Lake Naivasha and Hell's Gate

This past weekend I travelled to Lake Naivasha and Hell's Gate National Park. I left Nairobi around 7:30 Saturday morning and got to Fisherman's Camp, a campground right on the lake, at around 9:30. I rented a tent from the campground and after they pitched it for me (how nice), I dropped off some my stuff in it and got a taxi to take me about 3 miles down the road to Hell's Gate National Park.

Hell's Gate is cool because it's one of the only national parks in Kenya that you can walk or ride a bike through (you don't have to stay in your car). I rented a shiny new mountain bike for the day for about $6 and set off into the park. Once you enter the park it's about an 8km ride through on a really dusty road until you get to Hell's Gate Gorge. There are big rocky cliffs on either side of the park and i saw a ton of animals on the way: zebras, giraffes, antelopes, buffaloes, and baboons (not sure if some of those plural forms are correct). Some of the zebras were grazing really close to the side of the road, and after I determined they wouldn't attack or stampede me the ride was much more pleasant.

When i got to the Gorge, I parked my bike and hiked about a 1.5 hour loop through it, and got a little lost--I thought I was supposed to follow this path up a hill for a while, then realized I wasn't when the path was like 6 inches wide with a 200 foot drop to my right. I asked myself, "what would Macgyver do?" then slowly inched my way back down while holding onto roots and thick branches.

I gave both of my cameras to a sketchy stranger to take this picture

So, after I didn't die in/on the Gorge, I got back on my bike and rode back through the park. The whole trip was about 6 hours and I was exhausted and covered in dust when I got back. I watched some of the World Cup in the restaurant at the campsite (apparently I'm one of the few people here who couldn't care less about it) and met two Americans who were studying in Nairobi for the summer. They were planning to take a boat trip to Crater Lake Game Sanctuary the next morning, so i decided to do that with them. I went to bed pretty early because I didn't bring a flashlight and there were monkeys running around the campsite so I didn't want to stay out too late.

Our boat left at 8 the next morning so I got up pretty early. It was us 3 Americans, our guide, and someone running the little canoe/motorboat. The trip to Crater Lake took about 1.5 hours because our guide was showing us stuff along the way. We passed a family of hippos in the water and our boat got really close to them and was making them angry--they were jumping around and snarling and it was pretty scary--apparently hippos are the most deadly animals in kenya/africa/the world or something.

No hippos in this picture


When we got off the boat we walked to a lookout point over Crater Lake. On the way we saw tons of giraffes/zebras/monkeys/antelopes/etc. It was really cool, you could get as close to them as they would let you (unlike at hell's gate where you had to stay on the main path). That trip lasted until about 1pm, then we relaxed at the campsite for a while and I rode back with them in a car they had arranged earlier.

Giraffes are kinda cool

Hmmm...what else....Oh yeah. When I got to the campground I asked where the bathrooms were. They pointed to three small outhouse-type buildings lined up in a row. I went to use the first one but someone was cleaning it, and she told me to use the third one. When I got back from Hell's Gate, an enormous tree had fallen on the third bathroom and all that was left was tiny splinters of wood.