Kenya Day 46 - A long way home

I was up at 07:30, fairly early considering Gilbert wasn't coming until 10:00, and was showered and fed in plenty of time so I went bird watching in the gardens for a while.

Silvery-cheeked Hornbills - male and female

Huge fan palm

Pied crow

Creeper, a bit like honeysuckle

Casuarina

Izaak Walton Hotel

At 10:30, with no sign of Gilbert, I checked out and sat in the garden having a rather surreal Skype conversation with Dave while I waited. Eventually Gilbert appeared at 12:00 - TIA! - and we went down to the Rescue Centre, where I went shopping with Lilian for oil (10 litre drum), salt (500gm per day, so 5kg to last 2 weeks), laundry soap in 50cm bars (6 of these), etc and got back just in time to feed the kids and go for lunch with Gilbert and the volunteers.

The dinner queue

Preparing to dish up

Lilian and her stove - the maize and beans is in the big pot

Some of the girls having their dinner

Some of the boys

 It's already 14:00 and I ask when I need to go, then get a bit concerned as nothing seems to be happening. Eventually a taxi/van turns up and we head off about 15:00. It's an interesting journey with very varied scenery from hills to miles of rice paddies with lots of egrets.

Rice paddies

Drying rice

Lots of lovely veg

Camels are quite unusual round here...

We took the bypass around Nairobi, avoiding the traffic jams and got to the airport about 17:30. More goodbyes and I'm going through security, checking in, more security, a last Stoney and onto the plane. It may be an overnight flight to Amsterdam, and I may be tired, but I don't sleep, just doze while watching a movie. I'm sat next to a nice couple of ladies from Eldoret on their first flight, and, of course, their first trip outside Kenya. They are going to visit someone in Dusseldorf, so we do the terminal changes in Schiphol together - maybe I'll be able to catch up with them next time I'm in Kenya. See? I'm planning to go back already...

Kenya Day 45 - To Chogoria and beyond

It was perishing cold overnight, even with the fire - I was glad to get up and get moving again, even though it was only 05:00. Charles made breakfast while Elijah and I packed our gear, and we were fed and away by 06:30. It was very cold with frost on the grass. In Africa? Yes, it's certainly not hot everywhere here!

Moon over mountain

Sunrise on the peaks

Frosty grass

Not an easy road

 We followed the rough, muddy vehicle track for about 10km - it's barely fit for 4x4 and has massive craters full of mud. There were lots of animal tracks, including a group of elephants with a young one, which got us hurrying, as mother elephants can be dangerous.

Hyena tracks

Leopard tracks

Zebra tracks

Buffalo tracks

Jackson's Francolin

Bushbuck tracks

Elephant tracks

 We came across a man walking down the road carrying a briefcase and a large axe. It seemed a bit strange until he explained that he was taking the axe to be repaired...

Briefcase and axe?

Bracken

 Eventually we were picked up by a small green and white Suzuki 4x4 and treated to a white-knuckle ride down the rest of the steep, muddy trail, sliding sideways, careening through mud-holes and almost tipping over. As we neared Chogoria Town, the road was still steep but polished rather than muddy! We passed tea and coffee plantations and eventually reached the town centre, where we reorganised the kit and Elijah organised a matatu to take us to Embu. We got out at the Izaak Walton Hotel, and Elijah and Charles passed me on to Gilbert who is the organiser for Moving Mountains in Embu.

Tea pickers

The 4x4 in Chogoria

Some of the kids have left school; the Centre has helped some of them to set up a market stall, others run a car wash, and another group has a food stall. Moving Mountains provides the kit to start their enterprises, but as equipment, not cash.

The car wash team

After a shower and some lunch, Gilbert took me to visit the Rescue Centre. Each day they give a nutritious hot meal, consisting of maize, beans, onion and avocado, to about 50 youngsters from the town's slums. For many of these kids, this is their only meal, and some share even this with relatives at home.

The children have a daily football practice after school and their team, the Black Cats, are doing well in the national competitions.

I met the volunteers (British or UK based) who are helping Moving Mountains. They work in the primary school and the Rescue Centre and stay at Gilbert's house.

Still birding in Embu...

The Black Cats football team trophies and photos

 This is one of the best hotels in Kenya - the grounds are magnificent, my room is charming, the food is very good too and the service is excellent and friendly.

Izaak Walton Hotel garden

Gilbert took me back to the hotel to have dinner, which was a really good vegetable curry and rice, but took a while to appear, so instead of meeting up with Gilbert and Simon who had brought my big bag, I repacked ready for going home tomorrow. This is my last night in a mozzie net for a while, I guess...

Kenya Day 44 - Waterfalls and hot showers

We had a long lie! Didn't get up till 07:30 and I'm really stiff,but Charles has made fried egg butty and pancakes with lemongrass for breakfast, and my appetite is improving, so he kept some pancakes back for mid-mornings.

Meanwhile, Elijah and I went to see Nithi Falls ("th" as in "there"). The top fall is only metres from camp - we could hear it all night.

Upper Nithi Falls

Upper Nithi Falls

Looking down towards Chogoria

The second one is less easy to see, but absolutely beautiful...

Middle Nithi Falls

Middle Nithi Falls

Sisyrinchium?

Near Nithi Falls

 The third fall is huge - maybe 100m high. We crossed the river to get to the top of the falls, where we could see the water disappearing over the drop, and we climbed down a bit, but the path to the viewpoint was too dangerous with my bad knee - it had got quite badly twisted when I slipped on the scree on the way to the top yesterday morning. We crossed back over the river, and I thought that was it - no view of this waterfall for me - but Elijah bashed a way through an old trail to a viewpoint where we could see almost the whole falls - spectacular to say the least! The vegetation makes these falls really exotic - we're now in giant heather country with proteas, but in the gorge there are enormous giant lobelias.

The top of lower Nithi Falls

Lower Nithi Falls, from near the top

Lower Nithi Falls

Lower Nithi Falls

Elijah bashing though giant heather

Protea

Looking uphill towards the top Nithi Falls

The top falls again

 Back at camp, Charles has packed up and moved the stuff to the roadside. We have more tea and I finish my pancakes and then off we go. "Road Head" it may be, but very little traffic uses this road - it has not just grass but bushes down the middle, and there are huge washed-out sections with slippery red mud. After the junction where the road goes off to Lake Ellis it looks more used, by fishermen apparently, but it is still very "interesting" even for a tough 4x4.

Sisyrinchium

Rough road - especially with packs like these

 We heard elephants as we got nearer to Mt Kenya Lodge, and Elijah reminded us we must keep together. There was a pretty boggy section as we reached the river, then it was a short rise through meadow-like grassland to the gate where we signed out but told the rangers we are staying at Mt Kenya Lodge overnight.

Red-hot Poker

Alpine Ladies Mantle

Looking back across the river

Chogoria Gate

 We have a chalet with living room, kitchen, bedroom (just for me) and bathroom with hot shower (very hot or rather chilly - the adjustment is a bit random!). There's only me sleeping here; Elijah and Charles re with the other guides and porters - I still find that a bit weird... No electricity, but there are Tilley lamps and a wood fire, and the shower is heated by a wood-fired boiler behind the hut.

Mt Kenya Lodge

The hot water system

Peaks in the mist

You have been warned!

Woods and meadows

Face tree

Maybe a Snake Eagle...

Last sighting of the peaks from Mt Kenya Lodge

Elijah and I tried to find elephants or buffalo at the 2 nearby waterholes at sundown, but there was just one waterbuck at each of the waterholes.

Waterbuck near Mt Kenya Lodge

 Anyway, Charles had made another great meal and - finally!!! - we all sat together round the table and ate it. This has been one of the things I found quite strange about the mountain - a fairly strict demarcation between the "clients" and the "staff", even though we are walking the same trails and talking together on the way, I was fed on my own and Elijah and Charles ate a few metres away. It was the same in the huts on the way up - Mark and Steve and I had our meals in the main dining area and shared bunk rooms, but the guides and porters ate and slept apart from us. It felt a bit colonial... After our meal, we had a few Tuskers and talked about Kenya and Scotland, wild animals, national parks, mountains,... I had to draw a beaver for them, since they don't have them in Africa, and apparently there's an animal that burrows underwater and steals arrowroot as it grows, so that when the farmer goes to harvest the arrowroot there's nothing there!

Living room at Mt Kenya Lodge

I have to be up at 05:00 to let them in to make breakfast, but I must keep the door locked overnight. I've just heard a growl/scream from some animal outside - you don't go out alone here after dark! We found buffalo, elephant, hyena and leopard poo around, so it's best to be careful...