What likely should have been a 4- or 5-hour drive from the Kalama Conservancy in Samburu to Meru National Park took me at least 8. After burying the front end into deep and unwieldy mud somewhere in Meru County, I stopped the clock and lost track. At some point I resurfaced in Kiengu where a helpful fellow fetched a bundle of heavy gauge wire with which I tied parts back together again.
Caked in glorious red laterite clay, I reached the park just before the gates closed, entering from Murera Gate in the park’s northwestern corner. Once inside, I made haste to the Bwatherongi campsite, 22 kms from the entrance, arriving with just over 30 minutes of day light to go. It was new year’s eve, 31 December 2021.
Within the next half hour I would indulge in two of this campsite’s splendors: a hot shower and, to my total delight, a swimming pool, at a public campsite!! Washed, pooled, dried, and clothed, I walked through the tall reeds to a nearby banda where two other campers, a charming couple from Nairobi, had invited me over for a new year’s dinner. A wonderful end to an otherwise grueling day and another unpleasant year of covid. After a couple of hours of camp tales and site swapping, I shuffled back to my tent and called it in.
I’m sure Meru National Park has many brilliances, but whatever they are, I didn’t see them, except for that pool. The park was wet, the grass high, and the ticks intractable. I’d been out for over a week by this time and the drive from Isiolo sucked the life out of me. Maybe I’ll be back to Meru NP someday, and if I am I’ll find that pool again, but I’m not planning on it. Meru was a reminder that the open dry spaces of the Rift valley are king.
Bwatherongi campsite provides spots for tents and has 4 or 5 bandas, which, from the outside, looked decent and a good enough place to set up the wife – who doesn’t do tents – and the boy – who does – to enjoy a few days if a few days is what you’re doing in Meru NP. While the designated camp spots were occupied, the groundskeeper set me up in the yard of a banda.
The next morning I drove west, a slow 2-hour trawl through the park, and saw one giraffe. I finally made it to the Ura Gate where the ranger manning this post behaved like he hadn’t seen another soul in years. I gave him some apples and an orange, and he opened the gate and let me out of the park. The drive to Embu, which took at least 3 hours, was bearable, but road works made for a bumpy, slow, dusty slog.
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