Day 31 – Marsabit to Moyale (Via the ROAD THROUGH HELL, DUM DUM DUUUUUUM) (258 km)

29.01.2012

Jules writes:

Today marks the one-month point in our epic journey, and we certainly did it in style (as in “the building was demolished in style” or “the enemy spy was tortured with style”).

We had a mere 250 km to cover today, but considering our experience from the previous day, we decided to leave really early. Our German friends, Hans and Rolf, decided to join us for the ride, as they were also heading to Moyale. And so, at 4 AM, our alarms started sounding. When Dad emerged bleary-eyed from his room, he commented: “I’ve been awake since 2 AM, like a condemned man waiting for the gallows”. After the previous days riding, he was definitely not looking forward to today. Maybe that is why we ended up leaving at 5:30, rather than the agreed upon 5:00.

We started off in the dark riding out of Marsabit. We had heard a comment the previous day that “Marsabit is a good place to live”. Now that I think about it, I think he may have said “Marsabit is a good place to leave”, but it may have just been the accent…

The road it turns out, is due for an upgrade to tar, and so while work is pending, they have created a detour that runs along next to the main road, which actually is in far better condition. The first hour was actually quite pleasant, as far much as riding along HELL ROAD can be pleasant. This may be on a par with having your teeth slowly extracted by having your skull vigorously shaken for several hours.

As the sun started to come up, we turned back onto the main road, just in time for Hans to notice that his front tyre was going flat. Not a problem, front tyres are relatively easy to fix. We quickly had the tyre off, located the puncture and had everything back together, just in time for someone to notice that my back tyre was flat. Considering that I had changed a flat tyre just the previous day, no easy feat, this was a bit of a frustration, but with a dawn just beginning to settle across the horizon, we tackled the task with aplomb, and in just over an hour we were back on our way.

Now I need to attempt to give some idea about this road, reckoned by some to be the worst road in Africa. It is the major highway between Nairobi and Addis, and runs through various permutations of desert for almost its entire 400 km length. And during the course of the day, it managed to produce pretty much every variation of terrible road that can be imagined: gravel, corrugations too pitted and steep that ant insects attempting to scale these ruts in the road have to establish base camps along the way, so that they do not starve while making the ascent; sudden holes in the road, deep enough to hide a camel in; camels strolling across the road nonchalantly, thick sand that will send the tyres of the unwary sliding off into the bushes. And rocks, sometimes big rocks just sunning themselves in the middle of the road, sometimes small sharp ones embedded in the ground, hungry for a bite of tyre, and the worst of all, small basalt, which provided absolutely no grip, and required either a headlong rush through, hoping that momentum will carry you through, or crawl along at a snails pace. but truly, one has to travel the road to fully understand its horror.

We stopped for another break for breakfast, packed sandwiches and boiled eggs, washed down with some water. As we climbed back on the bikes, Rolf pointed to my bike, and lo and behold, another puncture. Still maintaining a semblance of good humour, we tackled the tyre, yet despite trying to do it in under 30 minutes (we did have quite a bit of practice at this stage) we only managed it in about 75 minutes, due to some problems with reattaching the brakes. At some time during the task, a crow came to inspect us, but unfortunately for the crow, no-one was about to die yet.

We still had no clear idea about what to do regarding the tribal conflict that had been taking place, and so when we finally rolled into Turbi, a tiny little town 150 km from Marsabit, we collapsed into a local shop and soon were downing bottles of water and cold-drinks, while asking the locals for their thoughts on whether we should acquire a police escort for the last 100 km, which we would have had to pay for, as well as having to hire a vehicle for them to drive in. The general feeling seemed to be that things had calmed down, so we decided to brave the last bit of the road without an escort, with the understanding that we would stick together if there was trouble.

Although we had heard that that the road was slightly better from Turbi onwards, whatever difference there was was negligible, with many sections of the road consisting of heavy sand, one of the hardest road surfaces to drive in. At one point, driving into a town, a red cross vehicle came screaming around the corner, driving in the left hand lane right towards me. I swerved right, as did he, and so I had to high-tail it off the road to avoid being laid out. The irony of being taken out by a Red Cross vehicle was not lost on me.

Driving through this potentially hostile environment definitely puts one on edge. Plastic bags seem to glare at you with sinister intent, and menacing trees try and grab at you with thorny fingers. The sight of people on the road ahead of us would generally cause us to cluster together, although no danger ever materialised.

As we had been riding, I had been struggling with my bags tending to list off to one side. I would stop and readjust them, then continue onwards, only to stop again a few kilometres later to redo the process. Eventually, about 40 km form Moyale, I had a closer look and noticed to my consternation, that two bolts, the ones holding my luggage support onto the bike, had rattled loose somewhere along the road. The team assembled after a few minutes to inspect the situation, and we eventually managed to make a plan with a few bolts that we had, although this would require some attention at our destination. So during the course of our ride, I had managed to lose some very important bolts and acquire two punctures. Not a great tally.

As I drove through a small settlement, a small, sweetly smiling child threw a stone at me. I sighed, and drove on. The same bastard got Shan on the helmet too.

Finally, with the shadows lengthening across the road, we headed for the last few kilometres to the end of the hell road. Along the way we saw tiny antelope that would stare at us from the side of the road, watching our approach with a mixture of trepidation and fascination, and then dashing back to the safety of the bushes as we passed, like elderly spinsters watching from their doors as a streaker runs down the street.

We arrived in the town centre just as dusk was settling in (a mere 13 hours after setting out, same as yesterday), where, true to the tone of the day, Johns bike had a puncture in the rear wheel. At this stage, all we cared about was finding a place to sleep, and after settling in, we washed up (buckets with hot water) and then headed down to the local pub where we washed down a few beers and had some chicken. After trying his chicken Hans commented, “This chicken has won a few races”.

And so we have conquered (or at least survived) the Hell Road to Moyale, and, provided we can find some bolts and can change the tyre in the morning, we leave Kenya behind to head into Ethiopia.