On Our Way

When we left off our tour in Marigat, we were just finishing lunch and making our way east. I thought it would be interesting to show you some of the photos I took along the way. The trip took several hours along a very bumpy road. So for much of the time, I didn't even try to take photos as they wouldn't turn out without a steady hand on the camera.

Julius my driver on the far left of the photo. Patrons of the restaurant in the middle and on the right.

A street scene as we drive through Marigat and set out for the village with the new borehole.

One last street scene in Marigat.

We pass by a mosque. Click on the photo to see the bird flying overhead.

We are now on the long road to where we are going.  At this point I have no idea just how long this journey will be.

The "road" in these parts is still reasonable. It will get much bumpier. But I think you can get an idea of how dry and dusty it is here.

Along the way we meet people....

...and lorries.  We are actually still in the city limits if you will.

Soon you can see the change in roads.

The greenery along the road side is due to the Perkerra River which flows there. It isn't very filled with water at the moment.

I love to take photos of the countryside where I can as it is so very different to where I live.

A nice large tree though I'm afraid I do not know what kind.

These cows are crossing the small river.  I was struck on this journey with all the cattle and goats in the area. These people are pastoralists more than farmers.

I thought this bike against the tree made a nice vignette.

Here is the same vignette but a little farther away.

I love this countryside where the land is flat, the acacia trees are forming their lovely branches and there are big bunches of cacti.

We now must cross the river. The driver and the village community leaders who accompany us discuss what to do.

Here they get out and survey the situation.

The river is not too high so we look for the shortest distance across.

And here they go.

I decide to walk across and cool my feet but I keep  my flipflops on.

I snap photos of the mud huts and laundry along the way.

More cattle. These seem to be a special breed as they are all white.

We are very close to our final destination of the borehole.

The journey took about 3 hours on a dusty bumpy road. We had to drive very slowly. This was supposed to be a shortcut but I think it ended up being a long ride because we had to go so slowly. We will return a different way. Stay tuned. Life and travel in Kenya is always interesting!

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A Sweet Tooth

Lately, I've been craving apple pie so I purchased a few small apples last week in anticipation of making it.  Today I noticed the apples were going a bit soft and as I wasn't up to making pie crust, I decided to make some apple crumble instead.

This was my first attempt at making this dish though I have eaten it from time to time. I knew before hand that it is not too difficult to make so I googled a diabetic recipe.  The following recipe came up but somehow I don't think it is that diabetic friendly. I'll have to look for another one but in the meantime, this one will be eaten.  I did reduce the sugar and the oil and increased the oats so that will help a bit.

Recipe from IFood

Ingredients

* 4 large cooking apples

* 4 tbsp olive oil

* Zest and juice of 1 large lemon

* 3/4 cups of sugar (any kind will do). I like brown.

* 2 pinches of ground cinnamon

* 1/2 cup of cold unsalted butter

* 1 cup plain flour (I increased this slightly by about 1/4 cup)

* 5/8 cup sugar (I reduced this to about 1/2 cup)

* 1/8 cup porridge oats (I increased this slightly). 

Directions

1. Peel and core the apples and cut into large chunks.
2. Heat the oil in a saucepan, add the lemon zest and juice, sugar, cinnamon and then add the apples. Cook for 5 mins to soften slightly.
3. Tip into a large baking dish.
4. Place the cold butter and flour into a food processor and pulse until you have a fine breadcrumb consistency.
5. Tip into a bowl and stir through the extra sugar (1/2) carefully. Spoon over the top of the stewed apples and sprinkle over the oats.
6. Bake in the preheated oven for 30-40 mins or until well-browned. Serve your apple crumble plain or with custard or ice cream.  Today we had French vanilla ice cream to go with the crumble.

This dish was delicious and I highly recommend it. It was made special by the addition of the lemon juice and lemon rind which really enhanced the overall flavour of the dish. 

Bon appetit!

Driving to Marigat

I know I've posted some scenes about this drive before but I didn't think it would hurt to post some again as I re-start my travel series about my Kenyan travels.

My travelling companion and I are on our way to a mission station in Marigat, Kenya.  Marigat is a small town about 100 kilometres north of Nakuru.  Actually where we are going is off the highway a few hours east of Marigat.  However,  Marigat is the place that you can find on the map. We are going there because I first travelled there several years ago to see this very arid place and to learn about their need for water. I am travelling now to see the borehole that has been built and to learn about what progress has been made and the still outstanding need for water. I'll write more about that project later. For now I want to show you the countryside.  You can click on the maps and photos to make them larger.

Can you find Marigat? How about Lake Baringo and Bogoria as that is where I am headed after going to the village closer to Marigat.

I love the stretches of countryside. I noticed that the closer we got to Marigat which is a smaller town, the narrower the highways got. I assume this is for a few reasons.  One being that the road is less travelled to these less populous places.  Another possible reason is that the road is not new.  Since my first trip to Kenya several years ago I have noted that the highways are much improved and I'm sure that these improvements will continue.

I'm always struck by how many people are walking in places where it seems like no one lives. I know there are villages and habitations everywhere so I'm assuming that is where these people are headed. Many people in the villages of course cannot afford a car so they must walk or take matatu if they can afford the transport fees. A matatu is a small van which transports you for very little money. Sorry for the blurred photo but we were travelling quite fast.

We had to slow down for this little creature who decided to take a nap in the middle of the highway.

More open highway. I love the blue sky.

This is a typical scene along highways and roadways. You will come across signage pointing the way to schools and churches primarily. You will also come across stalls like these ones with the corrugated metal. There are usually stores in these stall but these ones don't look too busy that day.

Here we are driving through Marigat, Kenya. We will stop for refreshment before carrying on.

We are stopped at a restaurant that I've been to before. We usually have some stew and milk or tea here. People like to sit on this veranda and eat as well as people watch.

This is the view from the veranda/patio of the restaurant. From here you have a good vantage point as to the buses, the shops and the roadside market.

Here along the busy highway the woman sell produce of fruits and veggies. From what I understand, a lot of produce must be transported from elsewhere due to the arid nature of the land. However, there is now a major irrigation project, Perkerra Irrigation scheme.  I'm guessing that more of the produce needed in the area can now be grown. I did see the project as we drove further to the village eastwards.

Another street scene.

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Farewell Kenyan Skies

These were the skies over Kenya as I made my way to Nairobi on my most recent safari to my beloved adopted country.

As you can see, it was a very hazy day on the day I departed.

The countryside around Nakuru has some beautiful country scenes.  I love that the landscape is dotted with red rooftops.

And that cows live and roam freely.

This is a scene from the highway.  You can just make out the mountain tops near Lake Elementeita. You can read more about Lake Elementeita in an earlier blog post here.

My driver, Julius is focussed on the road ahead.  He is perhaps one of the most fastidious drivers I've had in Kenya. The other driver I really like is also named Julius, lol.

There are a lot of lorries in Kenya. You can see them here though this is by no means the most I've seen in any one place.

You can also see fruit stands selling oranges along the roadway.  I didn't stop as we were planning a luncheon stop in Lake Naivasha at the Golf and Country Club (more about that in a future post).

This is the final photo of the day. When I took this near Naivasha I said out loud that this would be my contribution to one of the Skywatch Fridays posts. I thought it was an interesting shot given all the birds and they don't seem to be in any particular formation. I wonder if they saw some food below?

 

I hope you've enjoyed the drive with me. For more Skywatch Friday photos, click here. I think this photo also qualifies for Blue Monday and I will see if I am able to add it later.  Join Smiling Sally and the others here. Please say a prayer for Smiling Sally as she has recently had surgery and endured some complications.

Canada Day & the Maple Leaf Flies Abroad

I started a series on my Kenyan travels several months ago but for various reasons have taken a hiatus.  One of the reasons included having to continue the recovery process of most of the photos I took on my trip.  Recently, I made some time to complete the photo recovery process for the trip I took to Kenya in November/December 2010.  I hope now to re-start my travel series on Kenya.

I thought this particular post was fitting given that it relates to Canada's flag abroad and the fact that Canada just celebrated it's birthday on Canada Day, July 1st. I hope you enjoy it.

One of the delights of travelling in Kenya is crossing the equatorial line.

The latitude of the Equator is 0° (zero degrees). The length of Earth's equator is about 40,030.2 kilometres (24,873.6 mi). To calculate the actual length of the Equator would require taking into consideration that the Equator goes up and down various mountains and hills in South America, in Africa, and on various islands. The Equator is one of the five notable circles of latitude on Earth, with the others being the two Polar Circles and the two Tropical Circles: the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn. The Equator is the only line of latitude which is also a great circle. The imaginary circle obtained when the Earth's equator is projected onto the sky is called the celestial equator.

The sun passes directly over the Equator twice each year, at the March and September equinoxes. At the Equator, the rays of the sun are perpendicular to the surface of the earth on these dates.

Places on the Equator experience the quickest rates of sunrise and sunset in the world. They are also the only places in the world where the sun can go directly from the zenith to the nadir and from the nadir to the zenith.  Such places also have a theoretical constant 12 hours of day and night throughout the year, though in practice there are variations of a few minutes due to the effects of atmospheric refraction and because sunrise and sunset are measured from the time that the edge of the Sun's disk is on the horizon, rather than the center of the disk.  (source: Wikepedia)

A new tourist centre has opened up at the Equator. Jointly sponsored and funded by the Government of Kenya and the European Union it is a wonderful addition to Kenya's growing efforts in supporting tourism in the country.

It is a beautiful site with many flags of various countries flying there in the stiff wind.  There is a stylized metal globe standing next to the flags.

I found the Canadian flag was hanging upside down and I let the tourist official know that.  He was good enough to promptly correct the problem and we shared a laugh about it.

Here is a scene of the premises and the buildings on the site.

 

You can see our van as we were the only tourists stopped there at that moment. The Kenyan flag is waving in the background.

The grounds are quite lovely considering that this is a dry area. These fields lay just beyond the tourist centre.

On the other side of the highway you will see the original site marking the Equator. This is where I stopped several years ago to take photos on my first trip across the Equatorial line.

Here is the tourist official re-hoisting the flag.

While I visited the site the young man called his superior on the cell phone and asked me to speak with him which I promptly did. The boss was very engaging and had no problem speaking to a complete stranger. He asked me if I would be so good as to find a new Canadian flag for their centre as the one they had was getting a little worn. I promised to see what I could do and I haven't forgotten my promise. I need to get on this and see if one of the government offices could send our flag abroad.

Here is a map I found in the centre. I wanted to study it as we were on our way to Lake Baringo and Lake Bogoria.

July 1st, is the national holiday of Canada on which we celebrate the anniversary of the July 1, 1867 anniversary of the enactment of the British North America Act (today called the Constitution Act, 1867).  This year the celebrations were extra special in our nation's capital city, Ottawa.  The reason is  because the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are here on their first royal tour together. I couldn't be there because Ottawa is a 5 hour flight to the east, but I did manage to catch the festivities on television. I also managed to enjoy some of the fireworks in our city. This latter part was a huge and pleasant surprise for me.

Canada Day 2011, fireworks from my patio. I wasn't aware that I could even see the fireworks from my home until after they began. It's too bad I didn't have a proper video camera for taking night shots.

To read earlier installments of my Kenyan travel series you can go to this post where you will find links to most of my Kenyan travel posts. I'd love to hear your thoughts about this series or any of my other posts. It's great to hear from readers!

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