Next day up with the dawn. Jimbob wasn’t eaten by hyenas much to his relief and our chagrin so we all slowly emerged from our tents to make various hot caffeinated drinks, and later, trips to the loo. The tents were put away by the time the sun got too high and we bid the rest of the campers (there were no fewer than 6 groups!) a hearty BRAAAAAAPY farewell as we pissed off over the other side of the crater rim.
Above: Morning at Suswa. Every single time it’s fantastic.
Above: Panic again posing at the rim… what’s with this guy’s trousers? Fashion icon, our Panic.
The track would be some of the old mixed with a bit of the new. Since I found a way to cut off the rather tedious Mosiro part of the trip to Nguruman last year, I’ve been searching for more tracks. Just before this one, I sniffed out the potential for one to go directly to the top of Little Lake Magadi and had to give it a go. So, we took off in search of it.
Above: Both of the above muppets nearly launched into the riverbed by mistake… alas
Above: Panic in the riverbeds.
Above: Jimbob coming along through the dust
Above: Both of them making dust
Above: I firmly believe that the universe was created by a giant blue gorilla on a BRP blasting through stardust and sending it out over the vast expanse of nothingness. Here, Panic does a recreation. In fact, I’m considering starting a cult, er, religion about it… We shall shun heavy luggage, making concessions of course where needed to accommodate the vagaries of the weather and the distances from civilization found in Kenya… we are XRR zealots - we worship no other bike, and while we hold council against the wheels of bikes around camp fires, Black Label shall be our rotgut, er, elixr of choice and is considered sacred by the adherents . I’d like my tax-free status please. Amen. Don’t forget to tip your waitresses.
Above: Panic on the dusty doubletracks having a gander at a stately Secretary Bird in the long grass.
Above: Behold, a sign from above! We must be on the right track.
In fact, we were not on the right track. I took us on a short boondoggle in search of the new way to Little Lake Magadi, but was turned back by a convincing boda rider. Now, my time in Tanzania would have told me to ignore him completely and try our luck anyway, but here in Kenya they seem to be more knowledgeable about, well, just about everything, so I relented and went back. Turned out to be a great compromise… a bit of the track I found previously and with a bit of effort, I found the track was looking for. It started at some odd earthworks the Tata company must have erected in an effort to force the water from heavy downpours somewhere it doesn’t naturally want to go… (dickheads…) but we jumped their dyke and found a track that was fantastic.
Above: Back on last year’s find
Above: Having deviated, we were now on the hunt for the new track
Above: The going was rocky in spots, but that’s no surprise in the Rift Valley. Rocks and sand, if you don’t like ‘em, stay out of my valley!
Above: It was a mix of all kinds of odd stuff, from riverbeds to tree tunnels. In the lead I chased a mixed herd of giraffe, eland and zebra a bit before backing off to give them a chance to make a plan. Thumbless, quadrupedal muppets… wildlife is so duuuumb!
Above: We’d been riding parallel to what I assume is Little Lake Magadi’s natural inlet (the one Tata seems to want to drain elsewhere… dickheads…) so I lumbered over some stones to have a peek. A deep canyon sliced through the red clay and in the bottom of it downstream some Masai had dug small waterholes to water their cattle with. Surprise, fellas, this river’s gonna be dry from now on! But I guess the shipping container school block we saw with Tata written all over it will make up for it… (dickheads…)
Above: Pigs at the canyon’s edge
We grunted along on the boda boda paths. The guys had moved bowling-ball sized rocks out of the way for their path, but it had some kind of built-in speed limit of about 40kph… it’s like following a cattle path, you have to go the speed of the cattle to make the turns. We went through the stones and through the riverbeds and under the trees until behold! Little Lake Magadi appeared in the distance. Not a minute too soon… it was hot and we were due for a bite and a rest in the shade.
Above: Panic down the stony track
Above: Jimbob flicks a booger with his thumb… or maybe he’s saying he’d like to carry more weight on his back? Instructions unclear.
Above: Me zipping up the trail… Jimbob, like a Kenyan version of Atlas teetering astride a 350 KTM, holds the Earth on his back… but not even a single pat of butter. I say… rather disappointing, old chap! Rather disappointing indeed!
At last we spotted the lake in the distance and our bundu-bashing track linked up with something Panic and I had done earlier. Nothing for it but to open the throttles and aim for a shade-tree for a rest and to enjoy the view. While rocky, it was a bigger track, so quicker and driftier than hit had been for the past sweaty hour.
Above: Me, vindicated, with the mirror surface of Little Lake Magadi in the distance
Above: A nice lunch spot with a view
After a half hour of nibbling on mixed nuts turned into cashew-and-macadamia-butter (a delicious combo, by the way, for any entrepreneurs out there looking to cash(ew) in… ta-dum-CHING!) we kitted up again for the last quick rip out of there. Jimbob hefted his rucksack and the Earth’s centre of gravity shifted slightly, almost knocking the bikes off their side-stands. Panic and I started the XRRs and the shaking sent waves across the lake. We are a subtle bunch, and soft-headed.
Above: Panic descending. Plan was to check out the lake from that little cliff top dead centre (kick-start only folks know where that is… Beemer guys, not so much… Katoomers will know, even though they have an e-start, cause it won’t be working by this point in the ride…)
Above: A crusty, helmeted shot above a lake that a year ago, none of us had even tried to visit
Above: Confusing perspective… am I levitating a land mass somehow?
Above: On the other side of the ridge we were riding is the salt/mud pan that heads to the larger Lake Magadi proper. I keep saying I’d love to rip around down there, but even from on high it is clear that place would be a death trap… rivulets of standing water not far down the way tell you everything you need to know: it’s the kind of place dinosaurs would have gone to become fossils if you catch my drift.
Our post-prandial throttle joints were in the mood for more kerplaaaping, so we ripped on past the lake and aimed for Ngurumani for petrol and a beer. Unfortunately for me, I let my guard down and got stung for it. Glancing at my GPS with the visor up, I failed to notice I was approaching a tree at sub-orbital speeds and didn’t have the reflexes to duck the wait-a-bit bush dangling a ripping tentacle across the trail, catching my proboscis with a trident of hellish thorniness and jerking my neck sideways as I let out a “owshitforfucksakedammit!’ or some such similar ejaculation while blood immediately dribbled down my highway patrolman’s moustache onto my now pouting lower lip. Fekking things are lethal! Had to beg a bit of bog roll off the Panic to daub my throbbing schnoot dry before setting off again apace. The big road from Magadi to Ngurumani is a ripaaaa, feshy as you like with some stones for the lads and we made decent time up to the village for our barely-afternoon beers.
Above: It says it all… my schnooot was kapooot!
Above: The long straight(ish) blast to Ngurumani and the Sky-Breeze Bar/Deep C Pub in Ngurumani where we paused to quench our parched palates
Above: They even had beans and chapati! I can see Jimbob is okay with that… never clear what Panic thinks apart from: Die! Die! Die!, Burn! Burn! Burn! Wacken!
After our second lunch, we had turned enough, planetarily speaking, to merit arrival at the riverside camp. If you go too early, you toast in the sun on the sand bank, but at this time, it was just right to organize things, divest from our fancy dress and hit the cool waters of the Ewaso Nyiro river. So, with little ceremony (and no muppetry like when Rawlance of a Labia tried to ride across the river, unexpectedly and unnecessarily a few years back… still by far the [youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zs23vffPZVg]
most popular of my highly unpopular YouTube vids[/youtube]) we kicked off our boots, hit the water and heaved a collective aaaaaaahhhhh as the cool, muddy water flowed around and the freaky catfish nibbled our toes.
Above: arrival at camp
Above: The two wazee, nutz-deep in the muddy river, jumping and squealing like citified sissies periodically from the catfish and startling the locals and the wildlife alike with their outrageous swimwear… I mean honestly, those colours don’t belong in a modern art museum, let alone upon the person of a human being! My eyes! My eyes!... and then there’s me… Made in Gord’s image, just like our middle-eastern Jesus or one of those wankers who stormed the Capitol on Jan 6th… white as the driven snow… pure as Colombia’s finest… comments about me being so white as to be glow-in-the-dark, a solution to global warming, an armpit with teeth, etc aw shaddup! We were the freaking UN of riding, a veritable colour wheel of bikers! And, but, yet, let’s be clear, I’m all for diversity, but this KTM shit’s gotta go… Jimbob, convert now to the ways of the Piggy, or there may be consequences!
Above: Clearly a specimen of perfection, yours truly doing the BRP dance of joy in his culturally appropriated lower-extremity cover
Above: A lone Masaai kid wondering, like, literally WTF yo, LOL, LMFAO… I’m totally putting this on TikTok, look at those knob ends!
Around the campfire, it was meagre rations compared to the night before and rides past. Our British military Rat Packs had run out or expired beyond what we’re comfortable with (4 years is kind of our limit) so we were slumming it with ramen noodles and cans of beans and tuna, FFS. But, BUT, we had snagged a couple of Tusker Ciders from the bar in Nguruman and we did have our Black, so about the time the KTM fanboy passed out, cashed in his chips, called for a taxi, hit the hay, Panic and I were riding the wave, laughing again over old stories and howling at the moon. All as it should be.
Above: Darkness at the campsite, 3 bike/chairs arranged in the sand around a fire.
To be continued...
Topic: 2021 - Big Red Pigs in Kenya - Season 6 (Read 1822 times)
