4 days Kenya into Ethiopia

Kenya

Having 7 months to travel through 16 countries (without counting the countries from Turkey to  Utrecht, NL), sometimes you have to make a decision not to stay in one place for too long. Kenya is one of them. From Uganda we travelled in 4 days through Kenya to Ethiopia. But they were tough. The toughest to date… But also very beautiful.

Among Africa travellers the name of Moyale rings some treacherous bells. It’s the border town between Kenya and Ethiopia, and the route into Kenya from Moyale to Marasabit is one of the worst in the world. Its extremely corrugated with potholes and stones everywhere. 9 out of 10 people ruin their shock absorbers, tyres, and/or cooling systems on this route. And that’s the mechanical part; imagine the impact on your back and humour when driving 350 km with 20-25 km/hr. Add stories about the Shiftas (armed Somali bandits) and you understand why we chose to take another route.

Another option to enter Ethiopia is along Lake Turkana in the West. A route along a colourful lake where multiple pastoralist tribes live (Samburu, Turkana people; see picture).

A few buts: the tribes seem to clash sometimes into armed fights about cattle; there is no Kenyan border post, so no stamps in the passport; being a volcanic area the roads (or pads) are often scattered with volcanic sharp stones, or a sulphuric thin ash yellow layer. Especially this last one after rains changes the road into an impassable hurdle. So advice: make sure you don’t go when there are fights, go with two cars and do not go after rains. We succeeded in the first condition, though the latter two we did not. We ruined two of our tyres due to sharp stones which thought it was funny to enter through their side-walls, leaving 5-cm cuts. But even in no-man’s land the Africans know how to get you on the road again by simple stitching…

… yep; new set of tyres to be bought in Addis Abeba.

As there were no other travellers going along this route when we were there, we chose to go for ourselves. We could drive pole-pole (slow in Swahili), were told about a less bad road along the water, and of course always have our GPS and satellite phone. We did not find the suggested route so went along the worst part and we had to add another challenge: Rain (with a capital R). The first rains in the season after months of drought. And yes, it changes the roads into sliding courses. Wikke had to get out of the car a dozen times to check water levels and mud-stickiness.

On the evening after the rainy exhausting day, 15 min before dark we were looking for a sheltered place to stay for the night in the bush when the second stone punctured the side of our tyre.

But we arrived in Ethiopia and it was one of the most scenic routes we took in the past 5 months.

Ethiopia

We entered Ethiopia in the south west through the town of Omorate. As always we had to arrange some local currency, the Ethiopian Birr (1Euro = 22,8 Birr). Experienced as we are nowadays after having gone through a lot of hassle and bargaining in other countries, we found a money-guy in the little town of Turmi.

We had to change both Kenyan Shilling and US Dollars into Birr, so we started with mentioning rates higher than the official rates. Making calculations with wooden twigs in the sand makes communication easier if you do not speak any Amharic. For some reason our guy accepted our offers and we changed the money (in total about 90 euro). After about an hour walking through the town we were approached again by the guy plus a small group of curious men. The Kenyan Shilling rate he had used was not right he said (duh…). After some hassling we gave him a small amount back as we felt a bit sorry for him. But he still asked for an unreasonable amount back, which we refused. When a group of about 12 men were surrounding us we decided to go for a walk, leaving the guy still arguing with the other men. After 15 minutes another man came to us saying that also our US dollars were ‘criminal money’, and he seemed to be a bit in panic. When he started walking towards the police station (cursing), we decided to get into the car and hit the gas pedal. So we did. In the days after we were still in the area but smartly avoided the town because as faranji (foreigner) you are not able to be undercover among Ethiopians.

In the remote south western part of Ethiopia still many tribes live the way they have been living for centuries. Villages are made from clay and grass and family traditions are still original. They live mainly from keeping cattle and working on agriculture. The biggest and most famous tribes are the Hamer and Mursi people, this latter group known for its women wearing the large lip plates. We visited two Hamer villages and attended a bull-jumping ceremony where a boy becomes a man. For some boys this is when they are 12, others become a man at 25. The ceremony starts with the younger women getting drunk from home-made alcohol and getting into an ecstasy by loud and active singing and dancing.

They do this because in the Hamer tradition the women will be beaten severely with whips. The beatings result in large scars on their backs which they treat with charcoal to make them look even more ugly when healed. Clearly they do not consider this ugly, it is a sign of beauty and the more scars the more attractive the women become for the men.

The ceremony was supposed to take from 14:00-17:00, but the guy only started his jump over the 12 lined-up bulls at 19:00, when the sun went down. He was not the most skilled jumper, as he had to be helped to climb the first bull, and then jump from bull-back to bull-back all the way to the other side and then back (and that 2 times). Of course he succeeded with the help and became a real man, ready to get married.  

We had to drive back to our sleeping place for another 2 hours through the bush over a highly difficult road so had to leave after the jump, the party would go on for another 24 hours. Walking back to the car we heard the (happiness) gun-shots floating into the air.

Now we are refuelling in Addis Abeba, the capital of Ethiopia, at a place called Wim’s Holland House (yes, it really exists!); eating sate with peanut sauce and bitter balls… .;-))