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Bush Note - Customer Care And Cattle Wars

Bush Note - Customer Care And Cattle Wars

Author: Kingsley Holgate
Date: 2016-11-25
The Kingsley Holgate Foundation team as recently returned from A Journey to Chew Bahir Expedition - it's a story best told from the scribbles in Kingsley's expedition journal

Ethiopia is now behind us. What an incredible Humanitarian Land Rover Living Traditions, Land Yachting adventure it's been As per the maps on the bonnets of the Discovery's we're determined to get to Kenya on the western side of Lake Turkana.

We clear Ethiopian customs and immigration at Omarati (they're chilled) But! 'There's no way forward', they say, 'you can't go to Kenya this way'. But we dodge the Chinese trucks and heat. We're not turning back! We've dreamt about this opportunity for years. In the old days there was only a wonky ferry now the approaches to the old Bayley Bridge have finally been made passable by the Chinese. What an opportunity for us. At the actual Ethiopian border, just a line on a map there's a rag military barracks in the middle of nowhere, we're stopped and searched by officious well armed Ethiopian Special Forces (Really now, with tears in my bloodshot eyes, with all the expedition signage on the Landies - Do we really look like Al-Shabaab operatives or fighters from Nearby South Sudan ) Anyway, with our normal show of diplomacy, helped no doubt by all the flags of Mama Afrika down the sides of the Land Rovers, we're through. Wow! The sense of freedom as we follow a line of white-painted markers that indicate the border. Well-armed Dassenech herdsmen protect the livestock herds. 'It's a conflict zone-there are constant livestock wars between the Turkana and Dassenech - it's not safe' says the Kenyans at the Police Post but we talk our way through this unofficial border post and head south through the fine powder dust.

We head south through the fine powder dust

There's a sense of freedom as we follow a line of white-painted markers and reach the Kenyan border

At the Kenyan border they really look after the customers

As per the maps on the bonnets of the Land Rover Discovery's we're determined to get to Kenya on the western side of Lake Turkana.