I did not go looking for a sunset. Last Sunday, my special friend and guide, Kate Selempo, suggested, “Let’s just drive.” I am always ready for an adventure, especially when it involves a road trip.

We took the new Ngong-Suswa road, not for a story, but for a breath of fresh air beyond Nairobi’s noise.

The 66-kilometre highway, a Sh4 billion project launched in 2018, stalled in 2020 and was eventually declared complete and open in December last year, has transformed a once-promised route into a reality.

The smooth tarmac cuts through Kajiado into Narok, offering an alternative corridor to Bomet, Kisii and other parts of western Kenya while easing pressure on the busy Nairobi-Mai Mahiu escarpment road.

At Kibiko, the first centre after Ngong, the hills remain green and quiet, but change is visible in new hardware shops, fenced plots and signs advertising land for sale.

“The road has brought land closer to Nairobi,” Kate observed as we stopped at Kimuka for boiled maize and water.

Wanjiku, a kiosk owner, said her customers were once mainly schoolchildren. Now, lorries, boda boda riders and travellers heading to the Suswa Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) station have expanded her business.

Before the road, she explained, buyers rarely came. Now, they do. It was a sentiment we would encounter in different forms throughout the journey.

Beyond Kimuka, the landscape opens into the Great Rift Valley’s rolling savannah. The air becomes drier, the acacias shorter and the horizon wider. The journey is as much about the changing scenery as it is about the communities adapting to new opportunities.

We reached Suswa town around midday. Situated at the foot of dormant Mount Suswa, with its distinctive volcanic landscape, the town has several attractions. Geothermal exploration continues in the area, while conservancies offer game drives, hikes and visits to caves inhabited by baboons.

The Suswa SGR station adds another dimension to the growing destination. Kenya Railways’ weekend leisure train connects Nairobi and Suswa, giving families and other visitors an opportunity to explore the countryside without a long drive.

At the station, we met Joseph, a young tour operator who said improved road and rail connections had made business easier.

“Before the road and the train, Suswa was far. Now Nairobi is two hours. Picking tourists is easy. Business is growing,” he said.

Our journey was not over. We pushed on to Duka Moja, at Oloshaiki, about 10 kilometres beyond Suswa town. To some travellers, it is merely a name on a matatu. On the ground, however, it is a growing settlement whose future is being shaped by improved access, trading opportunities and demand for land.

The turn-off from the highway onto the feeder road leading into the interior was rough, rattling the car as dust rose behind us. But the journey offered a closer look at the changes taking place away from the main road.

There were new completed modern Economic Stimulus Programme markets in Suswa and Ntuulele, intended to provide traders with better facilities than the congested, dusty open-air markets they have used for years.

In Duka Moja’s interior, the signs of growth are evident in brightly painted iron-sheet shops housing M-Pesa outlets, butcheries and agrovets. Boda boda riders transport mattresses and other goods, while the allocation of 10,000 acres from Kedong Ranch to residents has contributed to growing interest in land.

Yet amid the development, Kate noticed something easy to miss.

She pointed to the dry grass, where clusters of deep purple-brown star-shaped flowers with striking yellow centres grew from pale, succulent stems. The wildflowers, identified in the account as Desmidorchis retrospiciens, were a reminder that the landscape holds its own quiet wonders.

At about 6.20pm, the sun began its evening display. Golden light spilled across the lava soils, turning the thorn scrub amber and casting a purple hue over the distant Suswa caldera. The roofs of the new market glowed as the dust softened the landscape into shades of rose and gold.

It reminded me of an Isiolo sunset I had witnessed earlier, with its stark orange sky above the desert and sharp silhouettes of acacia trees. But while that sunset felt like an ending, Duka Moja’s felt like a promise.

At our final stop, we spoke to Mama Naserian, a Maasai mother of four who sells mursik and roasted sweet potatoes at the Duka Moja junction.

“When I came here ten years ago, there was one shop. One. Now look,” she said, gesturing towards the row of shops.

“My children will have a town here, and that sun you see, it goes, but it comes again. Like this centre.”

As darkness fell, lights flickered on across the settlement, from a solar bulb at a kiosk to a streetlight near a petrol station and fires burning in distant homesteads.