a lack of sleep. I assumed it was just a virus, but thought it would be smart to make sure before we got ourselves out of range of good medical care. The next day, while Eric was in meetings, I took the kids into town to a clinic and hardware store. We certainly didn’t want to start the trip with a sick kid and no electricity system. Pax was fine. His fever broke the morning we decided to get him checked. Eric fixed the fuse. Later that evening, we danced with our colleagues at a Christmas party and crashed into bed.

Fishermen on the Nile

Day 3: Now we were really on the road. After breakfast, we headed for the Uganda/Kenya border. The first “real” day of our trip was just one to get through. It involved a lot of time on the road - on highways, in particular. Our general rule for the trip was that the kids could get out of their seats on dirt roads, but had to be in their car seats on paved and fast roads. This was a day of paved, fast roads, so they had to endure it. We made more exceptions for Pax. We had a break at the border, where all the confusion and annoyances of borders ensued. We held off hagglers and waited in lines with children bouncing around and clinging to our legs, and then on we went again to a simple, local guest house in Bungoma, Kenya. We arrived as it got dark, waited a long time for some food, and all squished together in bed.

Border crossing

Day 4: Having just arrived in Kenya the night before, we had not yet sorted out our phone and internet situation or even gotten Kenyan shillings, so Eric took Leo into town just after breakfast to sort out those basics. Pax and I stayed back at the simple guest house, bopping around the garden looking at the rabbits, chickens, cows, and birds. All was well for an hour or so, until I started wondering just how long it should take to get money, phone, and internet. Surely, they should be back any minute. Another hour went by and with each passing minute, my imagination ran a little more wild. I had no way of contacting Eric and no money, so all I could do was sit and worry, trying to keep Pax awake so he would sleep in the car when we finally could leave. At two and a half hours, I asked the woman at the guest house if she could call a boda driver. It certainly wasn’t ideal to take Pax on a boda, but at that point I felt like I had no other choice and had to go out looking for the other half of my family, convinced I would find the car on the side of the road somewhere. Knowing their first stop would be at an ATM and also knowing I would need cash to pay the boda, I asked to tour the town’s ATMs, shaking with worry and frantically scanning the road as we passed.

Tired baby, worried mama, on a boda going to look for the other half of our family

While getting money, the boda driver received a call from the woman at the guest house, saying that Eric and Leo had returned. Eric laughed and wondered what the hell I was thinking and I was more than relieved to be able to laugh about it all. A deep breath in and out and we packed the car back up and hit the road, heading for our first real destination - Lake Baringo.