Marsabit travel guide

Rising to 1000 m above the surrounding plains, Marsabit is permanently green. The hills around the town are thickly forested making a nice change to the desert that surrounds the area. Marsabit is in Kenya’s Eastern Province 560 km north of Nairobi and 280 km from Isiolo. This is also the administrative capital of the district and a major trading centre. There are three petrol stations and a branch of Kenya Commercial Bank, but don’t rely on it being open as it sometimes it runs out of cash given the difficult journey up here. There are three streets in Marsabit, with low slung concrete buildings painted in vivid green or blue or dirty white, and one general store selling all manner of oddments from car spare parts to cables, pipes, flour and sugar. There are a number of mechanics in town (for very good reason); just ask around. The main inhabitants of the town are the Rendille, who dress in elaborate beaded necklaces and sport wonderful hairstyles. They are nomadic people keeping to their traditional customs and only visiting the town to trade. There is also a fairly large population of Burji people, who mainly arrived in Northern Kenya from Ethiopia during the famines there in the 1970s. Marsabit National Reserve is nearby. During periods of drought Marsabit has had no running water or electricity. Like Northeast Kenya, the region has witnessed security problems in recent years.