As I stated in a previous post, my past two weeks have been
a huge highlight to my life in Kenya. I decided that I would take my 3 week
April break and spend a portion of it ‘up country,’ in Nairobi and surrounding
cities. I left my home in Malindi for about twenty days, soaking up new
cultural experiences and making some great friends along the way. Instead of
writing one long blog entry about my experience as a whole, I’ve decided to
split up my experiences into smaller portions. These will read more like journal entries than polished
stories, but I hope you enjoy them just them same. Here is an entry about my
favorite place in Kenya thus far, Lake Naivaisha.
---------------------------------
My trip from Nairobi to Naivasha was virtually painless—other
than my pack crushing against my knees in the matatu. I sat next to a Muslim
policeman and had the window seat—thank God. Matatus have become my main form
of transportation. I feel a sense of adventure every time I board a matatu… and
luckily, they are so inexpensive that I can have that feeling just about
anytime that I want. The 2.5 hour trip cost me about 3 dollars.
Getting out of Nairobi proved to be the most time-consuming
part of the journey. In a two lane street, four cars easily tried to get through,
causing an enormous bottleneck. A truck parked to unload and a hot, hellish
standstill ensued. Nairobi is infamous for its traffic and I had the privilege
to witness it first hand. When we out into the city proper, it was smooth
sailing.
I wish that I could say that I
took in all of the beautiful sights of the Rift Valley, but I woke up to a down
pouring of rain on the window, hugging my pack. We had reached Naivaisha town,
a typical dirty hamlet with its nyama
choma (beef fry) joints (literally skin cows hanging in the windows) and
motorcycle drivers trying to take advantage of the next mzungu. I eventually
boarded another matatu, (giving the motorcycle drivers the excuse that I didn’t
want to get wet on their bikes) and headed to a place called Fisherman’s Camp,
where I planned to camp out for the night before hitting Hell’s Gate National
Park.
I absolutely fell in love with
Fisherman’s Camp-- a wide expansive campsite right on the beautiful lake,
with hot showers, exquisite views, beautiful birds, and really wonderful
western food. (I am salivating about their bacon-avocado burger right now.) I
thought that I would only stay for a night or two, but I ended up staying for
six. They had football (soccer) playing on a big screen television and the
owner, Sean, was exceedingly hospitable.
I had bought a small, cheap tent
in Nairobi to supplement my trip. Initially, I was very concerned about the
quality of the tent. Like seemingly everything in Kenya the tent was
manufactured in China. Perhaps the comedy within all of this was that the tent
advertised that it could fit three people in it. If a man were an inch taller than I am and sleeping in the
tent, he would need to sleep diagonally.
A maximum of two people would be able to sleep in the tent, and they
would be thin people at that. In my head, I had the image of the Seinfeld
episode where the Asian people are sleeping in Kramer’s chest of
drawers—perhaps three of them would have been able to fit in this tent.
Surprisingly, the tent did a decent
job at keeping water out of it. Rainy season is upon us, so it rained everyday…
and a sleeping bag was definitely needed (unlike the coast where it is so hot
and humid!) The weather was about as perfect as you could come by—hot in the
day and cool at night.
In the morning, I woke up early
to get a jump on the animals at Hell’s Gate. I had rented a bicycle the night
before and rode the five kilometers to the gate. After unsuccessfully attempting
to persuade the ranger that I was a resident of Malindi (not a citizen, there
are even cheaper rates for that), I paid the tourist entry fee and pedaled into
the park.
Words (mine, at that) really
don’t do the park justice. Pictures do a better job, but still aren’t
adequate. It was incredibly
beautiful. The landscapes blew my mind. It reminded me a bit of Colorado and
the American southwest (from what I remember in our family’s trip out west in
second grade). When I entered the
park, I thought that I saw some children playing wildly at the Visitor’s
Center. On closer investigation, the children transformed into baboons. I couldn’t believe how human-like (and undeterred)
these baboons were.
I was the first and seemingly
only person in the park. Most
national parks here you need to drive a car in order to be safe from the
animals, but in Hell’s Gate, they encouraged visitors to walk or ride a bike.
About three kilometers in from gate, I saw small mammals in the
distance—warthogs! Adrenaline pumped through my veins and I snapped as many
pictures that I could of the far away animal. Little did I know that those
warthogs proved to be the key to the Pandora’s box of African wildlife. For the next hour or two, I encountered
creatures that I’ve only seen in National Geographic: zebras, gazelles,
dik-diks, impalas (with their spiral horns!), antelope, buffalo. When I
witnessed my first giraffe, I was overcome with awe. To see—and hear—it run,
was simply majestic. The landscape, too, was breathtaking. I discovered that artists
from the Lion King used the park as their setting template.
I pedaled to what was called the
Gorge, an incredible natural canyon chiseled out by sulfuric water. The
geothermal springs here are active and the streams are the temperature of
bathwater—simply awesome.
On my way back to the gate, I
decided to take an 11 km detour through Buffalo Circuit. What I failed to
realize was it was about 8 km straight up a mountain. In the middle of the
Kenyan day, where the sun is directly overhead, it proved to be exhausting. The
dirt road didn’t make it much easier, either. Through the combination of
walking and pedaling, I made it to the top. To the southeast, there was a gorgeous view of Mt. Longonot
and the surrounding area.
Descending the mountain proved to
be worth the climb: at one point, I descended rapidly to surprise a herd of
grazing zebra. As they heard me, the began galloping and I rode right alongside
them for what seemed like a ten yards or so— the grace and beauty of these wild
horses is something that I will remember for as long as I live.
Until next time,
Adam
No comments:
Post a Comment