From Maralal we were all heading down to a campsite near the town of Rumuruti. The girl that worked for the FCO said that this was a bandit town, but due to the recent bandit activity on the road west to Marsabit, it was definitely the safer of the two routes. We had heard of a good campsite called bobong, located just outside of Rumuruti. The campsite apparently had a tame cheetah and in my mind that would be worth the jaunt into bandit country alone.
We all left separately in the morning as it was only a few hours drive to Rumuruti and the worst of the bad roads were now behind us. I changed the wheel that had deflated the previous day and headed off on the road. After 20km I was struck by another puncture, leaving me once again in the familiar situation of having no available spares. I made it to the nearest town along the way and got both of my spare tyres fixed again. By now the inner tubes were so patched there was barely any of the original inner tube visible. The guys at this village decided to repair my tubes with bicycle patches which looked as though they wouldn’t last two minutes on the road. Still having four working tyres however I pushed this thought to the back of my mind. The village did not have power and were used to pumping up tyres by hand, so when I brought out my electric compressor their eyes lit up at the thought of not having to hand pump the big 4×4 tyres.
On the road again we neared the campsite and the town of Rumuruti. Although I was sure that the rumors of the town being plagued with bandits were hyped up, I could not help suspecting everyone on the road of being a bandit and imagined them just waiting for our pace to slacken so they could get their chance to hi-jack us. The bandits did not have to wait too long for their opportunity as 10km outside of the campsite another puncture forced us to stop. Kicking into action the now well drilled duo of Neil and I had the wheel off and the new one back on in a record time of 8 minutes. There is nothing like the fear of banditry to speed up a tyre change. We made it to the campsite to find, unsurprisingly, all of the other guys already there. There was no sign of the cheetah unfortunately as it had apparently died two years ago. This was still a sore point with the family and I was thankful that I had a heads up from one of the guys before dropping the same clanger that they had done. They did have a tame dwarf mongoose, but we all knew that it was no substitute. The two South Africans Bret and Ham were preparing a barbeque (or Brai if you’re a saffa) for the equator party that we were having that night. Being just 1 degree north of the equator, tomorrow we would be entering into the southern hemisphere, and not needing much excuse for a party we got one underway. Late in the evening the lovely owners of bobong campsite came and joined in the festivities.
The evening kept on until the early hours with many of us (including me) regretting the decision to start on the tuskers at 1.00pm. John the owner of the campsite, and much of the area around, listened to my horrific tales of punctures along the Omo Valley and said that he could hook me up with a good tyre place in the next town. My tyres now a constant source of grief and one that I would be happy to cast away, I said I would pay them a visit in the morning.
In the morning I found that John had called the tyre shop and haggled the price of four new tyres to a reasonable level. With the fresh belief in my heart and a tusker beer borne pain in my head I set my course for the next town of Thomspon’s falls. John had also said that there was tarmac 20km after Rumuruti, so I really felt I would be home and dry.
We all left to go our different ways in the morning, with me going towards Rumuruti in search of the new tyres that I so desperately needed. Driving through Rumuruti I was disappointed to find that it was just like a regular town. This contradicted the dusty, lawless, wild west town that I had imagined a bandit town like Rumuruti to be (although John had downplayed the bandits the previous night). We hit tarmac 20km later as expected, and 10km further on I got yet another puncture. With punctures now happening on tarmac, the need for new tyres was even greater. After another short tyre change we were back on the road with no spare tyres yet again.
We got to Thompson’s Falls and found the shop that John had been talking to. It transpired however that John had been talking to them about a completely different size and type of tyre from the ones that I needed, my size of tyre not being in stock at all. My dreams of new tyres dashed away, I headed to the next big town of Nakuru where the friendly shop assistant told in Thompson Falls told me I would have more luck. I had the spare tyres fixed again and headed off for Nakuru.
We arrived just before 5.00pm and whilst circling on the ring road found a tyre centre offering all makes of tyre. It was like tyre mecca, and I managed to shoot in just as before they closed. I decided on some tyres and agreed to go back in the morning to get them fitted, happy that this would be the last day of tyre problems. Nakuru was a relatively big town by Kenyan standards and we decided to eat at one of the recommended restaurants from the lonely planet. Little did I know at this point but the always useless, and now downright vindictive Lonely Planet was sending me into a trap. Alarm bells were ringing early on about the town of Nakuru, the owner of the tyre garage was repairing a massive hole in his wall where the garage had been ram raided and most of his stock of brand new tyres stolen. This coupled with the fact that when we were approached by a street hawker just down the road he opened with the line ‘don’t worry I am not a criminal’, which invariably means he was. These incidents gave us a dodgy feeling about Nakuru, so I parked on a well crowded street with the car in view of the restaurant. The restaurant also had a balcony overlooking the road, so I insisted on sitting there to get a better view of the car.
After about 5 minutes of bring in the restaurant I looked over and saw the hazard warning lights going off on the car. I sprinted down into the street towards the car, and when I got there the alarm was going off, but there were no visible signs of entry. I started looking in the car for things that may have somehow been taken. I found nothing out of the ordinary, but when Neil came to join me he said that his big bag full of clothes had gone from the back seat. Knowing that there was only a 5 minute window for the bag to have been snatched, and that it was a hell of a bulky bag, I set off down the street looking for the thief while Neil watched the car. After no joy in my search I started looking in the smaller side alleyways that broke off from the main street, hoping that the bag may have been stashed somewhere. After 10 minutes of searching a concerned looking man came up to me and in a hushed voice told me to stop looking for whatever it was that had been taken. He told me that if I continue down the alley ways the thieves would either go back to the car and take everything, or trap me down the alley way and mug me. Neither scenario sounded particularly appealing so I headed back to the car and started questioning the people there. Despite there being a good 50 people who would have seen the incident (you can’t miss someone taking a massive bag out of a car with the alarm going off) everyone said they didn’t see a thing. Frustration set in and, afraid to leave the car again, we had to forgo dinner and headed for the campsite out of town.
Neil took the loss of his bag well saying that everything could be replaced easily and that there was nothing important stolen. I however felt bad that it was the security of my car that had let him down and led to the loss. One of the locals told us that the thieves have skeleton keys for all of the large makes of cars. This would explain the lack of forced entry, but the fact that the alarm still went off. Despite my frustration at the bag, I was thankful for the immobilizer that I had installed in Egypt. If they had a skeleton key I am sure they would have tried to steal the car, and would have been successful if it were not for the immobiliser. My digital SLR was also on the back seat, but fortunately the thieves decided to leave this in favor of a bag filled mainly with dirty washing.
In the morning I went to get my brand new tyres fitted to my car. It was a happy day, despite the previous nights incident, and the fact that the tyres were costing a small fortune. The new tyres fitted we decided to test them out in Nakuru National Park.
Nakuru national park is a relatively small game park concentrated around the banks of lake Nakuru. What it lacks in size it makes up for in game however with virtually every game animal that you can think of present (apart from elephants). We decided not to bother with a guide as the park is just a few tracks working its way around the lake, and made our way into the park. In no time we were driving around herds of buffalo, Zebra, giraffe and gazelle, and the annoyances of the previous night were forgotten. We were told that Nakuru is one of the best places to see Rhino (both white and the rarer black variety) and we were rewarded with some exceptionally close views of both. With the park relatively quite we could sit and watch the animals well into the afternoon without them, or us being disturbed. In the early evening we were told by a game warden about some lions down one of the less well used tracks. We headed off in pursuit and found three juvenile male lions relaxing in the sun about 12 feet away from the track! The lions were asleep, but we decided to stay until nightfall hoping that they would become active (we chose waiting over prodding them awake, although that came a close second). As dusk set in we watched the lions from a distance of 12 feet, with them completely unconcerned by our presence. At one point the trio suddenly all looked up in synchrony at the scrub. A herd of buffalo came charging out of the thick scrub crossing infront of the lions at a distance of about 50 feet. The gaze of the lions didn’t move with the buffalo however and remained set somewhere behind at a threat that we could not see. Barging its way through the undergrowth the source of the lions interest, and the buffalos fear, materialised in the form of a black rhino. The rhino was so preoccupied with chasing the buffalo that it almost missed the lions completely. As it came level in front of where the lions sat however it caught a glimpse of them and stopped abruptly. Turning to face the lions it looked as though the rhino was contemplating a charge at them. If the rhino did decide to charge it would have left us in a sticky position, parked as we were 12 feet behind the lions. My hand was on the keys in the ignition I could not bring myself to turn away from the action and stayed as the rhino summed up its chances against the three lions. After what seemed like about 5 minutes (but must have been 20 seconds) the rhino did a bizarre dance of indecision and then thought better of charging the lions. It decided instead to reassume chasing the original herd of buffalo. It was an amazing spectacle and had us completely and utterly captivated. The lions seemed to take this strange behavior all in their stride, not once even getting up from their laying position.
We stayed overnight at Nakuru national park and woke up with baboons running all over the place. My new tyres still inflated we then headed to Nairobi.
Only later did I discover that the Nakuru theft ran deeper than originally thought, and the viscous criminal had also taken one of my shoes from the car, bizarrely leaving the other one untouched. Clearly we had been at the mercy of a criminal mastermind!
