A long and bumpy road

For last years Christmas holiday I chose western and northern Kenya as travel destination: northern Kenya because I have for a long time felt attracted by the unfamiliar names of places in that part of Kenya, and for many years I have wondered what these places with names like Marich or Kabarnet have to offer. I added western Kenya to the trip, more or less make it be able to sell it to my friend Ib who seemed rather unpleased by the idea of crossing semi arid landscapes, picked with mountains and rivers, for five full days.

Looking at the map, the trip seemed promising: One day Nairobi - Kabarnet, the second day up the Kerio Valley (doesn't that name sound very melodic and inviting?), until Marich pass, along the escarpment of the Cherenyani hills. The third day I planned for some trekking, and later in the day to move on to Kakamega forest, the only remaining rain forest in Kenya. The fourth day was to be spent inside the rain forest, and in the evening we planned to move on to Kisumu, on the shore of the Lake Victoria. And finally, on the fifth day, we would return to Nairobi.

Somehow, this plan didn't quite work out...

First day Kabarnet was still ok. Roads in this part of the country are excellent, not very surprisingly, after all Kabarnet is the home to former Kenyan president Arap Moi. Neglecting most other parts of the country, he generously invested in the roads around his home town. The legacy of his nepotic investments is still widely noticable when travelling from Nairobi to Kabarnet (and - in a negative way - to other parts of Kenya).

We spent the night in the old fashioned Grand Hotel of Kabarnet. From the interior of the rooms it must have experienced its peak in the seventies. The swimmingpool seemed a relict from the good old times, too, offering at least a scenic background for pictures.

The next day we moved on to the Kerio valley, just below Kabarnet. Unfortunately, roads became worse and worse the farther away we went from Moi country.

More than once we had to apply the "walk through" trick, before crossing the small lakes that took over large parts of the road.

After two hours on bumps and through water, we reached the lake Kamnerok. This time, I agree, my affection for strange names has defenitely not proved to be right. Or do you think that this pond is worth two hours on a bumpy road?

Thereafter we went back to the main road (!) that was to bring us to Marich. Although marked on the map as "highway", it was little more than a secondary road. The landscape was impressive, but the condition of the road was rather questionable.

Before embarking on this never ending trip through Kerio valley, we managed to have a glimpse at the Cherama gorge (dont remember the exact name), a very interesting stone formation

Along the Cherenyani hills we drove for several hours, the last two during the night, through dark bush, until we reached the Marich pass at eight in the night

When waking up the next day, I discovered that a huge river was just next to our banda - had it been there the night before, or was it the rain that suddenly caused the river to rise? Unfortunately, it was raining too much the next day as if it would have been possible to discover the Cherenyani hills by foot.

Therefore, we decided to leave Marich pass in the morning and drive down the Turkana road to Kitale. Believe it or not, the road was build by the Norwegians 30 years ago. Thats approximately the age of my friend, here posing just in front of one of the many potholes that are remaining from the road.

Many of these rivers we had to cross before reaching the less rough landscapes around Kitale

The same day we drove into Kakamega forest - or should I say "slided"? The roads were a mess, full of red mud (looked nice, though), but somehow we managed to manouvrer our car through this slide without getting stuck


Kakamega forest itself is the last left over of the once large congolean rain forest of Central afrika. Today it covers about 238 km².

View from the view point in the heart of the forest

Another muddy road through Kakamega forest

Hunting the well hidden black forest scorpoin - after turning hundreds of stones, I started to doubt his existance

What would a holiday trip be without at least one kitschy sun set?

Unfortunately most of the shore along Kisumu that we reached on the forth day is owned by the railway, while the remaining part has been transformed into an animal park. This means that there are no public beaches available...

Expept one, that is however commonly used as car wash place.

So we decided to hire a boat and sweeten the travel (at least for my friend) with some fishing. But also here the luck didn't seem to be on his side... However, after some discussions with our boat captain we soon realized that it is not a problem of skill, but a problem of the equipment :-)

I still enjoyed it!

These are the restaurants along the harbour of the lake Victoria - Well done, Coka Cola!

And finally, our travel back: three hours bumpy road (and seven hours normal road) - and imagine, this is supposed to be the most important road in Kenya, connecting Mombasa with Kampala in Uganda. A pity that former President Moi is not exactly from this part of Kenya

And this is a night visualization of the bumps shown above.

Looking back at the trip I must say that it was not exactly what I expected to get, but I still enjoyed it a lot. At least now I know what these odd names have to offer: bad roads, lush landscapes, wild rivers, red earth, extremely helpful people, and (the best of all): no tourists at all.

Personally I can defenitely recommend to visit this part of Kenya. One should however give it a bit more time, especially the Cherenyani hills can make for an intersting trekking area if suffiecient time is provided.