Tembea Tujenge Kenya with Isuzu D-MAX, a Reliable Cruising Partner

For many people, the lure of traveling around Kenya on a road trip or camping in the great outdoors never fades.

Kenya is a beautiful country, with sweeping valleys and rocky mountains. The roads take you atop myriads of rising spines of ridges, and depressions, of plateaus, and seemingly unpassable paths…and that is the thrill accompanying Tembea Tujenge Kenya.

It is a road trip, a cause for Kenya’s tourism, and a chance to help the economy grow; and all is achieved while having fun.

But there is something you have to remember before your journey begins on this initiative. Get the right car.

Yes, the roads begin with chaos as you leave the hustle and bustle of the city heading to Nairobi. After some perpetual miles of humble two-lane roads, trees fall behind to reveal plains and bushes as you rev across the straights on your way to Turkana – then something special happens.

Your blood pressure drops, your foot eases off the pedal, and you pull your vehicle onto the first of many scenic lookout points, despite time constraints and the looming shadow of many miles to go before you reach your destination.

ALSO READ: Isuzu’s Commits to Growing Local Tourism Through Tembea Tujenge Kenya

Time seems to stand still, as you step outside, shut the door, and place yourself within an enormous panoramic view with high hills ahead. You feel, for the first time on your Tembea Tujenge Kenya road trip, like a traveler, an explorer of sights too rarely seen, like someone who’s left the jarring cares of the workaday world behind.

It’s all good, for a while, before you realize that grinding toward your destination is exhilarating until it’s exhausting. Too much coffee or energy drinks jazz you up, then drop you. You begin to realize that the road itself is your destination, and your vehicle is not just a tool but also a traveling partner.

Well, this can either be transcendental or disastrous, depending on which vehicle you have. This means that there are considered, stringent requirements for a car to qualify as a road trip partner. Those requirements, in a nutshell, are gas mileage, comfort, space, dependability.

To the public’s eye, there is a certain set of vehicles ideal for road trips – and unsurprisingly, nobody ever thinks of pickup trucks. So, my choice for Tembea Tujenge Kenya road trips is always an Isuzu D-MAX.

Well, I’ve got to tell you, the truck will make you anxious. My worries about bags flying out of the bed at high speed and low miles per gallon on a tight budget were put to rest.

At first, I was a little perturbed about how the pickup life would transfer to the long-distance road-trip life. But then there we were with the Tembea Tujenge Kenya team, in Nanyuki, cruising into the second scenic overlook, feeling good, feeling mobile, not worrying – my faith was restored.

If you go with the flow, there are no wrong turns. Work with where the roads take you, and with the Isuzu D-MAX, a vehicle designed for changing plans at a moment’s notice, that will always feel easy.

This, undoubtedly, is something everyone on the road trip learned. They all came for adventure, and we all, I, in particular, had a few takeaways of the 4X4 Isuzu D-MAX. Even when the going gets tough, it works like a charm. It ensures that the worst of terrains is conquered.

The D-MAX lifestyle takes everything in its stride without breaking a sweat, and all this we did with guidance from the Isuzu Kenya team. Better yet, I learned that with the 4×4 low engaged, the D-MAX doesn’t need accelerator inputs and will not stall unless there is a wall ahead.

This is something I intend to explore further after my road trip. Another significant takeaway that I learned is that switching off traction control helps gain momentum. While this isn’t recommended, given safety reasons, it was exhilarating!

If you are doing 4X4 on the road, however, there are some safety precautions put forth by Isuzu Kenya that you’d do well to live by on your trip:

• To avoid damage to the axles and drivelines, do not operate your vehicle in the 4-wheel drive mode on dry, hard-surfaced roads (i.e., highways, interstates, and city streets). However, vehicles equipped with Torque-On-Demand^®(TOD) may be operated on dry, hard-surfaced roads in the TOD mode.
• Always approach curves at normal driving speed. Do not attempt to go as fast through turns as you might in a passenger car.
• Drive slower under strong crosswind conditions. Strong crosswinds can alter the normal steering of your vehicle and could lead to loss of vehicle control.
• Exercise caution when driving on slippery pavement (caused by sand, gravel, water, snow, or ice) to maintain vehicle control.

Meanwhile, our journey in Turkana for yet another edition of Tembea Tujenge Kenya just began. I will update you on the whole experience as well as share the scenic photos that our quest for social media awareness for domestic tourism took us.