The Road to Samburu
So sometime back OneTouch Live went to Samburu, which is north of Nairobi. I have always wanted to go to Samburu ever since my brother told me about it being this magical place.
Samburu is slightly over 300 kilometres away from Nairobi. Archers Post (which you can say is kinda the "last point" of civilization) is the actually town we stopped at, but there has been development along that road which leads to Marsabit then Moyale then into Ethiopia. I had a totally different expectation of Samburu and on arrival and exploring I was truly amazed.
The trip started early, as do all OT Live trips, we had a call time of 5am but we were slighted delayed because one of our members (Paul Obuna) had to back out due to an unforeseen emergency which left Mutua Matheka, Joe Makeni, Sebastian Wazalla & myself to head on in Luanda. I thought we we going to be on some rough terrain for while after passing the Timau area etc. but surprisingly enough all the way to Archers Post and beyond is fully tarmac and such an enjoyable road to drive on.
On departure this mountain was our destination, Mount Ololokwe. This beast of a hill is quite the majestic sight and can be seen even as you begin the decent from Timau into Isiolo, our plan was to spend at least a night on the top of that hill but on arrival in Samburu things changed. It was pretty much a non-stop ride from Nairobi which saw us reach Archers Post in Samburu by around lunch time. We looked for the nearest spot for lunch, and stopped at the first place we saw with a restaurant sign. After lunch we needed to look for our campsite which we had identified on lonely planet though we did not know the exact location. The campsite had an interesting story to it, it was started by a group of ladies who ran away from their homesteads to this community of all ladies due to battering in their homes. The place is called Umoja, so we asked the cashier at the restaurant for directions, little did we know she is the daughter-in-law to the owner/founder of the campsite by virtue of that fact we got a nifty discount. We got to camp set up and went into the village to search for some people in the community to document and we selected a few women to shoot for sunset and sunrise.
After those shots were done it was time to look for a way to Mt. Ololokwe, but we were told it is impossible to make it for sunrise seeing as it requires a 5hr hike so we had to look for a plan B. The beauty about Onetouch Live trips we explore and discover new routes and that is exactly what we did the following morning. We followed a road up a hill and it was dark we were not sure what we would find at the end of the road but this is what we saw ...
After such exploration we obviously had to look for the perfect spot for breakfast which we found :)
With such a view what more can you ask for? After breakfast it was time to head back to Nairobi after a successful mission in Samburu. Stay tuned for the next OneTouchLive adventure.