roads kenya tanzania

Hi, is someone out there with fairly recent experience concerning
these roads in

kenya: nairobi - narok - massai mara. years ago the road was fairly
good up to narok, then abysmal down to the mara. is that still the
case? is about six hours a realistic estimate for the trip nairobi -
maasai mara?

tanzania: how good or bad is the road nairobi - namanga - arusha
(north and south of mt meru) - moshi down to same? is nairobi to same
(mkomazi game reserve) driveable in one day?

any experience with border crossing namanga with kenya registered 4x4?

Thanks for all helpful hints, Dieter

(Dieter) wrote:

Hi, is someone out there with fairly recent experience concerning
these roads in

kenya: nairobi - narok - massai mara. years ago the road was fairly
good up to narok, then abysmal down to the mara. is that still the
case? is about six hours a realistic estimate for the trip nairobi -
maasai mara?

Dieter,

they worked on the road around Narok last year and filled the
potholes, so that part is now better.

I know the road, but I've never tried to race it, so I can't
tell how fast you could go if you wanted to. I usually plan some
8 hours for the drive, with a small lunch break in Narok and
game drive speed inside Maasai Mara. But I like to drive slowly,
look at things, stop for photos along the way, etc. And I mostly
use small, low-powered, slow jeeps like the Suzuki Sierra or the
Suzuki Maruti Gypsy.

I have GPS track records, but I'm not sure if they would help
you much. They do show where I drove very slowly though. You'd
need suitable software to visualize them.

Has anybody recently gone there in a tourist minibus? They
usually drive as fast as they can.

tanzania: how good or bad is the road nairobi - namanga

That part is very fast. Quite good paved road. I think you can
drive up to 80 km/h after turning off the Mombasa road at Athi
River, so you could reach an average speed of roughly around 50
km/h from Nairobi to Namanga, perhaps even 60.

I don't know the Tanzanian side though. And, of course, a speed
like 80 km/h is always somewhat dangerous because animals may
walk or run onto the road from the bushes.

Hans-Georg

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Thanks, Hans-Georg. this is very helpful stuff. i don't want to rush
anything when going there, just wanted to know whether it is feasible
if you go about it reasonably. There is so much old horror stuff on
the internet about impossibilities of driving into the mara or
spending two days on the mombasa road (which might well have been very
correct at a certain time!) that i wanted to update now.
(un-?)fortunately, things change fast in africa.

will probably go in september and tend to hire with rasul's which you
recommend on your fabulous homepage (btw: congratulations, the very
best i found - and i looked at many). still unsure about the camp. i
read your stuff about fig tree camp, which seems to be nice. much
tempted to go there since i only know mara buffalo (before asc took
over that place) and kichwa tembo. on the other hand: this will be the
first safari for my wife and i am not sure whether we should indulge
in something even more posh. but apart from skyrocketing prices: i
very well know that a night under much much simpler circumstances can
be much more exciting and more memorable than all the luxury stuff.

cheers, dieter

Hans-Georg Michna wrote in message . ..
(Dieter) wrote:

Hi, is someone out there with fairly recent experience concerning
these roads in

kenya: nairobi - narok - massai mara. years ago the road was fairly
good up to narok, then abysmal down to the mara. is that still the
case? is about six hours a realistic estimate for the trip nairobi -
maasai mara?

Dieter,

they worked on the road around Narok last year and filled the
potholes, so that part is now better.

I know the road, but I've never tried to race it, so I can't
tell how fast you could go if you wanted to. I usually plan some
8 hours for the drive, with a small lunch break in Narok and
game drive speed inside Maasai Mara. But I like to drive slowly,
look at things, stop for photos along the way, etc. And I mostly
use small, low-powered, slow jeeps like the Suzuki Sierra or the
Suzuki Maruti Gypsy.

I have GPS track records, but I'm not sure if they would help
you much. They do show where I drove very slowly though. You'd
need suitable software to visualize them.

Has anybody recently gone there in a tourist minibus? They
usually drive as fast as they can.

tanzania: how good or bad is the road nairobi - namanga

That part is very fast. Quite good paved road. I think you can
drive up to 80 km/h after turning off the Mombasa road at Athi
River, so you could reach an average speed of roughly around 50
km/h from Nairobi to Namanga, perhaps even 60.

I don't know the Tanzanian side though. And, of course, a speed
like 80 km/h is always somewhat dangerous because animals may
walk or run onto the road from the bushes.

Hans-Georg

(Dieter) wrote:

Thanks, Hans-Georg. this is very helpful stuff. i don't want to rush
anything when going there, just wanted to know whether it is feasible
if you go about it reasonably. There is so much old horror stuff on
the internet about impossibilities of driving into the mara or
spending two days on the mombasa road (which might well have been very
correct at a certain time!) that i wanted to update now.
(un-?)fortunately, things change fast in africa.

will probably go in september and tend to hire with rasul's which you
recommend on your fabulous homepage (btw: congratulations, the very
best i found - and i looked at many). still unsure about the camp. i
read your stuff about fig tree camp, which seems to be nice. much
tempted to go there since i only know mara buffalo (before asc took
over that place) and kichwa tembo. on the other hand: this will be the
first safari for my wife and i am not sure whether we should indulge
in something even more posh. but apart from skyrocketing prices: i
very well know that a night under much much simpler circumstances can
be much more exciting and more memorable than all the luxury stuff.

Dieter,

I have stopped booking the lodges. There are several in the
area, September is not see the heaviest tourism, so if you drive
off early from Nairobi, you can reach Fig Tree in the afternoon.
If they are full, you can continue to Mara Intrepids or even to
Kichwa Tembo, or you can go back to Mara Simba, Keekorok (not a
bad choice, actually, I like their catwalk), or Mara Sarova, all
nice lodges, all in the near vicinity (less than 20 km straight
line) and still not too expensive. You could even reach Mara
Serena in the same afternoon if you wanted.

So there is no need to book a logde. You run a tiny risk of
having to spend a night inconveniently in the car or, if you
bring a tent, on one of the public camp sites, but that risk is
truly minute, in my experience. I can't remember such a case.
But even if it happens, you run no serious risk, only
inconvenience (and a little bit of adventure).

If you want to do this, you can go to Fig Tree, spend a night,
and see if you like it. If not, move out the next morning and go
elsewhere. Have a long game drive and look at one, two, three
other lodges along the way.

The same situation occurs again in Samburu, where you have at
least four similarly priced lodges in close vicinity (Samburu
Game Lodge, Larsen's Camp, Samburu Serena Lodge, Samburu
Intrepids), and there are also camp sites, so again there is
hardly any need to book in advance. Same in Amboseli, in Meru,
Tsavo West.

I would book in advance only if I had a large group of people
wanting to stick together, and perhaps not even then. I do have
some food (like cookies and tins with baked beans :-) and enough
to drink in the jeep, so I can easily survive a day or two
without undue thirst or hunger.

The only really important things to have, besides food and
water, are a mobile phone (particularly if you drive on your own
in just one jeep, not in a convoy, ideally a satellite phone
like Thuraya or the more expensive Iridium) and the GPS with a
good waypoint collection loaded, so you can always quickly find
your way to those lodges. I guess you've seen
http://www.michna.com/gps.htm already.

Hans-Georg

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