Every so often you travel to a place where you feel so refreshed you wish you never had to go back to the hustle and bustle of the city, the noise of overpopulated areas. Yet at the same time you are also keenly aware this is not a place you can last longer than a week with your sanity intact, if you are used to noise and modern madness.
That was my experience the first and only time I travelled to Tharaka in 2009. I had heard a lot about the place already, and I had an idea what to expect. For instance I knew that once you exited the smooth and well-paved Meru Road at either Chuka or Nkubu, you braced yourself for the ride of a lifetime, where a distance which should with proper roads take half an hour to cover, now required no less than 3 hours, literally!
I had also been informed that the roads were now being worked on and therefore the journey would be much easier than one or two years earlier, when the ride would have been nothing short of hair-raising.
And so as we exited Meru road at Chuka, I braced myself for the worst, excited and tense at the same time, thrilled and expecting adventure. The first few miles were just fine, the road works had indeed started and loose ballast had been spread onto the road. A good step but itself dangerous as the ballast had not yet firmed up. We couldn’t speed up, but at least the road was good. We were full of praise at the efforts to construct the road.
Eventually though the ballasted area came to an end and we found ourselves negotiating the dusty, rocky, sometimes muddy road the rest of the way. At places the road seemed to vanish and it felt like we were finding our own way through the rough terrain. I discovered sometimes the road went through dry riverbeds and wondered what happened during the rainy season. Well, even here efforts were being made to construct some sort of bridges, but to be honest they were ridiculously low; as in if it rained the bridge-like structure would be fully submerged. (Indeed when my friends later on made a trip to the place during the rainy season they had to alight at these bridges and guide the driver across as the river had fully covered them).
Even being Kenyan and accustomed to bad roads, honestly I never thought the kind of roads I saw in Tharaka existed, except as short inroads to homes and private places. Even the dusty roads upcountry were often smoothed out by tractors and were fairly easy to use except in the rainy season. Furthermore my experience so far had been that dusty roads were no more than a few miles long, 20 minutes ride at most, joining the tarmac roads soon enough to link to other towns and cities in the country. But not so in Tharaka.
The rough road dragged on and on, painful mile after painful mile until, 3 hours later, we arrived at Marimanti. Now Marimanti, I’m told, is the District headquarters of Tharaka; another shocker as, as clean and beautiful as the place was, it’s really small and looks more like some of the shopping centres in my home area. Indeed quite a number of the shopping centres I know are larger than Marimanti, and more populated - much more.
Besides the preoccupation with the ride though, the scenery and the surroundings was amazing and calming to the mind and the senses. Tharaka opens up before you, a virgin, largely undisturbed land, with very few occupants, and you can just feel and smell nature in all its beauty, pristine almost to the point of being sacred. The quietness steals your soul and you fall in love, even though you know the love affair will have to be a long-distance one as only the locals and a very few others can bear the challenges for much longer. As you approach Marimanti you can’t miss the beautiful hills towering before you and getting closer and closer, engulfing the district in an embrace like some kind of natural frontier.
In the dry season, Tharaka looks like some kind of semi-arid area with the beauty associated with such places. However when it rains it’s transformed into a beautifully green agricultural land where grains like sorghum, green grams and millet grow in plenty. Beekeeping is a prime activity here and Tharaka honey is an experience you don’t want to miss.
The highlight of my visit was the delicious goat meat we had at the main restaurant. Suffice it to say meat has never tasted better, owing to the natural vegetation on which the herds and cattle here are reared. We enjoyed amazing hospitality from all the Tharaka people we met on this occasion.
Due to the lack of infrastructure, public transport is limited in Tharaka and as such one has to travel from very early in the morning and catch the bus back by midday from Chuka or Nkubu otherwise you’ve got to wait till the next day. It makes sense given it takes at least 3 hours to make the journey, longer on public vehicles as they have to stop to drop and pick up passengers along the way. Many people have resulted to using bicycles, including school children who sometimes have to travel long distances to school. When it rains certain sections of the roads become impassable and the only solution is for vehicles to wait for these to dry up. It is a real travel nightmare over there, and remember, it used to be worse!
When Tharaka opens up, however, as it is already doing with the construction of Chuka-Marimanti road, this will be the place to be in terms of development and commercial activity. Local tourism has a real chance of exploding here. Property prices will hit the roof, and even the peace and quiet of the place will not be spared as more and more people move into the area.
My journey back was not at all easier. We followed the Nkubu road as we were now headed for Meru town, and the stretch between Marimanti and Nkubu turned out to be even worse than the Chuka one. I kept asking how much longer to Nkubu and getting all sorts of non-consoling responses. Eventually though, now already dark though we had left Marimanti at around 3pm, we saw the delightful lights of Nkubu and the blessed sight of a tarmac road.
I was deeply gratified for two reasons: the horrid journey was behind me, and I had fulfilled the adventure of a lifetime by successfully travelling to Tharaka, a feat not many outside the District can lay claim to.
I would definitely love to go back to Tharaka. However NOT during the rainy season. What I’d love to hear more than anything though, is that the two major roads, from Chuka and Nkubu, are fully tarmacked and enjoining ones at least smoothed out. Tharaka deserves this much after so many years of marginalization. Furthermore this would be for the good of the whole country as we open up more areas full of development capability.
I can hardly wait for this beautiful jewel to rise to her full potential and show the world just what lies beneath that seemingly unattractive ore.
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