Africa odyssey

Article by Sarah Kilalea

Pictures by Martin Leahy and Sarah Kilalea

When we last checked in we were powering through Oman in our solar yellow Nissan xterra, enjoying the pristine salalah roads and camping on the white sand beaches in our icon installed roof tent. Bliss.

After making an informed decision to avoid Yemen (as our insurance company refused to insure us or any of our JVC, Sennheiser Canon or Apple equipment through the country) we decided to send our Xterra to Djibouti in a giant shipping container. Well, it was supposed to arrive a week later, in typical African style one week turned into two and our car was unceremoniously loaded into the Dubai Djibouti port- which if you’re wondering is different to the Djibouti port- about 500m offshore with no road to it. A lot of money and friendly officials later we finally got the container moved to the dry docks and opened it to find out Nissan intact and ready to drive! Yay!

A massive thank you must be given to the Sheraton Djibouti who very kindly put up with Martin and me for a lot longer than they were expecting to thanks to the red tape of cargo shipping!

So off we headed to Ethiopia! We definitely put the car through its paces- Ethiopia is a stunning country of rolling hills, green valleys and plenty of livestock. The government is redoing all of their roads around the historical circuit -we assume to make them more tourist friendly- we even saw the Ethiopian president surveying the roads! The short story is that the sharp rocks and corrugated roads played havoc with our tires and after getting one repaired in a tiny Ethiopian northern village, we hobbled slowly to the next village to get yet another tire haphazardly repaired by roadside opportunists.

We also lost our rear windshield along the way as a small shepherd boy, after waving at us as we drove past in a cloud of dust- threw a stone at us and shattered it. That was a bad day.

So after seeing the rock hewn churches of Lalibella and Gonder and staring in awe at the hyena men of Harar we limped back to Addis Ababa, pulled into the stunning Sheraton hotel and had the best night sleep we’ve had in a long time. The next day our Xterra had an overhaul! We replaced the sand friendly/ rock not so friendly tires with some bad-ass off-road 265/75/16 bridge stones and a temporary perspex rear windshield and we were ready for Kenya!

Monal Zidan of Nissan Middle East had very kindly organized to send down some fantastic off-road shocks and a replacement rear window with a couple of friends joining us in Kenya. Thank god he did! The road from Moyale (the border town of Ethiopia and Kenya) to Marsabit in northern Kentia is renowned as one of the worst roads known to man. To call it a road is a joke and it DESTROYS vehicles! Saying that, our off-road Xterra held up bravely (rear shocks excluded) as we travelled 14 hours a day at 20 km per hour for 2 days until we reached our destination. When we arrived in Marsabit we were looked at by the locals in sheer amazement that we’d actually survived the road as apparently there are daily attacks from road bandits who not only steal your car but execute travelers as well! Whew!

We met up with rob and Lisa and added the replacement parts to the car and we were ready to safari!

Kenya was a welcome change from the strange looks we had received in Ethiopia- being light skinned and blonde in Ethiopia is incredibly tiring and every village we drove through villagers were shouting ‘farenji farenji (white person) give me money! Kenya is nothing like that. They are incredibly welcoming and very used to tourists. Saying that though it is about 10 times more expensive than Ethiopia and seeing any of the national parks will set you back 60 dollars per person per day excluding lodge prices.

We pulled into the Samburu Simba lodge which has stunning views overlooking the watering hole which martin very happily filmed on our JVC pro hd and Canon 5d mark 2 and crocodiles lazily sunned themselves and waterbuck drank. Heaven.

We then traveled to Lake Naivasha where the film ‘Out of Africa’ was shot on location and after having a morning traveling around the lake by boat we lazily pulled into the Lake Navaisha Simba lodge for a slap up meal! Then onwards to the world famous Masai Mara!

Our first game drive in the park we managed to catch a pair of cheetahs hunting a reed buck, take it down and begin the feat when a lion appeared, scared off the cheetah and stole their kill! Our footage is bumpy to say the least on the JVC as our guide was frantically trying to follow the speeding cheetahs but we got some great stills as well with sound recording on the Sennheiser radio mike of me saying over and over ‘oh my gosh oh my gosh’ quite amusing actually.. Definitely one of the top moments of this trip so far!

As we got back to Mara Samba lodge we sat by the fire and learned the very famous Kenyan song Jambo Jjambo which we sang with the resident guitarist and tried a typically Kenyan drink- dawa- made of vodka, honey and lime. It definitely knocks you for six!

Now we’re heading to Nairobi along brilliant roads and looking forward to exploring the pristine beaches and diving of eastern Kenya!

See you on the road!