I'm still here

Hello out there!

Just to let you know I am still here. I'm been to the coast with Phil, to Nairobi National Park, back to Mombasa on my own, and to Kilombe for a very brief fieldwork visit (awesome ESA/MSA site! So exciting) and now I have today to buy everything I need to, get everything I own packed up into what I'm taking to Tanzania and what I'm leaving here to take HOME (!!!!!!), do all my washing and get it all dried in time to pack it. Find missing things like my drinks flask mug thing which disappeared from the cupboard a few weeks ago, and The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo which no-one seems to have borrowed yet someone has to have taken it from my pile of books on the desk! Grr, missing things, grrrr. I also have 3 reports to write, a load of files to organise for Matt, and a Sarah to visit. Manic day in store methinks. The reports can wait until I'm in Tanzania technically, and I can email them over, but the files need to be organised and put on disk before I go.

So I am in the midst of my mega write-up, I think I'm at about the point of Mombasa with Phil, but it's just going to be one loooong write up with headings so you can skim past bits if you want to. But as ever I do it more for myself for my own future reference than anything else, so if it's too long for you then I apologise, but I don't really care that much. ;-P

So I only have one more thing to say before I carry on with my heaps of stuff to do:

England v Germany, we was fracking robbed I tell yer. Painful, disastrous, and how would it have gone if that goalkeeper hadn't been a *bleeeeeeep bleeping bleeeep*, there's no way he could have missed the fact that it was over the line. Bastard. I felt rather sorry for the German couple sat with us who very wisely didn't celebrate visibly at the end of the game. Grrrrr! Anyway. On with the busy day.

Oh, and internet access will be very sporadic from now on, so I'll probably only be online once a week or something once I'm in the field. Gosh, it'll be almost like I thought it was going to be when I came over in October. :)

Have a great summer folks!

xxx

Olorgasailie

First week of June...

The next week I didn’t have a very successful start. Not sure what I did on Monday, but I didn’t try and get to Olorgasailie until Tuesday, which was a bank holiday. I had been told the wrong place to find the matatu, so I spent hours wandering around the city centre before giving up and deciding to try again the next day. Which I did, and with some help from Mwangi from the museum I managed to find the right matatu, and get to the right place where I had to change matatus. I had to change at Kiserian, and the first matatu of the day going the way I wanted didn’t leave until 11am. I should have gone on a Thursday as that is market day and so then they go much more frequently both ways. Anyway, I got to the site, I had a tour around. I didn’t get to talk to the curator though, as he wasn’t there that day. It was quite cool there though. It was nice to visit, and then I rushed off to stand in the blistering heat by the roadside waiting for a matatu which was due past at about 2pm. I’d only been waiting around for about 10 minutes, but lots of mzungu cars had gone past. I did try sticking my hand out to get a lift, but no-one stopped. Until there were two cars following each other, and the second one, which just had one mzungu man in it, turned around a little further on and came back to pick me up, which was very nice of him as it was very hot in the sun and the only shade was back from the road, so every time I heard something coming I had to leave the shade and go up to the road to see if it was the matatu. And even if it was the matatu there was no guarantee that I would be able to get on it. So I was very lucky. I think his name was Michael (I can’t really remember now) and he owns an event organising company which had helped to run/advertise/organise/whatever this event called the Rhino Charge. No Rhino’s involved in the actual event, it was set up a few years ago to raise money to build a fence around Aberdare National Park to protect the park’s 50 odd black rhino population, and now raises money to maintain the fence and keep the Rhinos safe. You can read about the Rhino Charge on p58 of the Rough Guide! Or they have a website www.rhinoark.org which I haven’t looked at yet because I have no internet. ANYWAY. So I caught a lift with this guy, and we stopped when we caught up with the car he had been following for lunch, they offered me some rolls, but luckily I had come prepared and brought my own food. But I met the chief organiser guy, or whatever, and two ladies, presumably one of whom was his wife, and a friend who is a nurse at Hillcrest School in Nairobi, and who is training to become a special needs person or something. So that was nice, I think they thought I was very young, as I probably looked it as I was dressed very dustily and messily for the day out in the bush. Then the guy drove me all the way back into Nairobi and dropped me at Nakumat Junction, which was very nice of him as he then had to face traffic going back out to Karen. It was very interesting chatting to him though, and he pointed out all the sights and stuff along the way. He was born and raised in Kenya, apart from when he went to boarding school and uni in Ireland, and now lives in Mombasa with his wife and 13 cats. Which I can really understand happening to a cat lover in Mombasa. They’re everywhere and it’s just too tempting to take them in and give them a good life.

So that was Olorgasailie. Kind of unsuccessful, as I didn’t really get all the info I wanted, but never mind, it was interesting to see the site and I got a little bit of information. I just really need to start writing up my report now.

Naivasha & Hells Gate National Park

Sunday 20^th June 2010

Wow, so that’s all I managed to get up to hey. Well thats probably good for you as the rest has faded so much it’ll be a fraction of the length it would have been if I’d blabbered at the time.

Yesterday I travelled from Nairobi to Mombasa. Our bus broke down (i’ll possibly get to that later) and so I didn’t arrive in Mombasa until about 6.30pm. I should have stayed at the Castle Royal in town (where I am currently sat having my cup of coffee, first of the day, at 11am) as it was raining this morning so I feel like I completely wasted last night and this morning, and 3500/-, on going all the way to Bamburi for nothing. So much for my beach break. Anyway, I am currently biding my time until Patience and Darren come back from church, so that I can leave my things at their house and then, erm, well, not sure what I’ll do really. Get to know old town a bit better I suppose.

So, on with the story I guess.

After Hyrax Hill I went back to the place I was staying to pack up my things, pay up and leave. Which took forever. But finally I left, after arguing about paying for the nights I wasn’t going to be staying, and made my way to Naivasha. Once in Naivasha I had to change for another matatu, which kindly stopped right outside my hotel for me. I was staying in another ‘dorm room’, which was a dorm with 12 beds in it, only I had it all to myself. I foolishly decided to sleep right at the far end, shoulda slept at the other end as the boys next door were flirting in Swahili through the wall with the girls the other side of them (all Kenyans) until I finally snapped and shouted them to shut up (*ahem* ‘will you please be quiet’ – I’m such a dork) Anyway, there was also an alarm going off for a few seconds every minute (I timed it, it was exact, like a smoke alarm whose battery had run out but more alarmy like a car’s) until 5am, when it went off for about 20 minutes before being silenced and allowing me to sleep. Anyway, I’m forgetting the lovely dinner I had in the very lovely restaurant, which was very good and made up for the crappy place the night before. I wish I could have stayed longer, in a nicer room, as it looked very nice elsewhere as well. Also the pool looked very inviting.

Anyway, the next morning I got up very early, convinced the restaurant staff to let me just have toast and coffee for a reduced price, and then went off a cycling to Hells Gate National Park. It was rather awesome, I can’t really tell it without the pictures though, but I went in, saw that I could have ridden a horse around and wished I’d done that instead, and then cycled off to commune with the animals. I saw lots and lots of pumba (warthogs) who scampered here there and everywhere as soon as I squeaked into view, I saw twiga (giraffe), zebras (punda milia I think) and lots of deers, thomsons gazelle I believe. Luckily I didn’t see any of the lions or buffalo which are supposed to also be in the park, as I’m not sure what I would have done being on a bike. Certainly would have been an experience though. I bet a lion or two saw me from a distance though, there was quite a bit of long grass, but from what I hear they’re not too fond of humans. We’re probably a bit too fatty for their tastes. Anyway, then I came to the gorge bit that you’re supposed to be able to walk around, but you’re not allowed without a guide, which you have to pay 500-1500 ksh for, and I only had 400 left. So I carried on cycling up the hill, despite the recommendation from the warden lady at the gorge who said I should just go back the way I came. Actually what I did was push the bike very slowly up the very steep steeeeep hill, and then rest at the gate at the top for a minute to remove the stone from my shoes. The guard at the gate then asked me if I would like to see the geothermal power plant section I was sat next to, so I of course said yes! He took me around into the fenced off area, and showed me where pipe goes into the well was that was drilled 4km into the volcano (oh yeah, we were on an old volcano) and through which the steam vapour comes rushing up to be split into water and steam which then goes through all these pipes to power turbines and stuff. Anyway, it was all very cool (although the pipes were very hot, haha). The pipe was too hot to actually touch, which I know because they guy kept encouraging me to touch them and so I almost burned my fingers. This water that comes off goes into this pool, the top part of which you can boil an egg in, and then it’s a bit cooler in the man-made pool. It smelled a very sulphuric though, but the guy was telling me that the water is very good for your skin if you bathe in it every day, as he washed his hands in it, so I bent down and did the same, but boy was that water hot!

So after that visit I cycled on, and on, and on. It was mostly tarmacked from that point, but still very hilly, like, long slow hills. So it seemed to take forever to get back and there wasn’t much in the way of animals in that part of the park. Seems pointless calling it part of the park really, it’s so full of pipes and geothermal factories that I wouldn’t be anywhere near if I were an animal either. There were some great views of Lake Naivasha on the way back though, and I had some great comments from locals on bikes urging me on and stuff. Also from one guy while I was walking up the last bit of a long gentle hill (I’d cycled most of it!!) who said something along the lines of that I should be on the bike not pushing it, which was all very well for him to say, he was sat on the back of a bicycle boda boda, with someone else doing the pedalling!! Anyway, the guy on the gate on my way out was very impressed that I had cycled round the whole thing, and by the time I had gone the next 10km back to the place I was staying I was oh so very proud of myself. Must have been over 30kms I did that morning. I would have stayed longer if I had known it would take such a short time to get back to Nairobi, but you never can tell these things ahead of time. Sometimes it can take aaages to do just a short trip. So yeah, that afternoon I went back to Nairobi on the matatu thus ending my fun trip to Naivasha.

Hyrax Hill

Monday 7^th June 2010

Well hello,

I am currently sat in the room of a guest house in Malindi, looking out over the sea from my bed, and waiting for Philip to finish in the shower. It is most lovely here. We were staying at Kipepeo in Lamu for the last couple of nights but it was a bit small and I’m sure we could have found better elsewhere, if only I’d had the updated copy of the guide book! J

So, I thought that while I wait I would try and catch up on my blogging. But I might not get very far. I believe I had got as far as telling you about Kariandusi, so I have Hyrax Hill and Naivasha/ Hells Gate National Park to talk about.

So after visiting Kariandusi I took the matatu up the rest of the way to Nakuru and after grabbing a few essentials for breakfasts I called the place I was staying as they had said they would come and pick me up for free. I had thought that was awfully nice of them, but it turns out they were just going to send someone to get in a tuk-tuk with me. Hmph. Which I had to pay for. Still, my first tuk-tuk ride. Wooo! It wasn’t that great really, it was just rather slow, the one I took today was far nicer. Anyway, once there he had me choose a room, which I did, and kind of settled my stuff in. Then I wandered down the road to the Tuskys to buy some things for dinner, but i ended up just getting an instant noodle thing instead of the big plans I’d had. Probably better as there was only one gas cyclinder thing, and the bloke made dinner for him and the other Kenyan guy who was staying there so it wasn’t for a while until I could use the stove. But I’m jumping ahead of myself. On my way to Tuskys I had a moment of ‘shiiiit, what kind of place am I staying in!’ and rang Kerry whose aunt lives in Nakuru and who had offered to find out if I could stay there while in the area. In the end I didn’t go there, her aunt was away and instead of staying three nights like I had planned I instead decided to go straight to Nakuru after visiting Hyrax Hill the next day. I guess the place I was staying wasn’t so bad really, it was just very quiet and I was expecting to see a few more people there. But never mind, I had a bed, and I only got bitten a couple of times while I was downstairs. Then the next morning I got up not particularly bright and early and rang Yego, the curator of the site, who had said he would pick me up from town. Turned out I was staying directly opposite the road leading to the site so I just walked it instead.

I arrived at Hyrax Hill and Yego had already called ahead and arranged for a guide to meet me and show me around until he arrived himself. I think his name was Jackson. Anyway, he was very very good, and showed me around the museum giving me the complete history of the site, what was found there, etc etc. For the uninitiated, Hyrax Hill is an archaeological site consisting of an iron age fort and a more recent settlement site, but I can’t remember the details at the moment. :P He took me up to look at the hollows that were used at a base for a corral type thing, with little huts next to the entrance way to guard against intruders and look after their cattle. Then a bit further up was a green grassy patch, which had been the site of a hill fort, apparently. How I love hill forts. Anyway, we went further up and up, and reached the very top of the hill where I had a good view of Lake Nakuru and took some nice photos. I could even see the pink of the flamingos.