Going Up-country

So after changing my flight nearly a week went passed without me doing anything and it felt like staying in Kenya had been a waste of time. I kept asking Peter for things to do and they kept falling through. Changing my flight again would have been too expensive so I knew I'd just have to stick it out although Nairobi was beginning to feel like a prison.

There's only so many times you can wander around the same park and only so much Swahili you can learn without help (I find anyway) and only so many books you can read before you run out of books. I felt like I should have been at home looking for a job instead of over heating in this stuffy city doing nothing except breathing in lungfulls of black smoke and eating endless plates of pilau rice. I began to feel like I was being held under water and needed to come up for air.

Finally on the Saturday we managed to pull together a meeting of the youth film club in Pumwani. I got to watch one of Kenya's top films of recent times, "Malooned" and discuss it with a bunch of high school students afterwards. It was hard to tell if it had been helpful to them as they didn't react much but I've found that Kenyans don't give much away, sometimes it's hard to prize anything out of them (like directions to somewhere). Then I had nothing to do again until the following Thursday.

Saturday night was Rachel's last evening in Kenya. She'd also been hanging around waiting for someone to give her things to do, although obviously her "things" included bats but she felt her opportunities had run out and it was time to move on. I felt a lot more inspired after talking to her. I'd wanted to take a trip to Hell's Gate National Park as it's about the only one you can walk around in by yourself but didn't think I could afford it. When Rachel told me you could hire a bicycle to go round and I pictured doing that instead of sitting in Jevanshee Gardens in Nairobi yet again I knew I had to go. Her answer was to put it on my credit card, mine was to try and do it with the money I had. Even if I had to eat nothing but beans and ugali for the next 10 days it would be worth it.

I got up at 5.30am on Monday and got a Matatu while it was still dark, risky but it was the only way I could get into town early enough. It turned out to be a wasted early start. Matatus don't leave at set times, they wait until they're full and then go. This works fine on the shorter local routes which fill up fast and there are always plenty of vans going anyway but sometimes on the longer journeys there just aren't enough people who want to travel (despite the driver's futile attempts to pull random passersby off the street on the offchance that they might want to go to Lake Naivasha for the day).
I got fed up after waiting half an hour and then found out my fellow patient Kenyan passengers had been there for considerably longer. There was a lot of complaining and shouting back and forth with the operating team who had already taken our money and didn't care what we thought. If Kenyans are getting fed up with this way of running public transport I think it must be on its way out soon. I don't think they liked me much as I got dropped in Naivasha on the side of the road without any further help but I found Hell's Gate easily enough. Rachel was right, they hired bicycles for a reasonable price and I was off. Unfortunately I was so eager I didn't stop to stock up on water, rookie mistake.

I presume you're allowed round Hell's Gate on foot due to the lack of dangerous animals, there are no elephants, rhinos, leopards or lions there. The park is actually a huge natural gorge in the rocks so you cycle along surrounded by high red cliffs on either side which make pretty spectacular scenery even without the animals. I'd only been going a few minutes however when a herd of zebra came down the hillside in front of me. Having been in Tsavo East where you have to stay in the van at all times this was like being set free in a sweet shop. I was able to stand within a few feet of zebras, wharthogs and, surprisingly giraffes. It was a surprise because the guidebook didn't mention there were any giraffes in Hell's Gate, definitely a highlight of the day, coming round the corner and seeing a long face peering at me through the tree tops. There were buffaloes too which watched me warily as I passed. They are a dangerous animal if irritated.

I wondered why there weren't more incidents of animals attacking humans as, despite the warning signs people are prone to some very stupid behaviour sometimes. But I think once you get close enough to these creatures and become aware of their true size and strength and that they could out run your bicycle if they wanted to its easy enough to follow the rules and stay away. I also saw ostritches in the distance looking like big clumps of feathers on legs, their heads always on the ground and many different types on antelope and buck.

As well as not mentioning the giraffes neither the guidebook or Kenya Wildlife Service had mentioned how steep some of the paths were. By half way round I was exausted, having to push my bike and I'd run out of water. The next two hours were a mixture of an exhilarating rocky descent on my bike, including coming off a few times (not getting hurt but completely covered in dirt each time) and absolute misery as my thirst increased. When I reached the bottom it was only 5km back to the gate but the wind was against me the whole way. There's also a lot of sand in the park which is impossible to ride in, only a small layer can force your wheel to the side and throw you off leading to constant stopping and starting.

I don't remember ever feeling as thirsty in my life as I was back at the gate. I paid the extortionate 240 shillings for a litre and a half of water and a bottle of coke and managed to not cry in front of the woman who sold them to me. Then I limped the last 2-3 kilometres up the road to the YMCA which turned out to be the perfect end to the day. Not only did they charge me just 500 shillings for the night for a banda which was supposed to be shared but no one else turned up to share it, but the place was beautifully kept. People and poverty mean a lot of areas of natural beauty I've seen in Kenya have been covered in rubbish but the manager of Naivasha YMCA was obviously a keen gardener as well as a tidy man, not a piece of plastic in site just plenty of newly planted saplings and neat pathways.

In the morning I set off through the acacia trees to try and find the lake. It seems to have receeded even further than I'd heard and the land around has been swallowed up by the huge flower growing corporations. I couldn't find the shore just what looked like an outlet from one of the factories and I was about to turn back when I realised a hippo had swum up the stream and was just below me. He didn't like me watching him and climbed out, onto the opposite bank thankfully, but this gave me the perfect opportunity to take his picture.