Day 19- Into Tanzania

I'm updating my blog after a relentless few days, driving across Ethiopia and into Kenya for our rest day in in the beautiful hotel Safari Park in Nairobi. My Blackberry expired in Ethiopia, and only coming  back to life in Nairobi at the end of 'rest day' on day 18, so a few days have gone by in a flurry of long driving days, frenetic work on the car and late nights when dropping into bed never seemed to come soon enough.   

I'm actually tapping this update in a roadside "jua kali", or roadside workshop watching a strut top being welded. In Nairobi, it seemed such a good idea to try new rear springs with longer travel. Unfortunately, the rate was too soft and we bottomed out once or twice too often this morning in southern Kenya (19th Jan) and a slightly bent strut top was the result. That'll teach us. As Philip Young rightly said to me, 'if something is working, leave it alone'. 

It is amazing what these guys can do on a bit of sandy ground as some of the pics will show. We emptied the boot, removed the strut (fortunately undamaged), and off to work they set. A bit of judicious hammering while we fitted the original springs to the strut, a few flickers from the electric welder in the right spots, some final fettling, and we are back in business and on our way to Arusha in Tanzania. 

To catch up on a few highlights of the last few days:  I'm starting to lose track of time as the rally continues to drop down in Africa. 

Ethiopia was fantastic. We lost count of the number of villages and town folk that came out several tiers deep to cheer us through. Also, we could buy beers after the dry countries of Saudi and Sudan. The gravel stages were mostly smooth and winding and we were even able to set a fastest time.

Then into Kenya and Moyale. A bit of a rude awaking. The rally has been having problems lately in locating fuel. Only about 1 in 5 stations in Ethiopia had petrol - diesel was more abundant. Were we were filling up the tank and cans when we could,  but were getting short when we crossed into Kenya at the border and into  Moyale, with the prospect of serious miles the next day on the punishing drive to Marsabit - the so-called 'road to Mars'. 

There followed a rugby scrum at the first station with no pumps and fuel sold in 20 litre plastic cooking oil drums. It was everyman for himself and the price for 20 litres of questionable quality fuel increased steadily in the next hour in a classic exercise of supply and demand economics in action.  It was $60 for the first car, soon $85 and we came in striking a good deal at $110 for 30 litres after telling the guy in the Liverpool shirt that I knew Steven Gerrard. We had a bit of argy-bargy but we got there in the end after driving them down from a pretty optimistic $500. 

I decided to use our fuel filter which will not allow water through. Unsurprisingly, I was just a tad suspicious, despite the assurances from the salesman that his fuel was 'the best in Kenya' and could be used in Formula 1. After filling, a good centimeter of water was left lying in the filter which he tried desperately to make go through the filter; swaying it, jiggling then swirling it to no avail. 'Ah, there is something wrong with your filter, it is for cheap fuel'. 'It seems to have found some' I replied. 

That night our fuel filter found plenty of use as it was passed around until the locals became quite wary of it, looking worried when it appeared. It probably saved quite a few breakdowns. 

The first part of the road to Marsabit was a competitive section. Now, I get upset at the quality of some roads in Guildford where I live, bouncing into the odd ill-repaired pothole is annoying. I will never criticise them again. In fact, I will write on my return to the council saying that compared to the road from Moyale to Marsabit in Kenya, the roads in Guildford are smooth enough for the Queen herself to skateboard on - which I'm told she is partial to in her private moments.  

But I digress. This road is unbelievable. It part boulder size rocks, part ridged sandy surface over sharp rocks, part deep ruts (60cm at least) left by lorries when it rains and just a few washed out gullies for good measure. Cars were ruining dampers from the start. Owen and Matt in the MG destroyed all 4 of their dampers in the first few miles and others were similarly affected. The rally equivalent of ER was busy throughout the day and into the night. The largest mileage of the day was after the competitive section and was even rougher. Mostly impossible to go faster than 20mph without damage to the car and walking pace was required for perhaps 25% of it. And this went on for hour after hour to cover nearly 200 miles. It was soul destroying to feel the car taking so much punishment. 

I'm sure the first stages of our top mount stress started here, as it did with lots of others. 

We arrived in Marsabit after a full day of bouncing around, we were to play happy campers in our first night under canvass. It was very well done with full facilities including a hoisted bucket of hot water for a shower and some excellent food cooked onsite. Everyone slept heavily despite the strange animal noises coming from the nearby woods. The roads in Marsabit are either wet or dry mud and undulate with the weather. The locals learn to live with either ankle deep mud or clouds of dust depending on the season. It must be a tough life when the only roads in or out are almost impossible to drive in an ordinary car. Buses do travel the road loaded to the gills including on the roof. They occasionally came rocking down the road with people hanging on where they could and they weren't stopping or moving aside for anyone.  

The next day it was more of the same with one of the roughest stretches of road out of Marsabit towards Nairobi. More car torture. Some having taken one route round the worst rocks, had to reverse back when facing an impassable gully. Then still more, the worst being the corrugations. The whole car shakes and pieces start falling off and come loose. We tried to gather speed to float over the top but would then be faced with more rocks. Momentum was impossible.  Gradually, the road started to smooth out until, bliss, a nearly new tarmac road courtesy of China. A lot of us could have kissed it. 

After crossing the equator, it was another 100km to Nairobi and the luxury of the Safari Park Hotel. The next day was a rest day (so called) but most worked for many hours on their cars repairing the damage of the last few days. 

We gave our car a thorough going over and service including a bit of welding on the rear left.  We bought our car  accident damaged (hence cheap) and this part of the car required a little extra support. Some very gratefully received help from local rally driver Aakif Varani and his team who offered to help out. This ended up with an ad hoc dinner with the current Kenya rally champion Ravi Chana and his rally-driving brother Jazzy and family while the welding was completed. 

Now, I've made a lot of our Continental Vanco 6 ply van tyres and their benefits and limitations over the last 7000km down through Europe and into the middle east and north east Africa. We had one puncture and they served us well. But, they were starting to show a bit of wear and tear with sidewall cuts here and there. We had an offer from Aakif of some locally sourced gravel  tyres so decided to try them out. As our new rear springs were so problematical, our minds were on other things than tyres though this morning. 

We've sent our van tyres a week on so we can change if we've made a mistake or conditions change so they might yet make a return. Certainly, the  sidewall hardness of our new tyres didn't help with the suspension bottoming out this morning. 

Tonight in Arusha and tomorrow we push further into Tanzania and more gravel sections, hopefully with a more robust rear suspension.