Henry's Rest Camp, Marsabit

After the extreme cloud shrouding Mount Kenya last night we were surprised the day dawned clear and sunny.  We climbed up to a lookout at the campsite and enjoyed crystal clear views of the Mountain.  I was surprised how much it looked like the volcanos in the central plateau of New Zealand up to the rocky peak, which was covered in snow.

It took longer to get to Isiolo than we imagined, due mainly to enormous potholes and protracted roadworks.  Twice we saw an army tank in fashionable camouflage greens coming towards us with three soldiers perched aboard and a big red letter L on the learner driver plates attached.  The soldiers were holding sticks rather than guns which reminded me of a 100 strong platoon of soldiers we saw running in formation in Arusha, clutching gun shaped planks of wood.

The stretch of what passes for road between Isiolo and Marsabit is notorious for its banditry and armed holdups.


Depending on the current climate, vehicles travel in convoy or with armed guards provided by the local police (at a fee, of course).  I'm not quite sure what happened as we were waved through the police roadblock at the start of the road, where I expected we'd be stopped to sign a register if we were proceeding alone, or stopped from proceeding until we had other vehicles to travel with.  Although we were following three other land rovers - one was an army vehicle - maybe they thought we were part of a convoy.  In any case we ended up driving this corrogated and remote road quite alone - I'm relieved to say there was no sign of trouble.  En route we saw camels, lots of donkeys and goats and Samburu tribespeople dressed in bright colours wearing elaborate beaded necklaces or feathered headdresses.

Although they're started to seal the road from Isiolo, the remainder of the road has a reputation for being absolutely horrible and murder on tyres and shock absorbers.  We dropped the pressure in the tyres by about 15psi and, yes although there were endless corrogations we were pleasantly surprised to find the road in better condition than we expected up until the climb to Marsabit where I could see it being a nightmare in the wet, but still in better condition than the road in south west Uganda.  We were lucky with the weather and only had a few showers so the road stayed firm.

The area around Marsabit is quite cool.  It is a whopping 6000km odd volcano dotted with over a dozen craters and scores of cinder cones and is extremely green.