Whatshot
Adventures - Extreme East 5: Feast or famine
Adventures - Extreme East 5: Feast or famine
Author: Kingsley Holgate
Date: 2018-08-17
Date: 2018-08-17
A baby elephant is washed down the Ewaso Nyiro River; it eventually manages to clamber to safety to be reunited with its mum, who'd followed it downstream. The team spends three tough days battling mud and more mud, digging, winching, pushing, fording fast-flowing rivers, sleeping in the rain and eating soggy sandwiches. Through it all, the new Landy Discoveries perform magnificently.
The following morning, still covered head-to-toe in mud, the Man Cave TV crew head back to fly out from Nairobi - they've had a grand adventure. The rest of us head north, through the heat of the Dida Galgalu Desert of northern Kenya - direction, Ethiopia. Our continent really is one of 'feast or famine' and after the terrible drought, now it's the flooding that is wreaking havoc. We stop to chat to a forlorn shepherd who's just lost more than 30 sheep - their corpses still scattered in the flattened grass where, during the night, a wall of roaring, brown water had drowned them all.
Our convoy of Landies enter Marsabit National Park, via its historic Ahmed Gate - named as a tribute to Ahmed of Marsabit, one of the most famous elephants to ever have roamed Africa. Born in the beautiful, surrounding forests in 1919, he became a truly unique giant, justifiably known as 'the King of Marsabit'. In 1970, to keep him safe from poachers, the former President of Kenya, Jomo Kenyatta, placed the big tusker under his protection by Presidential Decree, and Ahmed was protected 24/7 by heavily-armed rangers. In 1974, Ahmed was found dead, resting majestically on his massive tusks, half-leaning against a tree. He was 55-years-old. Today, one can see Ahmed of Marsabit as a mounted exhibit in front of the National Museum in Nairobi.
We camp on the grassy banks of a crater lake - it's a paradise; scores of buffalo graze close by and three hyenas skulk on the other side of the lake. Shova Mike heaves out a bottle of local, rot-gut rum he'd bought in Marsabit town, with a label that reads, 'Not to be sold outside Kenya'. Ross laughs, "they obviously don't want to kill any of their neighbours!"
That night, the hyenas raid our camp and make off with bits and pieces, including a dirty cooking pot that we find chomped nearby and pair of cyclist's underpants, which they probably choked on. Will keep you posted.
