The road from Isiolo, some 285 kilometres north of Nairobi to Maralal town is rough; it is cut by several ditches that form rivers in the rainy season. The two towns are more than 100km apart.

We had been travelling a day and a half from Nairobi, and spent the night at Isiolo Transit Hotel, enroute to Maralal to attend the camel derby — a two day cultural event held every year, featuring an international 10km amateur camel race.

At one point, we were forced to throw our bags onto our backs and wade barefoot across the road-turned-river.

Organised by Kenya’s Ministry of Tourism and the Kenya Tourism Board the event, now in its 22nd edition, attracted bikers, tourists and business people.

In Maralal, we stayed at Sunbird Guest House, a serene establishment run by Dorothea Wangui. She moved to Maralal in 1987, to join her husband who had been posted at the District Commissioner’s office two years earlier.

At the time, Maralal was a ghost town. But amid the tranquillity, she saw the opportunity to do business, starting off with a boutique in the 1980s. When it failed, she opened a hardware shop. Her adopted son runs it now.

In 2005, she set up the Sunbird Guest House — a first in the dusty town. A single self-contained room — that number to 22 — goes for Ksh700 ($8.3) for domestic tourists and Ksh1,200 ($14.3) for foreigners; while the sole double room goes for Ksh2,000 and Ksh5,000 ($59.5) respectively.

There are now many guest houses and hotels in the area, including Le Shangrila Inn, Samburu Guest House and Seasons Guest House.

At 6:30 am on August 25, prior to the camel derby we witnessed the union of a Samburu couple – Ampress and Lakatap – whose wedding was sponsored by KTB.

Though we were excited about the camel derby, it was painful watching how roughly some owners handled their animals. That some animals had walked from Marsabit, almost 200km away made it all the more pitiful.

Every day, we walked about a kilometre and a half to the Samburu Guest House for breakfast. And at night, we walked back to our rooms.

There was never the fear that we might be accosted and assaulted. The town is safe. Isolated outskirts, like the scenic Malaso – where the Safaricom advert was shot – are the hotspots.

While those who had visited the area previously whiled the evenings away in bars, the rest of us wandered about sampling the town’s beauty.

But we did not skip Samburu Night. Though spoiled by the fact that the locals had to pay a fee to enjoy the cultural event, watching them dance, sing and perform mock battles in their traditional attire was an experience worth the long journey we had taken.

Maralal town is not the sleepy town we had expected. The shops open as early as 6am and stock anything any traveller could need: Airtime, mobile money, a nail cutter, lots of junk food.

There were even cyber cafes where journalists filed their stories. Surprising also, is the number of churches in the town. There were signs for those everywhere we looked and appeared to outnumber the schools.

And then there was rain. On Sunday afternoon, after the derby the bright sky suddenly turned gray and we were pelted with hailstones.

Wading across the road we were drenched to the bone. Another 10 minutes passed and the sun shone again, mocking us in our wet clothes.
This, I learnt, had become a common occurrence there in recent years.

The Samburu, Turkana and Pokot all live fairly peacefully in Maralal but every now and again, fights break out. Only five days before our visit, a young man, having just paid bride price was murdered by bandits on his way out of Maralal Town.

“The bandits only ever want money. You’d better have even Ksh200 ($2.38) or they will kill you. Some of them are just angry because they are poor and that is why they rob people,” said Richard Lerunoti, a receptionist at the nearby Yare Camel Camp.

But poverty is not as rife in Maralal as you’d think. Business is brisk, thanks to the tourists the area attracts. The only thing that fails the people is the bad roads. But that hasn’t stopped them from running their businesses.