Highway to Hell

So this post is about a week and a half overdue, but a couple weekends ago (16/8 and 17/8) we went to Lake Naivasha and Hell's Gate.

We left early Saturday morning and made the five hour van ride to the place we were staying, Camp Crescent at Lake Naivasha (named after the crescent crane). This time, we had some new additions to the group! Two IU Med School residents and one from Brown. They were a fun, welcome addition to our posse, and I know that Katie was certainly excited to not be the only female in attendance. The place we stayed was incredible. My classmates called it "glamping", or glamourous camping. I had never heard the phrase before and played along because I wanted to be cool like everyone else, but in reality I didn't much care for it. Despite my distaste for the attached colloquialism, our "tents" were the bees knees. Here's a couple pictures below:

So we dropped off our bags in our tents and clambered back into the van to head to Hell's Gate. Hell's Gate is a national park established in 1984 just south of Lake Naivasha, and is named because of the narrow break between the cliffs according to its Wikipedia page. We arrived at the gate and paid our entry fee. Because I was an ignoramus and forgot my pupil pass back at IU House, I had to pay a little more than everyone else, but it was totally worth every penny… or shilling, rather. First things first, some of our classmates rode bikes a ways along a path while a couple others and I rode in the safari van behind on the way to the start of the hike. Bikes were in limited supply, and seeing as I was already paying extra I figured I'd jump on a grenade for the good of my friends--it had everything to do with my selflessness and nothing to do with trying to save money. I swear. This was our first real safari experience: we saw pumbas (warthogs), zebras, giraffes, water buffalo, Eland and Thompson gazelle, and antelope. It was awesome. At one point we even got to watch two zebras fighting for dominance or territory or maybe because there was some kind of dibs-related misunderstanding on a particularly delicious looking blade of grass. Regardless of their source of disgruntlement, it was highly entertaining to watch. Aside from the wildlife, the scenery was absolutely breathtaking. Cliffs, plateaus, trees; there is land untouched by man in America to a degree, but nothing that I've seen even comes close to what Africa is like. Square miles upon square miles (miles^4?) of seemingly infinite plants and mountains and animals. It is quite a sight to see.

Finally, we arrived at the entrance to our hike. There were a bunch of monkeys crawling around everywhere. There were some other tourists there handing them banana peels and they were running around like crazy. Katie referred to them as "the squirrels of Africa," which I thought was apropos. After playing watching the monkey's mess around for a bit, we began our hike.

Our hike through the canyons was one of my favorite activities we've done since being here. It involved a lot of climbing, jumping from rock to rock, taking off your shoes and wading through some knee-deep water--it felt like being a kid, and I loved every minute of it. I did some climbing that would have made my mom nervous but it was so exhilarating. Not to mention getting to observe the awesome canyon, the views, and even the Devil's Bedroom where all the baboons sleep. Unfortunately they weren't there, so no baboon-sightings. Still, it was awesome.

When it was all said and done we went back to the glampsite (ugh), ate dinner, and pretty much all passed out. We woke up the next morning, packed up our things, checked out, and hopped on a couple boats to take a quick one-hour tour of Lake Naivasha. It's home to a bunch of different birds and hippopotamuses… hippopotami? Whatever, you get it, hippos. We kept our distance obviously; for those of you who don't know, hippos are extremely territorial and considered the most dangerous animal in Kenya. Still, we got lots of pictures and had lots of fun. I'm not gonna lie, I'm getting sick of writing this post so I'll play you out with some pics and talk to you all later.

"A friend is someone you share the path with." ~ African proverb