The one where I was with Dorothy

Wait Dorothy was in Kansas, not Kenya. Sorry, I was in Kenya, in the Rift Valley.

I left Nairobi and headed west to Nakuru. On the bus, it was 80's Saturday on Classic 105! Jungle Boy (Baltimora), Like a Prayer (Ciccone), Abracadabra (Miller), Together Forever (Astley). But then we left town and they switched to REALLY LOUD NEWS. Spent the night in Nakuru in a suite on the roof of the Mt Sinai Hotel, across the street from a "Subway" restaurant. Note that Dar Es Salaam has actual Subway franchises--can't wait to try the pressed beef sub!

In the morning I got a ride out to the Menegai Crater. It's...a crater. I took some matatus up to Lake Bogoria. I wanted to camp at the Fig Tree Camp. From the map in the guidebook it looked like it'd be about 6 miles. But it's not, and since I didn't think I'd be able to walk the 18 miles to the campsite in the 3 hours left until sundown I wound up heading to the campground at the hot springs. About 8 miles in, past flamingos and ostriches and a coupla zebras and hydraxes and antelopes.

I stayed just one night. My tent pole broke, and I went to borrow some tape from the other people at the campsite--Barbara (Swiss) and Karsten (German) and their dog Mali (Malian) had what looked like a very well stocked van. They volunteered to drive me out. And since they'd take me all the way to my next destination, saving me a 8 mile walk and three different matatu rides, for each of which I might have had to wait some hours, I accepted.

The next night was at the Flamingo Camp at Lake Elmenteita. There was no one else at the Flamingo Camp at Lake Elmenteita. And not many flamingos. But it is beautiful, and the lake was totally reminiscent of the lakes in New Zealand famed for the mountain reflections.

Turns out, the millions of flamingos are now at Lake Nakuru. But that's in a national park that you can't go into without transportation, so it would have been _really_ expensive to rent a taxi for a day and pay the park fees and such to see them. But at several viewpoints from the road back from the crater and in Nakuru town you can see the pink shores.

Next stop was Fisherman's Camp on Lake Naivasha. Which I visited to go to Hell's Gate National Park, just across the way. I decided not to camp in the park--I figured at night, when the nocturnal animals were active, I'd be huddled in my tent rather than wandering in the dark looking for lions and leopards. I rented a bike and headed off to the park.

Which was really neat. As I entered, some of the park rangers were burning trash, right next to the sign indicating the current fire danger level: EXTREME. There isn't a huge density of animals, but the ones I did see I saw with literally no one else around. No guide, no other park visitors, just me and the mostly antelopes and zebras (and two giraffes, but at a distance). And the animals are used to humans, and there was no engine noise to scare them off. At one point I looked up and there were zebras maybe 25 yards away that I hadn't noticed until then.

The other park attraction is the gorge. The ranger tries to get you to pay $15 so a guide can take you in--"otherwise you can easily get lost." Which is kinda like getting lost in a tunnel, and not the confusing Boston kind of tunnel. You're going in, or coming out, but you're just following the river in one of the directions. As I was eating lunch a Canadian woman walked up, and we decided to walk in together. One of the Maasai guides followed, and we agreed to have him show us the way in return for a tip, but certainly not $15.

We took the 2 hour walk, which took about 30 minutes, ending up at the path to take back to the ranger station and our bikes. We gave the guide a coupla bucks each and decided to continue on to the hot springs, another coupla hours. We went not quite all the way to the hot springs before we came to a section that would have been hard to get through without getting quite wet. And we'd each seen enough hot springs to not need to see these, so we headed back. Biked back out to the road (5 miles to the park entrance, 2 to the main road), I went left, she went right, I headed the 3 more miles back to the camp.

The next day, Thursday, I headed back to Nairobi.

Friday I got a new tent--the pole had broken all the way, it couldn't be fixed until Monday, and I paid about $40 for a much better one than the one I'd had. It'd been used, but pretty lightly. It's much bigger (I think it'll sleep 4) but only weighs a bit more. Gave my old tent to the guard at the campsite in Nairobi, along with explanations about how to get it fixed, which hopefully he can do and then sell it to someone. Or use it, but I'm betting on the former.

Saturday headed to Mombasa, to see somewhere else and break up the bus trip a bit. Mombasa, on the Kenyan coast, is really hot. And a bit disturbing--it's the first place I went where the street beggars are really in-your-face, and I felt a little unsafe for the first time this trip. I stayed a day and then headed down to Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania.

Where I've been for a day and a half. It's supposed to be safer than Nairobi, but still feels more like Mombasa. And, unlike Kenya (and certainly unlike Uganda), most people do _not_ speak English. Finally! Of course, I don't speak muck Kiswahili... In any case, I'm off to catch a ferry to Zanzibar, the Spice Island!

Ta,
sg