How Rough Can It Get?

I was a little apprehensive about the driving we would have to do on our 4 day holiday. We did have a four-wheel drive vehicle from work, but it didn't feel all that large and hardy to me. Leaving Nairobi, we drove about 2 and a half hours on fairly good roads. Even though we had three maps, the roads aren't marked every 20 meters with signs indicating what road it is or what direction you are going. We had a couple of 'are we still going the right way?' moments including 'I didn't see a sign that said we were supposed to turn there, did you?' So I was always happy when we knew we were on the right road, going the right direction.

We reached the town right above the Tanzania border where we would turn to head towards the game park. The road was dirt and REALLY rough - little dips everywhere. I was driving and pretty nervous about it - I worried about the car getting hurt, sliding accross the road, etc. Stephen wanted to get there by lunchtime and thought I could drive faster so we switched positions. After seeing how the car could handle it, I felt more comfortable when it was my turn to drive again. I was expecting bad roads in the game park, just not 50 kilometers of bad road before we got there.

It rained while we were out on one of our game drives. The land was so dry it definitely needed it, but this meant that the roads - which were flat and often no taller than the surrounding land - got flooded. I had some hairy moments driving through puddles worrying about flooding the engine and such. But we managed through that, too.

Leaving the first park to go to the second, we had to drive 100 kilometers on bad roads. We were both SO happy to get back on a paved road - and it was a GOOD paved road so we were able to go a decent speed.

You know in the U.S. when they are doing roadworks on the highway they often pave another road alongside the road being worked on? Well, they create a new road here - but it's not paved and really horrible to drive on. There were several streches on our way back to Nairobi where we had to detour onto these really rough roads. We wondered if we were ever going to get home.

I was also nervous about driving in the dark in areas we didn't know - the rough roads, no streetlights make for uneasy going in my opinion. It took us 6 hours to get home and we didn't make it before dark, though we didn't have to drive in the dark for very long. I was glad that Stephen was driving that last stretch. We both found it pretty nerveracking, I think.

Other interesting tidbits - when we got on the good road going to the second park, we wanted to get gas as there aren't many possibilities. The first two stations that we came across (about a 20 minute drive in between)had no gas. They mentioned a town further along where there would be gas - we made it there and there was gas. Thank goodness!

On the main highway between Nairobi and Mombasa, you see plenty of goat and cattle herds (and sometimes have to stop for them to cross the road). We also had to come to a complete stop for a herd of zebra! Guess many of you don't have that problem regularly. We also saw a giraffe by the side of the highway which was neat.

And a little piece of local road etiquette: when passing someone, you turn on your blinker the whole way as you pass them in the other lane. If you are trying to see if it is ok to pass the person in front of you, they will turn on their signal to let you know. If they turn on their left turn signal, the way is clear; the right signal indicates that someone is coming in the other lane.