Day 6 -- From Isiolo to Marsabit -- A rough day for the cars

Welcome Chrissy and Lovat! On the spur of the moment they decided to take advantage of a break from work to drive from Naivasha and joined us for the rest of the expedition. Chrissy is a fantastic cook and Lovat an expert with cars - so really we could not be happier, right?

First stop in Isiolo town for minor supplies and for a new mattress for Boris. These days he has been sleeping al fresco on his mattress and counting the stars. The only problem is that his mattress has been deflating. This morning we thought he had gone walkabout...we could not see his body shape under the blankets, he had sunk down so much that it looked like the mattress had swallowed him! So with that his mission in Isiolo was a new mattress. After much deliberation on the wide (unexpected!) choices of color, pattern and thickness, Boris settled for a fine mattress in a pretty pattern quite reminiscent of his Peruvian top!

From Isiolo we enjoyed the smoothest road you can imagine. Brand new and by far the best in Kenya. As we know all good things must come to an end and abruptly we nailed a rough and dusty 150km stretch of washboard/corrugation. There is no easy way to handle washboard and two schools of thought: go fast and fly over the grooves or go slower and try to have a bit more steering. The rattle and noise in the Land Rover is just incredible and at some moments you just have to laugh. The landscape became again very arid and dry and dusty. In some areas even the thorn trees were red covered in dust and we could not see one tiny green leaf. Hard to imagine life survives in such harshness, but it does, we saw a few elders walking on the road side with not one village in sight. We stopped to say hello to one of them, gave him a bottle of water and he simply said he was off to the next manyatta (village). We drive through little villages made of nothing more than tin roofs or grass roofs with the water well being the center of the village life. Children have their eyes big open and big smiles on their faces when they see us and that is always a sweet moment.

About 40 kms before Marsabit we started to climb a bit and the vegetation started to change, the trees got green again and the air colder. Marsabit is a bit of an oasis and means "mountain of cold" and we now understand why.

As soon as we got into Marsabit at 3 pm we went to the main car workshop and assessed the damaged: cracked chassis for Lovat, shocks destroyed and a damaged fuel tank for Justin and bolts sheered on Boris' roof rack...Alex's only complaint being a broken air con! Alex and Petra will be welcoming the club of the 'dust eaters' like the rest of us!

Needless to say Mr. Furad, the owner of the car workshop, is strategically located at the end of this horrible road. All he has to do is sit and wait for the cars to pull into town and present their list of damages and repairs. I don't think Mr. Furad is in a hurry to see the nice smooth road come all the way to Marsabit!

We had to stay in a campsite near town so that the mechanics could come and work on the Land Rover's tank. The campsite was pretty awful and wind swept. We made the most of out if thoughWelcome Chrissy and Lovat! On the spur of the moment they decided to take advantage of a break from work to drive from Naivasha and joined us for the rest of the expedition. Chrissy is a fantastic cook and Lovat an expert with cars - so really we could not be happier, right?

First stop in Isiolo town for minor supplies and for a new mattress for Boris. These days he has been sleeping al fresco on his mattress and counting the stars. The only problem is that his mattress has been deflating. This morning we thought he had gone walkabout...we could not see his body shape under the blankets, he had sunk down so much that it looked like the mattress had swallowed him! So with that his mission in Isiolo was a new mattress. After much deliberation on the wide (unexpected!) choices of color, pattern and thickness, Boris settled for a fine mattress in a pretty pattern quite reminiscent of his Peruvian top!

From Isiolo we enjoyed the smoothest road you can imagine. Brand new and by far the best in Kenya. As we know all good things must come to an end and abruptly we nailed a rough and dusty 150km stretch of washboard/corrugation. There is no easy way to handle washboard and two schools of thought: go fast and fly over the grooves or go slower and try to have a bit more steering. The rattle and noise in the Land Rover is just incredible and at some moments you just have to laugh. The landscape became again very arid and dry and dusty. In some areas even the thorn trees were red covered in dust and we could not see one tiny green leaf. Hard to imagine life survives in such harshness, but it does, we saw a few elders walking on the road side with not one village in sight. We stopped to say hello to one of them, gave him a bottle of water and he simply said he was off to the next manyatta (village). We drive through little villages made of nothing more than tin roofs or grass roofs with the water well being the center of the village life. Children have their eyes big open and big smiles on their faces when they see us and that is always a sweet moment.

About 40 kms before Marsabit we started to climb a bit and the vegetation started to change, the trees got green again and the air colder. Marsabit is a bit of an oasis and means "mountain of cold" and we now understand why.

As soon as we got into Marsabit at 3 pm we went to the main car workshop and assessed the damaged: cracked chassis for Lovat, shocks destroyed and a damaged fuel tank for Justin and bolts sheered on Boris' roof rack...Alex's only complaint being a broken air con! Alex and Petra will be welcoming the club of the 'dust eaters' like the rest of us!

Needless to say Mr. Furad, the owner of the car workshop, is strategically located at the end of this horrible road. All he has to do is sit and wait for the cars to pull into town and present their list of damages and repairs. I don't think Mr. Furad is in a hurry to see the nice smooth road come all the way to Marsabit!

We had to stay in a campsite near town so that the mechanics could work on the Land Rover fuel tank. The night was cold and windy and our tents shook all night. We woke up and the chairs and plastic cups were all over the ground and there was a cold thick mist that did not clear up until 10 am. It was a rough night!

This morning we are off to a nicer campsite in the Marsabit area. All the cars have been welded, repaired and back into shape.

Cheers everyone and enjoy the pics!