Friday 26th January
Just before 6am there was complete silence; that's very rare. We paid and took some photos with Advesta. She wanted photos of herself inside the truck. Then we left for the nearby border at Tarakea/Oloitokitok. On the TZ side immigration went smoothly. The carnet and road tax took a bit longer. First we took the carnet to customs and got a slip for our outstanding road tax. Then we had to drive back into Tarakea to the bank to make the payment, get a receipt and return to the customs office. They had stamped the carnet while we were at the bank and we were through. On the Kenyan side, we had our reference numbers from our online visa applications handy, plus the receipts on Ian's phone. The immigration officer sent us to a tiny cyber "cafe". The connection was very slow but he was eventually able to print our receipts for our visas, which we took back to immigration. Our passports were stamped and we were exhorted not to lose the printouts or we could have to pay for our visas again. Customs was a bit of a struggle, as there were very new rules in place. Initially they wanted to give us only 10 days road permit, to be renewed in Nairobi. However once they had seen the truck, they decided to give us 30 days, as it resembles a commercial vehicle. This has huge implications for anyone wanting to make a longer trip in Kenya with a foreign registered vehicle. However, there were white-fronted bee-eaters on the power lines at the border post, which I took to be a good omen.
In Oloitokitok we found that we could not buy a SIM card without Kenyan ID, but we did manage to fill with fuel, withdraw cash from an ATM and buy a few bits from the very tiny Target Supermarket, including some Oatibix porridge oats! Off we went to Kimana Tented Camp outside Amboseli National Park, stopping for lunch beside the road on the way. Once we got onto the gravel road it became difficult due to the fairly bad corrugations. Also they were part-way through installing culverts for rainwater so there were a number of diversions through sandy but strangely bumpy bits. The 20km took us an hour. But at last we started to see wildlife: zebra, wildebeeste, Grant's and Thompson's gazelles, baboon, warthog and two elephants that were quite close to the camp.
We've stayed at Kimana a few times. It's currently a bit of a mess where they are doing some construction work, with various extra people hanging about. Therefore the feel was a bit less relaxed but David was there to greet us and make sure that we were OK. We took a little birding-walk around the site and were able to see the two elephants, one of them with fabulous long tusks. Later on, after dooming the truck (i.e. spraying for mosquitos), we sat out for a while enjoying the bats and the oddly bright clouds in the night sky.
Just before 6am there was complete silence; that's very rare. We paid and took some photos with Advesta. She wanted photos of herself inside the truck. Then we left for the nearby border at Tarakea/Oloitokitok. On the TZ side immigration went smoothly. The carnet and road tax took a bit longer. First we took the carnet to customs and got a slip for our outstanding road tax. Then we had to drive back into Tarakea to the bank to make the payment, get a receipt and return to the customs office. They had stamped the carnet while we were at the bank and we were through. On the Kenyan side, we had our reference numbers from our online visa applications handy, plus the receipts on Ian's phone. The immigration officer sent us to a tiny cyber "cafe". The connection was very slow but he was eventually able to print our receipts for our visas, which we took back to immigration. Our passports were stamped and we were exhorted not to lose the printouts or we could have to pay for our visas again. Customs was a bit of a struggle, as there were very new rules in place. Initially they wanted to give us only 10 days road permit, to be renewed in Nairobi. However once they had seen the truck, they decided to give us 30 days, as it resembles a commercial vehicle. This has huge implications for anyone wanting to make a longer trip in Kenya with a foreign registered vehicle. However, there were white-fronted bee-eaters on the power lines at the border post, which I took to be a good omen.
In Oloitokitok we found that we could not buy a SIM card without Kenyan ID, but we did manage to fill with fuel, withdraw cash from an ATM and buy a few bits from the very tiny Target Supermarket, including some Oatibix porridge oats! Off we went to Kimana Tented Camp outside Amboseli National Park, stopping for lunch beside the road on the way. Once we got onto the gravel road it became difficult due to the fairly bad corrugations. Also they were part-way through installing culverts for rainwater so there were a number of diversions through sandy but strangely bumpy bits. The 20km took us an hour. But at last we started to see wildlife: zebra, wildebeeste, Grant's and Thompson's gazelles, baboon, warthog and two elephants that were quite close to the camp.
We've stayed at Kimana a few times. It's currently a bit of a mess where they are doing some construction work, with various extra people hanging about. Therefore the feel was a bit less relaxed but David was there to greet us and make sure that we were OK. We took a little birding-walk around the site and were able to see the two elephants, one of them with fabulous long tusks. Later on, after dooming the truck (i.e. spraying for mosquitos), we sat out for a while enjoying the bats and the oddly bright clouds in the night sky.