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.