The Road to Malindi

Hey guys, hope you had a great start to the week? Towards the end of last year we got to together with some friends and decided to head down to the coast for some holiday time. This trip was exploration of the Kenyan coast mainly in Malindi, we chose not to go to Diani seeing as we were there the year before.

Below are some images of the sights in Malindi, hope you enjoy 😊!

A Mile for Hope

Hello people's,

I thought I would share something small from a project I did some months back. There is this group of cyclists called the Extra Milers, they run an annual event dubbed Miles & Hope. What they do is cycle (I think that's pretty obvious) but for a cause. They raise money for Orphaned and Vulnerable children and I followed them on a tour they did to Nyahururu that they conveniently called 'Tour de Nyahururu'. This was an over 400km journey to be covered over 3 days and boy was I excited to document this trip.

This had 3 stops for the night, the first being Naivasha, 2nd Nyahururu and the last being Limuru on the way back to Nairobi. I never knew what kind of passion and resilience it took to ride these bikes over that number of kilometres but I saw great passion and endurance for each and every member of that team, these guys had a resilience I had never seen before in my life and this just went down to note that this is something I don't think I can hack.

From riding in the rain and fog to climbing up steep hills, pushing each other along the way, and we Nairobians know how our road users have little to no regard for cyclists ... This was quite the sight to behold.

“The bicycle is a curious vehicle. Its passenger is its engine.”

— John Howard

This trip was an exciting and an embedded memory in my mind for me. Below is a short clip of a what this whole project is about and the impact that my friend John Wachira from Flow Images and I put together.

Thank you for taking time to read, hope you enjoyed the post. Feel free to like, comment and share!

The Road to Amboseli

Amboseli is one of those parks I have visited severally and I absolutely love it. Why you may ask? Mainly because it is the home of elephants, I believe just one of the most beautiful creatures to observe and photograph. The first time I went to Amboseli was 2013, its was such an epic short journey I had to make my way there again. After several solo trips it was time for an OnetouchLive trip to Amboseli, and this one was special because it was gonna be a long one, about 3 nights in the park ... I was really exited for this.

 

Heading to Amboseli head west on Mombasa Road/A109 till you get to Emali, thereafter you take a left onto the C102 all the way to Kimana (roughly 86 kms), just slightly after Kimana town you take a right onto the C103 which shall lead you directly to the gate.

This trip proved quite eventful and the longest 255 km trip I have ever made in my life. On departure, just slightly past Sultan Hamud, Lisa (pictured on the left), burst a pipe and spewed all the engine oil. In such moments is when you realize getting help out there is quite the challenge ... we had to look for a place that sells oil and purchase at the same time we got some road side mechanics who quickly came to the rescue and fixed the pipe, due to pressure it was unstable so they provided a fix for us.

We went on ahead and stopped in Emali to confirm all is well with the car and also check why it was losing power, by this time it was already past 6pm and we hadn't even turned off the main highway (A109).

Luanda at camp

From Emali to Kimana the ride was smooth we made good time but just after Kimana, as you turn off to the C103 the road is a marram road that is quite rough. By this time it was already too late to make it to the park gate so we had to call ahead and said we are on our way because our campsite was in the park. On that marram road, Lisa just went off and lost all momentum and couldn't move we we baffled and wondered what to do. only option in the middle of nowhere was to tow the vehicle all the way to the gate which was a really rough road of about 15 kms. We arrived at the campsite around 11pm after a really long treacherous ride but the plan was to get the park mechanic to come look at the car in the morning and we called it a night, to prepare to head out early morning for a game drive.

The morning was magical, the elephants came out to play and we enjoyed the shoot, due to Lisa being down we squeezed 7 people in one car to shoot the morning game drive. 

Mt. Kilimanjaro

After that game drive, we had to call in a mechanic who came to check on Lisa, We eventually had to call for a back up car now that Lisa was unrepairable after the mechanics diagnosis. This meant that Lisa had to be towed back to Kimana to a garage there until further notice. Despite the car trouble, we had to continue shooting and having fun in this awesome park.

There was this morning we stumbled upon lions (which are a rare sight to behold in Amboseli), these young males casually strolling in the park very playful gave us some nice entertainment.

Out here its a matter of anything for the shot

I hope you enjoyed the blog, feel free to like, comment and share! Amboseli was good to me, join me next time as I tell of my next adventure.

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.