Days 321, Tuesday 20 November 2012 – Naiberi River Camp, Eldoret, Kenya
Well, it was another crappy sleep, though at least I did not feel sick, just cold, maybe I was cold last night just because it was cold !! I was up at 7:00 and took a small experimental coffee to see if it would cause any issues – after a few minutes of seeming stability I declared myself well and had another one. Ebron (our cook) made my day by getting the toaster out (we do not always have power) and I had toast with lashings of vegemite – I had been dreaming of vegemite toast for a while.
This little chameleon, literally fell out of the tree next to where we having breakfast. He seemed OK so Will put him back in one of the hedges where they normally live.
After breakfast I went down to talk to Dave, the driver of an Oasis Overlanding truck that was also in the camp (and the source of the noise last night, not Dave !). Dave had been staying at Karen Camp while we were there and been really ill for the same twenty four hour period as me, it sounded like he was worse than I was too, we both had had the chicken the night before… Oh well, it happens, at least we were both better today.
The others went on a guided farm tour, I have seen enough farms in my time so I decided to go back up into the fields again to see if the photo opportunities I missed yesterday were still there. Gary came for a walk with me along with my new friend, Buster the dog. I forgot to introduce Gary, I met him at Karen camp. Will is leaving Africa in Focus in January and is off to drive overland trucks in South America. Gary is his replacement and was coming along on this leg to learn some of the ropes, so we are now nine passengers with a crew of four.
The road passes a small community of houses that are supposed to be long abandoned and I was quite keen to take a walk through and get some photos, however once we started looking closely it was apparent that a number were occupied so I took some photos from the roadside and moved on.
The farm is mostly surrounded by a massive electric fence to keep squatters out, so it was quite a walk around to a gate that allows access to a railroad track which we walked along for a while.
Ducking up a narrow path up into the fields, the light was just not the same as a couple of afternoons ago, there were no dark and brooding clouds behind the acacia trees, so the photography was not exciting – still I love acacia trees so here are a couple anyway!
Gary and I walked to the top of the hill and stopped to take a look. There was a group of about half a dozen kids of various ages coming up the other side with bags full of wheat – obviously stolen. When they saw us they froze and just stopped and stared at us, I could see they were scared. After a few seconds I smiled, waved and called out the Swahili for hello – “jambo”, they then realised we were just muzungu tourists, burst into laughter and came running up the hill towards us – though bizarrely they followed us back down the hill, but did not speak to us, it was kind of weird…
We had an early lunch back at the truck and were on the road for another shortish drive to the town of Eldoret. The land around here is definitely the most fertile I have seen in Africa, lots of farmland – and therefore incredibly dull to drive through.
Though we did drive along a long section of sealed road that was the worst sealed surface I have been on anywhere in the world, it had the most amazing ruts, fortunately it was being replaced.
We also passed the equator ! Yay….
We stopped in Eldoret to give everyone an opportunity to visit a supermarket and stock up on essentials – beer mainly, I had everything I needed so just had an ice cream and scribbled notes in the truck.
Naiberi River Camp, our home for two days was about thirty minutes out of Eldroret, loved this guy with the huge pile of wood on the bike.
Though the next day we heard about the damage the fire wood gatherers do to the environment…
This campsite is a known party camp and Will was keen to party, he has been through here a few times and gets on well with the camps owner Raj. I was a bit grumpy, lack of sleep and recovering from being sick so was a bit miffed at the lack of opportunities for putting the tent up. I said some bad things… though I did recover enough to make it down for a very nice mild curry dinner that was provided by the camp. I ate a lot but went to bed early as I was still exhausted.
Where is Phil now? 