For the longest time, my two friends and I had dreamt of travelling to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital, by road.

If you have travelled from Nairobi to the border town of Moyale, you will understand how punishing the journey can be — a distance of more than 950km mostly on rough road.

Our dream became reality six years later, on December 26 of 2013, the day we set off. As per our itinerary, we would usher in the New Year in Addis, then leave on January 2.

From Nairobi, all buses to Moyale depart from Eastleigh, a suburb east of the CBD inhabited mainly by Somalis. Three bus companies ply the Nairobi-Moyale route: Moyale Star, Moyale Express and Moyale Raha. Before the ban on night travel in Kenya was enforced, the buses left at 3pm in order to make it to Moyale by around 9am the next morning.

This was my first trip to northeastern Kenya. The majority passengers on the bus were Cushitic speakers and Muslim, mainly returning home or to visit relatives in that part of the country. They were loud, speaking mainly in their vernacular, but friendly.

A few minutes later on the Thika superhighway, a petty trader got onto the bus and made brisk business selling Kaluma, a kind of oil that is said to cure colds and all sorts of aches, and Voomtrex, said to cleanse the stomach.

I fell asleep and woke up just after dusk when two policemen stopped the bus and got in. They shone bright spotlights on our faces as though they were searching for something or someone, while speaking in harsh tones. My friends and I were alarmed.

One man seated at the front of the bus was forced out. The policemen continued their search and found another man near the back. He too, was forced to alight. I learnt, it was a normal security check.

Our journey continued. I went back to sleep, only waking up when we arrived in Isiolo — over 270km since we had set off. Here, we had a break for supper.

The road to Isiolo is smooth. You can easily sleep or read. Afterwards, it gets really bumpy. A few kilometres to Marsabit — which is about 200km from Isiolo — the road turns into a path.

I thought I had experienced bad roads in my life but it was nothing like this. The bus literally shook, throwing passengers up and down. This went on for almost 12 hours! — precisely the time taken between Isiolo and Moyale.

Then the bus had a puncture. This is not a place you want to be stranded at in the middle of the night. Stories abound of armed bandits roving this part of the country night and day. For security reasons, the bus company must provide armed policemen when going down that road. It just isn’t safe. And if you get stuck, it could be a day before any one comes to your rescue.

I alighted from the bus to stretch my muscles as the tyre was changed. The ground was filled with sand. I grabbed some and let it fall off my hands. It was as fine as it would be on any beach. When I looked up to the sky, it was magnificent. I had never seen so many stars bunched together.

The rest of the journey was uneventful. We arrived in Moyale at 10am the next morning. Moyale is a small border town. The people there can easily pick out visitors, tell who is returning home to see family and who intends to cross over to Ethiopia. They even know what type of bag is suited for whichever trip.

We were soon accosted by money changers. We changed our Kenyan shillings to the Ethiopian Birr, aiming for as close as possible to official rates.

As we walked towards the border, a friendly short man came to talk to us. He introduced himself simply as A.

He wasn’t a money changer but, as we would learn later, he was a tour guide. He advises people on how to manoeuvre their way once they have crossed over to Ethiopia.

A grew up in Moyale on the Ethiopian side, but due to his charisma, he came to know all the border guards and could get from one side of the border to the other with ease. In short, the whole of stretch between Kenya and Ethiopia was his home. He learnt English and Kiswahili plus a little Kikuyu because he felt the languages would serve him well on his job.

On this Friday morning, he had spotted us and promised to wait for us on the other side as we went through customs procedures.

Unfortunately, we later learnt that A was killed in the February 2014 violence that rocked the Kenyan side of Moyale.

The Moyale border crossing is the friendliest I have ever experienced. The official there looked at us, three young men — L, J and me — and promised we would have a good time. He told us to go discover what had made Solomon give out the Ark of the Covenant to the Ethiopian dynasty, and asked us to bring him stories when we returned. Our passports stamped, we were in Ethiopia.

Next week: On Ethiopian soil