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.