Our weekend in Lake Naivasha was without a doubt one of my favorites of this whole semester! Classic Kenya, what was supposed to be leaving at 2 turned into confusion, multiple gas station stops, an over packed car, ice cream run, and finally we started the journey out of Nairobi at 4:30. The view of the Rift Valley is breath taking. So green and vibrant, hills and peaks, stretching for miles and miles. Feelings of satisfaction and accomplishment to see Mt. Longonot again and know I climbed it. After parting ways with Jeff, the Semester in Kenya group searched through the darkness to finally pull into Fisherman’s Camp at 7:30. While we couldn’t see anything, we knew we were right on Lake Naivasha. Our first night consisted of dinner at the camp restaurant, which gets an A+ for food and a D+ for customer service, and a fire at the campsite. Kenya is not a place where the customer is always right, Americans are spoiled by our customer service standards! Our tents were small and made me think of old military tents. We had a little mattress and a warm blanket, and I shared with Brittany. Kirk became fire master, and kept the fire up most of the weekend. The stars were brilliant, the air cool, the atmosphere perfect for camping. My kind of adventure weekend!
Saturday morning, I unzipped my tent and met the gaze of a monkey on the picnic table. Good morning Kenya. The camp is beautiful! It sits on a lagoon of Lake Naivasha, picture the Florida everglades or Louisiana bayou. Many different kinds of birds, in many sizes, some seemingly as big as me, flutter around. We had a lazy morning, got told we didn’t need any more maple syrup at breakfast, and got ready for our outing: Hell’s Gate National Park. I have been looking forward to this trip all semester! The park is just down the road from our camp. We sat outside the gate for about an hour while Tyler bargained, bribed, reasoned, and worked out our entrance fee and bike rental fee. We got our rental bikes, very Kenyan with sketchy brakes, and took off into one of my new favorite places. We rode past rock faces, green hills, rock towers, zebras, antelope, gazelle, wildabest, warthogs, and water buffalo. We took our time, went at our own pace, and enjoyed the ride. Absolutely incredible scenery! This is the national park that inspired the Lion King. You can’t help but praise the Creator and His creativity… I think I got the hang of taking one-handed picture from the back of a bicycle now. After riding about 7km (4ish miles), we came to a paved road, and found the ranger’s station. Next stop, Hell’s Gate Gorge.
Part of our group joined the park guide to hike down into the gorge, and I am so so glad we did! For about a minute we hiked downhill, and then climbed into the gorge. From there, the rest of the hike took us up and down rocks, past waterfalls, through streams and dry river beds, around twisting and winding rock walls, and past so many incredible things to see. At one point you could turn left to enter a narrow gorge, or continue straight in the wide river bed. We took the left path first. The walls are covered in people’s carvings, ironically all around the “no graffiti” signs. Every so often we saw “emergency exit” signs next to ropes to climb out in case of flash floods. This trail ended at a cavernous wall called the Cathedral. From there we backtracked, and then finished climbing out of the gorge. An amazing adventure, and incredible place to explore! At the beginning, we asked if this was the trek to see Pride Rock, and were told yes. By the time we got to the end, still no Pride Rock. The last few minutes it started to pour, so we hustled back to the ranger’s station. There we were told that you actually have to bike to see Pride Rock. Oh Kenya… those who didn’t hike had already left, and it was pouring pretty hard, so we were able to ditch the bikes and hitch a ride on the convenient Daystar University bus that had a group of students visiting. We arrived back at the entrance to find the other group had got a ride as well. We spent the rest of our evening pigging out on an abundance of food, playing card games, and sitting around the fire making Kenyan style s’mores. At one point during dinner, a man came up to us and told us there were hippos on the edge of the water! The camp had an electric fence between the campsite and water, and we got to watch a momma and baby hippo eating outside the fence! While they are very dangerous, they are also very cute. I feel asleep that night happy and with a heart full of adventure, trying to avoid the wet spot on my mattress.
Sunday we just hung out, had a lazy breakfast, hung around the fire. We waited out some rain, and then boarded a boat at the camp to go on a hippo safari! The sky was overcast and dark the whole time, but the view was still grand. Mountains, Mt. Lonognot, Hell’s Gate, forests, lake houses, and so much green. There were floating plants everywhere in the lake, and a multitude of water birds. After a bit we saw our first hippo poking his/her head out of the water. A bit further and we saw a group of five hippos bobbing up and down. It took some maneuvering of the camera to catch them with their heads above water. Finally, we came across a group of 12-15 hippos! Now that was a neat sight. At one point one of the hippos heaved have of his massive body out of the water and then sunk. We started to head back, but asked is we could watch the group a while longer. Our guide got us close, very close, like within 20 feet of the hippos. I think we were all beginning to think, “ok, that’s close enough!” Then someone moved to suddenly, and the hippos began snorting and popping up and down in the water. An awesome sight, and one that gave quite the adrenaline rush. We then headed back to camp, huddled in our rain jackets as the rain picked up. It was mid afternoon, and Jeff came to the camp to meet us. We ordered a late lunch, which took seemingly forever with our not too friendly waiter. Finally, with our van crammed and loaded down with us and our stuff, we drove out of the valley and back to Nairobi.
This was definitely a favorite for me! I love camping and hiking. Biking through the national park was simply amazing. Our whole group got along extremely well this weekend, and we genuinely enjoyed each other’s company. We got to see a handful of animals, got to see some spectacular views, and I came back to campus with a full heart and a sense of an adventure well completed. This is the kind of thing I came to Kenya for, this is the kind of things I love to do, the type of traveling I crave. Now there is 17 days till I fly home. This is the last week of USIU classes. Next week is finals. Then Easter weekend. Then safari. And then a long journey home to a very rewarding sight of the people I love. Thank you Lord for a great weekend and a great adventure.
Be Amazed 