Day 103: Kili Springs to Nairobi

We set our alarm for 06:30 to get an early start on the gruelling road (as described by others) to Nairobi. We left by 07:25. After a few kilometers we saw giraffe next to the road with sheep herders walking behind them.

We reached Emali on the Mombasa-Nairobi highway by 09:00. We tried to look for insurance again, but decided to risk it and drive to Nairobi to sort it out there.

The traffic on the highway was indeed something we have never experienced before.

There is quite a difference between bumper-to-bumper traffic heading into a city at a crawling pace and basically bumper-to-bumper traffic moving at 70kmph with trucks constantly overtaking each other despite oncoming traffic which just needs to give way.

We quickly realised that staying behind a truck is almost more dangerous than just playing the game and taking narrow gaps to overtake despite oncoming traffic.

We safely made it to Jungle Junction by 12:00, much faster than we expected. Some people warned that just getting from Emali to Nairobi could take 4 to 5 hours, perhaps we were just lucky. Jungle Junction is situated in the Karen neighbourhood which boasts plenty of mansions home to a lot of expats. Jungle Junction itself sit on a huge erf, which is mostly empty except for the rows of stored overland vehicles. Everything from Land Rovers and Land Cruisers to MAN Trucks and buses. Camping cost $8, but there isn’t really dedicated camping facilities. You basically park between all the stored vehicles and just camp there. The bathroom is in the main house.

Caro immediately started to study and Hugo made use of the fast internet. During the day we met some of the other overlanders, mostly motorcyclists heading to Ethiopia.

For dinner Caro made a potato bake in the pan. We only went to bed after midnight.