from Ethiopia and Kenya

We made it to Nairobi! Can you believe it? No, we did not take the old Italian road build in the early 1900s for a counter attack on the English and no, we did not visit Lake Turkana and no, we do still not trust our car. Yes, we still take way too heavy passengers and yes, our car still breaks down due to weight and bad roads. And you know what, the roads in northern Kenya are really bad. First attempt to leave Moyale (the border between Ethiopia and Kenya): shock absorber off. Second attempt: 100+ kg primary school teacher loaded. Back springs broken 20km out of Moyale. Third attempt: Dodgy springs fitted leaving 3cm of space between axle and chassis (without 100kg of teacher that was). Can you imagine what that does to your car on a bad road? Yes, it bashes the car into pieces. We just made it to the tarmac, just. With the tarmac we also hit civilisation again and it came so quickly that we were afraid of it and wanted to go back to Ethiopia. Kenya is like Europe and nobody told us. Very strange! We went to a workshop close to Nakuru to get the car fixed. The workshop was recommended by Jarle and the work there was supposed to take 2 days. Jarle always sleeps inside his car while work is being done missing out on certain details and you can guess it, the work did not take 2 days. Instead, it took 1.5 weeks and they messed up the braking system. I know, there is no such thing as a breaking SYSTEM on our car but they still messed it up. So we headed for Nairobi to find a proper workshop which we did. Nice place, Nairobi. Traditionally, in each country we come through we visit nothing but garages and workshops. It’s the main attractions. That’s done now so we can move on to Uganda. In Nairobi we were told about a german couple whose Land Rover broke into 7 pieces or so and they were temporarily driving without oil or water in the engine This made us feel so lucky. What type of car will you buy next?

We are a bit lazy with writing at the moment and therefore hand the job over to James. James got a Cheetah cub from USAid people in Addis to take care of. James is the community manager in Omo national park in Ethiopia and he had to bring the cub down there from Addis in his car.
To make you laugh, here's my account of the drive with the cheetah...
I had a hysterical journey down to the Park smuggling him into hotel rooms, then letting him out for exercise. The cub was amazing. Hardly a whimper during two solid days driving –perhaps just a sign of my considerate driving over incredibly bad roads.

On the first night in a rather smart hotel (there’s nothing between smartish and grotty here), I smuggled in the cub (that had never been in a house before, let alone a hotel) and fed and watered him then spread out a blanket. The cub immediately lay down and started to go to sleep. ‘That was easy, I thought’. At around 3am I was woken by some very loud purring in my ear, some scratchy licking on my neck and the nine month-old cub stretched out on the top sheet alongside me. Memories of nights in Boskop with
Hedgehog the giant Anatolian guard dog asleep alongside me on a single bed…Obviously slipping under a mosquito net is no problem for a cat with a mission… We both fell asleep, but at 5.30am I woke up to find myself lying in soaking wet sheets…. I was rather surprised that cheetahs obviously have no problem in peeing where they sleep. I washed the sheets, scrubbed the mattress, showered and smuggled the cat back out. Since the hotel had no
idea there was a cat in the room, they now will know me as not just the bald, middle-aged Englishman, but the incontinent one as well…
Cub and I spent two days relaxing in Jinka where African Parks has rented a house with a private grassy garden as an office. During the few nights smuggling the cat into the local hotel, the cub duly slipped under the mosquito net each morning, and I only had to wash the sheets once… With some trepidation, it was then time to tackle the last day over even worse roads.
This final leg of the journey is the hardest. After four uncomfortable hours mostly in four wheel (and up one hill literally letting the low ratio grind the car up a steep rocky gully), I unload the car at the Omo River at a Mursi village. The whole village of course were more excited than usual when the ‘forenji’ arrived with a cheetah, but despite the noise, a mass of naked Mursi of all different ages displaying numerous penises, breasts, and lip
plates the cub purred throughout. Even being carried down a slippery slope and perched in the bottom of our tiny motorboat, the cub seemed more interested in licking my hands through the travel cage mesh and watching for hippos.

The final two hour journey I let one of the Park drivers chauffeur us and sat top of the pile of luggage and provisions enjoying the cool of the evening. The cheetah seemed particularly fascinated by the dik dik that dashed across the track in front of us. I rather missed my early morning exfoliation this morning, as the cheetah had its first night in it’s 20metre by 20 metre temporary home in the old wire mesh store shed. (USAID-funded 1hectare enclosure to be built next month). As I sat having breakfast, one of the scouts ran up calling that the cheetah was out. I grabbed some meat and
hurried up to the enclosure. I should have taken my camera. Standing in the middle of a grass savannah was the Park Ethiopian biologist who had gamely come to help, but dared not touch the cheetah that was happily circling him leaping out of the grass trying to catch butterflies. Every evening I take the cheetah ' for a walk', by just letting him out of the enclosure. he just walks along behind me with no rope or lead. Right now, he's asleep outside the office. I can hear him purring as he dreams of chasing dik dik...

Thank you James