Exploring Kenya; The Mountain Road Trip.
Kenya is a beautiful country. And the beauty is discovered when one goes out to travel, explore and discover it. So, last week, we decided to go on a road trip to the mountains; central Kenya in other words. A road trip with the boys is an awesome experience because when you get tired, someone else takes over the wheels and the talk never dies. Thus, you can keep going until you finish this country.
Unfortunately, ours wasn’t about traversing the whole country all at once. Nay, this country needs us to work ourselves out to survive. For that reason, we had to sojourn only part of central Kenya.
Our journey kicked off in Nairobi at about 3 p.m. on a Monday. We hit the road rolling along Thika Road. After a short while, we were in Thika town headed to Kenol. The evening had already cooled making the trip nice and fulfilling.
Along the way, we drove past the Delmonte pineapple farms and after some time, we also drove past the Kakuzi farms. At the stops, we enjoyed some ripe sweet pineapples as the radio blasted the evening blues to finish up a tourist aura.
Our next stop was at Makutano junction before we headed to Mwea. In Mwea, the expansive irrigation scheme was being prepared for planting. Seedlings were curated nicely at the edges of the farmlands and given that the day was ending, the town itself was coming to live with the evening rush.
We stopped to sample the Mwea Pishori rice and have a brief interaction with the traders of the rice. With the rising cost of living in Kenya, rice farmers and traders have had to increase their prices as well to cushion themselves against losses.
We left Mwea and proceeded to Embu. Along the road, we could see the green lush of bananas and other foods which reminded us that if anything, we could recharge our energies and continue with our journey if it ever came to mean that we were low on food in its entirety.
We arrived in Embu as the sun was setting. People were leaving the town and headed to their homes albeit without a rush. If you have lived in Nairobi, you understand very well that going home in the evening or even going to work in the mornings is a rush-hour thing.
Along our traverse, most of the towns in the rural areas didn’t have much rush. Live simply goes one. We spent the night in Chogoria, a quiet town on our way to Meru. We had an opportunity to see the Nithi Bridge black spot that unfortunately took away dozens of lives yesterday in a grisly road accident. Our condolences go out to all who lost their loved ones in the accident.
The following day we woke up and proceeded ahead towards Meru. We passed a major banana market that wasn’t yet rolling with traders and customers because it was still in the morning. We continued passing many smaller towns until we arrived in Meru.
With a brief slow drive within the town of Meru, we then sped off towards Nanyuki. We had to slow down and face a few diversions here and there because the road was under construction. Along some stretch of that road, traffic was very minimal which made driving exciting.
In no time we were in Nanyuki town after driving through the expansive Kisima farm (I will cover it in another article) and some dry parts of Meru near the junction that leads to Isiolo. Nanyuki was somewhat hot and the town was abyss with activity.
We then left Nanyuki and went past Kieni, and past Chaka ranch, and proceeded right ahead towards Karatina. Along the road, we had to do some diversions as well because the road was under construction. Leaving Karatina and heading to Makutano Junction, the travel was smooth with light traffic on the roads and villages being quiet as the 4:00 p.m. breeze slowly bade bye to yet another fruitful day.
After a lovely drive across the area, we were back in Makutano junction and headed back to Nairobi. By now, we had driven about 600 km around Mt. Kenya appreciating the beauty of this country. We then set our sights on the next travel. This time, to go and discover what makes the places we visited unique in their own best way.
Kenya is beautiful. But as they say, beauty lies in the beholder’s eye. It doesn’t matter if one was born in the areas we explored, appreciating its beauties means looking beyond the normalcy of our everyday travels and interactions in those areas.
Until next time, keep on travelling.
