Moyale - Hitchhiking the Deserts of Ethiopia & Kenya

Traveling a top of a truck from Moyale to Marsabit wasn’t a journey I was looking forward to.

Why?

Well, the first time it was an adventure back in 1994.

But now in 2013, it seems a needless task.

Villages near the Ethiopian border of Moyale in Northern Kenya; many abandoned.

NO Choice on Border Crossings Between Ethiopia and Kenya

Repeating this route – there’s no choice because of the lack of other viable border crossings – traveling across remote northern Kenya, from the Ethiopian border at Moyale to Marsabit and onto Isiolo, was a rough journey of 500+ km that I knew, would not be easy or fast.

The most blissful part of the day … MP3 player in ear; sitting on a truck, dust blowing a storm behind, hot-ish but cooled by the breeze of movement, under big skies …

Back then in 1994, I recall it being hot, dusty.

Riding for days on top of bouncing cargo trucks; the only public transport between Moyale to Marsabit.

Stopped for lunch at one of the few settlements along the route to Marsabit in North Kenya.

Travel Safety

On the Moyale to Marsabit route, there’s the threat of ‘Shiftas‘ – Somali bandits attacking vehicles.

But the same journey (going north to south; last time it was the opposite direction) in 2013 is not as arduous or as dangerous as before.

Although on the bus from Marsabit to Isiolo there were several escort soldiers as tribal warfare in the north was threatening this route.

Women with caravans of donkeys going to collect water from a pump station in the Northern Kenya desert. on the Moyale to Marsabit route

Now, it’s just one day to Marsabit – by truck is the most likely transport, but a daily battered-bus also crashes along the still rutted dirt track.

Samburu woman on route to Isiolo. RIGHT: pics from the journey in 1994. Riding on a truck, hiking amid the highlands of Marsabit (when there was rain, but now, a drought for some years has turned the area brown).

I arrived too late to get the bus to Marsabit.

And so by 9 AM, I was again on top of a truck for the journey.

Chinese road construction teams will eventually seal the entire route – but at the moment they have completed only tiny sections. Meantime, we drive alongside the recently graded gravel section.

Now the Chinese have resurfaced about half the distance, so these days a few buses service the route.

camels on route moyale-marsabit-kenya — Camels across road – towards the distant highlands of Marsabit in northern Kenya.

In 1994, it was a crazy adventure riding trucks from Isiolo to Moyale last time.

But this trip was without drama and straight-forward, if still long and uncomfortable.

Approaching the highlands of Marsabit – but we wouldn’t arrive until well after nightfall.

Travel Advice – Moyale to Marsabit

While things have changed since my journeys of 1994 & 2013, some probably have not.

If you want to leave early – the best option, as it will be a long journey – stay at a hotel on the Kenyan side of Moyale overnight. I stayed in Ethiopian Moyale and by the time you walk to the border, get a Kenya visa-on-arrival (for most nationalities @ $50) early buses have departed. (But there could be overnight buses by now?)