Hell's Gate

We actually took an afternoon off purely for recreation!  After saying good bye to the CR Rotarians, Terry and I went to Hell's Gate National Park at Lake Naivasha.  This park has no preditors -- well, there are leopards, but they assured us we wouldn't see any -- so you can ride bikes through the park.  At the bike rental place (about 2 km from the front gate -- why they wouldn't just rent bikes at the gate is beyond me) I said hello to two young mzungus.  I am making a point of introducing myself to mzungus -- it just felt too weird being ignored.  Anyway, these two young guys had been camping in the park.  One was and Auzie named Jono!  I told him that my Jono was heading off to Vegas in a couple of days with his buddies.  This Jono said that he will regret not coming with me one day.  The other guy said that he regrets that Vegas even exists.

Anyway, the road sucked (bouncy), and so did the bikes (clunky and slow), but it was so worth it.  We passed zebras, gizelles, wart hogs, and water buffalos.  I didn't get any pictures of the buffalos because ... yep, I was too scared.  After hearing that the most dangerous animals in the game parks are hippos and WATER BUFFALOS, I wasn't about to stop and take a picture.  I just made Terry come back and get me (he only has one speed and that's faster than me) and pedalled my little heart out passed them.  I was pretty sure that the park folks wouldn't let us in with bikes if anything was likely to attack us, but logic doesn't really get a voice when I scared!

It was about an 8km ride to the gorge, where we went for an hour guided walk -- would have liked to have taken the three hour tour, but I wasn't at all interested in getting caught in the park after dark, though Terry would have been all for it.  We were chatting with our guide, John, about his life as a Maasai.  He says things are improving as more schools are being built.  When he was in school, he had to walk 25 km each way to and from school every day.  He quit in class 6 after too many of his friends had died from animal attacks on the way to school.  Education wasn't worth risking his life.  Now, though, his younger brother is finishing Form 4 as a school has been built closer to their home.  John will look for work after he finishes the "community service" time (he is a volunteer at the park).  All Maasai are expected to do community service for a number of years before they are free to go an work.  We asked John what he will do for work -- he is up for anything.  He knows his options are limited because of his limited education.  He hopes to get something better than working at a flower farm because they only make 6,000 =/ per month (about $70/month).

Anyway, LOOK AT THE GORGE!  Flash floods keep carving the gorge deeper and deeper.  John is pointing to graphite from "Phil 1992" at least 10 metres up where the ground used to be.

I might have been a little scared climbing out -- hey, it was slippery and I was in flip flops -- so John took my hand (he was wearing dress pants and dress shoes) and just marched me right up!  I'll put more pics up on fb, ugh, this was SO COOL!

After biking back to the gate, we were having a drink before we headed out and look who we ran into!