Amboseli NP itinerary and which route to Samburu NR

[Asanoth]

This is my experience from the route:
Most people, including our rental company and some other fora members, told us to take the highway. We decided to go through Imaroro anyway.
We left from Karen. The first 20ish km are through towns, which means a lot of people on the road. After that, the ride is pleasant with a decent road all the way to Imaroro.
After Imaroro, the road is very corrugated and the ride gets very slow and fairly stressful - some potholes are fairly deep and often they stretch all over the road's width. The average speed in this area might be some 30 kmph. It took us 5 hours and 45 minutes to get to Amboseli Eco Camp, from there, it is 30-45 more to the gate.
This road was the 2nd worst public road we took in Kenya after C13.
We also got a nail into the wheel, but it might have been somewhere close to the campsite.

It was clear we will not take the same path back and we will take the highway.
The drive back was easy and pleasant. Once on the highway, there were some trucks and a few people were overtaking carelessly, but nothing to write home about and if you do not have a cramp in your right foot and are actually able to take it off the gas pedal, there are no issues. Once the highway got 4 lanes, the ride was pretty much on European (ok, maybe a country like Hungary) level.
It took us 4 hours to get to the Nairobi centre, meaning it took 30 % less time than the Imaroro route.
I saw much worse driving behaviour in west of the country, when going to and from Kakamega and when reaching Nairobi from Naivasha direction, but still nothing non manageable.
Once leaving the Expressway, the traffic was not bad around noon and we passed through Nairobi easily. I would actually say driving in Nairobi is easier than in smaller towns, where you have many people, bikes and animals on the road.
It was 3.5 more hours to reach Naro Moru, including lunch we arrived at 15:45, we could have easily reached Nanyuki or even further. Naro Moru to Samburu gate was a little less than 3 hours.

In general, driving in Kenya is not demanding (unless there are roadblocks, mob and burning tyres) and I found no difficulties navigating myself on the roads. Even my wife did not find it too demanding and she is not much of a driver. Careless overtaking is a worry of a first vehicle in the line, which is generally a truck and not you. Again, taking your foot of a gas pedal is sufficient in most cases (and most Kenyans do not do that). I did not have to break fast in a single occasion because of another car.
I can see why westerners might have issues with driving in Kenya, as they are used to go at their steady speed and if they have a right of the way, anyone who makes them slow down by 1 kmph is a gangster and should hang. If such a westerner were to leave this mindset and accept the organicity of the Kenyan traffic, he would have no issues. I would say, that driving (a scooter) in Vietnam is a fair deal more demanding than driving in Kenya. I would probably be hesitant to drive in, say, India. No issues in Kenya. However, comparing to SE Asia, the traffic there seems really based on consideration, people drive the way so that they would not hurt anyone. In Kenya, people seem to be governed more by fear and worries - this is especially apparent on pedestrians, very, very careful when crossing the road. So the setup felt different to me.
The most demanding part of driving in Kenya (again, not considering the riots) would be driving through mid sized town with a lot of non-mechanized movement on the road. But again, simple driving slowly in order not to hit anyone does it.
I do not see any reason to put western defensive drivers from driving in Kenya.