Kampala to Nairobi by Road -borders / police / mechanics / hot tea and a very handy twig

“18,000 for a second hand part?? This isn’t even from a Defender or a Discovery it’s from a series ii meaning it’s definitely over 20 years old.”

I had heard one of the mates saying kumi na nne (14) under his breath and I used that to show that they were definitely ripping me off – I had been prepared to pay around 4k I said. This created some disapproving gasps among the spare parts dealers in Nakuru – this mzungu is offensive! 4k for a steering pump.

Look bro, this is genuine. If it doesn’t work bring it back and we will give you another one. I will sell it for 12,000 I’m not going any lower. My mechanic gave a nod that said this is what he would have expected to pay. The sun was dropping on my second day on the road between Kampala and Nairobi. I conceded.

The "miraculously to plan" part

Embarking on a road trip to Uganda with two toddlers in a 1993 Discovery seems a bit brash looking back, but everything went miraculously to plan until the last two days. My journey back, with its wide list of friends and foes, opened up new truths to me about the countries I have called home for seven years.

There were far more friends than foes and despite the challenges this is what warmed me the most.

Chris (just before his third birthday) and I set off at 6am from Kampala, trying to beat the Mukono traffic, which we did. He wide awake struck in the eyes by the sun bursting through Mabira forest in the East. The going was so much better than on the way, maybe because the lorry drivers were all still asleep. As soon as you are past Iganga it is a wonderful open road. I overtook a caravan of South African landrovers creeping at 70km on their journey across the continent – I guess one of them had a bust steering pump – ha!

Well they all overtook me a few minutes later when I was stopped for speeding doing 73km in a 50km zone by a patrol of four policewomen, all aged under 40. Surely, you should get zapped when you have properly entered the 50km zone? The footage shows me driving past the sign at 73km and immediately slowing down – OFFENCE! That will be 200,000 UGX to be paid in court, and there is no way you are leaving the country if you don’t pay. I don’t have that kind of money on me! I already changed all my money into Kenyan Shillings. You live in Kenya? You have married a Kenyan? That is your son? He’s a British or a Kenyan? Haha why didn’t you marry a Ugandan? You made a mistake! Look we won’t charge you this time just give us something for tea.

Friends or foe? Felt like friends by the end.

It was 9 so we dropped in on a typical Ugandan ‘hotel’ in Bugiri for something to eat. There happened to be a group of young boys walking past with juicy fresh watermelon so we stopped them and devoured some of that. The tea was brought out piping hot in those tin/enamel mugs and before I’d had a chance to blurt out a warning, Chris had picked his up and poured it all over his lap. There were real tears, which from Crocodile Chris means it must be serious. He tried telling people the story of the burning tea for days afterwards whenever there was a gap in adult conversations. The staff at the hotel were very sympathetic – the word “bambi” was definitely used.

Reaching the fork in the road where you choose Busia or Malaba border crossing was momentous because it marked the full circle of our Ugandan road trip – on the way in we had gone right towards Malaba/Tororo. We were heading towards Busia in record time, but anyone at this point, surely even the most hardened Somali truck drivers, must start getting butterflies in the stomach when they start wondering what hurdles the border crossing will throw at them. I get it when I’m on my own, but now I had two humans and a vehicle to get across the minefield.

On the way we had used a fixer called Oti. He has sweet eyes and a look of vulnerability which must be perfect for his job, You would never suspect he is pulling the wool over your eyes. But at the border everyone is a foe until proven otherwise. This time Oti told us there was a 1000 ksh charge for removing the car off the list on the Ugandan side – a fee I had never heard of which didn’t make sense to me. But when I eventually gave it to him (how long can you just look at those eyes saying “that seems strange”?) he waved it around and called his friends to help him with the process in a way that made me think ‘if this was a sly expense would he really be waving it around like that…?’. Well I found out later it is a sly expense Oti just doesn’t need to hide it.

The good thing with a fixer like Oti is he literally does everything for you – he even tells you where to park. I don’t know how fixerless people have a single clue where to park. He got everything stamped and picked up my log book which I honestly might have forgotten. But don’t trust a fixer to give you all the right prices - you have to negotiate on everything when it comes to the car. For example, we negotiated our Uganda Car Insurance premium from 12,000 ksh to 6,000 ksh with the insurance rep, even though he had already printed the sticker – how do you negotiate an insurance premium? It’s annoying. I would recommend using Oti rather than anyone else though, because he charges 1000 ksh for his fee rather than rumours of 3000 I have heard. +254721725487 just don’t assume that because I’ve given you his number and he has nice eyes that he is your friend. The difference in your life experience is crossing in under one hour vs taking five hours like a Dutch couple I met in Uganda who said they refused to use fixers – ever. You choose.

At immigration one of the border officials fast tracked our passports past a queue of bus trippers who were causing a fuss.

The rest of the trip to Kisumu was pretty friendly, we even had two police checks with pretty friendly policemen. We were in Kisumu in time for a late lunch with my sister in law and it seemed that the journey was going really well.

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The next morning we set off at 7am. We were accompanied by Chris’ grandmother and were to pick up his great aunt Betty an hour later. Again we were stopped by the cops and this time my mother in law was not wearing her seatbelt so we had a bit more chatting up to do. I think he was entirely confused by the demographic make-up of the car – two middle aged African women and a tiny point 5 boy being driven by a mzungu in a clapped out vehicle. This concerned him far more than the seatbelt. But we got off without a fine, which was friendly of him.

By the time we reached Londiani I was developing fantasies along the lines of “this journey really isn’t too bad, I reckon with a pint of coffee and some good music you could do Kampala-Nairobi in a day.” At Sachangwan it all went downhill. Suddenly the power steering was heavy and fluid was being loudly splattered against the tin of the bonnet. I pulled over immediately, where by chance there was a local petrol station, and a mechanic within waving distance. This village has seen more road deaths than any other in Africa I am sure. In December 2017 over a hundred people died during the month – not in one massive crash but in almost daily deadly crashes. 36 people died on New Year’s Eve alone. It is also the spot where in 2009, 113 people died in an instant when an oil tanker that had gone off-road exploded. I gave a thought to the friends who helped us here and the horrors they must have witnessed over the years. Checking out a broken steering pump must be small fry compared to the emergencies they must all have been called to.

The mechanic was a nice guy, though not a particularly good mechanic. He told me the pipe to the steering pump had a leak and all the power steering fluid had drained. As long as I didn’t mind driving a heavy wheel back to Nairobi I could just press on without power steering. This seemed fine to me as power steering is only important when you are three-point-turning. He also pointed me in the direction of some expertly crafted wicker chairs which we were to strap to our roof – apparently this is the only place in Kenya we could get them, and despite the breakdown I was determined to stick to my promise to Mama Chris of picking them up. Again the wicker chair manufacturers were incredibly friendly. They gave me a discount, took mpesa (without asking for the withdrawal charge as extra– a classic heist) and helped me strap them on the roof before calmly herding me back into the murderous traffic.

The reason Sachangwan to Salgaa is so dangerous is because it is 20km of 30% descent with twists and bends, plied hourly by every truck and vehicle in the country moving west-east across the continent. On the way down it is hard to resist putting your stead in neutral and coasting down, or even switching off the engine. If you have eight tonnes of goods behind you this doesn’t allow for much control when faced by a phalanx of overtaking matatus, subarus and prados. I would learn this later.

Finally we were at Salgaa after edging down the hill at 60kmph. And here the temperature gauge on my dashboard started freaking out. The battery light started flashing and my rev counter collapsed. I later worked out this was because my alternator wasn’t turning, but because my whole dashboard was going nuts I decided the temperature gauge was probably faulty too. But then then some lights came on which I doubt have raised their head since the car came out of the factory in 1993. They seemed to be warning of an apocalyptic nuclear holocaust so I thought it was time to have a look inside.

The fan belt had not been turning for perhaps 15km. We had massively overheated. The pulley on the steering pump had effectively come off and the belt was sitting idle on the fan and the alternator pulleys. We had 6km to go to Nakuru and we had no clue what to do. We called a friend of a friend who had used a mechanic in Nakuru and based on conflicting advice from numerous savants we decided it would be OK to edge on down the hill to the city. But we only made it about 500m before world war three lights came back on. By this time we could see Nakuru and it was downhill all the way so I turned off the engine – we were sitting on a go-cart. I was already used to the steering being heavy but suddenly having very heavy brakes is disconcerting. Luckily the police standing at the gateway into Nakuru didn’t notice that we had no engine running as we rolled past – perhaps they thought we had gone electric.

We rolled into the first petrol station, causing a man in an overall to step out of our way. He was holding a spanner and yes he was a mechanic. Whatever he had planned to do with his Sunday afternoon was immediately abandoned and for the next five hours he would have his head in our bonnet. Great guy – he’s called Malachi and if you are ever stuck in Nakuru give him a call. 0716797101.

We needed a new steering pump and the only place we would get one was the second hand spare parts dealers in the town centre. Much later it turned out  that it didn’t work but it was impossible to diagnose this without trying it as the issue was deep inside the pump. At least the bearings and pulleys were sound so the fan belt would work and the car would not overheat. Malachi worked hard all afternoon, helped occasionally by the security guards at the petrol station who didn’t seem to mind us taking up space on their plot for over five hours.

At 3pm I sent Chris home with his grandmother in a matatu and they were home before we left Nakuru at 6. Such a godsend having those elders with us, with their wisdom and patience. Betty and I finally set off when the sun was on its last legs, feeling trepidation about a drive in the dark.

Just 5km into the trip and the lights came on again. Due to the overheating, the plastic plug on the cooling system – the plug you remove to drain the coolant, had burst off and there was nothing to keep the coolant in. How do you use plastic on a system vulnerable to overheating? The pulleys were also starting to make some serious noises. This was going to be a long journey.

We tried everything to plug the coolant valve, desperate to not have to go back to Nakuru. I wrapped an earplug in gaffatape, but obviously the earplug melted. We tried strapping excessive amount of gaffatape around the valve but this didn’t last long. In the end Betty, who was actually a closet car connoisseur, found a twig on the floor which fitted perfectly in the hole and we rammed it in with a hammer. This worked! Betty was pretty proud of this for the rest of the journey. We had lost all the water we were carrying to the cooling system so we stopped at a few places so that Betty could ask for water. Everywhere we stopped people were willing to give us five litres to send us on our way and asked for nothing in return.

The foes on this leg of the journey were the police. You can imagine that my patience at this point had been thoroughly eroded, and the cardinal sin when dealing with the road cops is to lose your cool. They need to feel that they are the gracious ones giving you a free pass out of the goodness of their very good hearts. But when one of them started telling me my driving licence was frayed and that I had therefore committed an offence I found it impossible to employ the grovelling persona. Luckily he let me go but only after telling me that he was fed up of British people telling him what was right and wrong and that colonialism had ended a long time ago – I needed to wake up and stop being a colonialist. The next one stopped me because the chairs on the roof had been attached in a way that was “hazardous and a threat to human life”. FFS just let us get home.

The pulley friction was getting louder and louder, but if I kept at low revs and cruised on the down hills, the car felt like a wounded horse with an arrow in its rump - it would get you to your destination but probably die later of gangrene. I didn’t mind when it died as long as we got home, which we finally did at 10pm, 15 hours after leaving Kisumu.

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I only managed to take one picture during this journey and here it is. That's Malachi and Aunty Betty and you can just about make out the "hazardous" chairs on the roof. 

A few days later in Nairobi I bought a new steering pump and sent the old one back to Nakuru for Malachi to fix. He claims he has done so and I have it back now, so if anyone needs a second hand steering pump for TDI 300 I have one, going for just 12,000 ksh.