Lake Naivasha: Boats, Bikes, Hikes

We rented a tent that also came with personal mattresses and blankets. We were lucky that the unseasonably Nairobi cold had not made it’s way up to Lake Naivasha, well as much. The food was also delish – mmm wood fire pizzas!

We arrived there around sunset via personal driver, the matatus were going to take too long, a 2 hour drive to a 5 hour drive and our driver gave us a deal. We situated ourselves, walked around the site and rented our mountain bikes for the bike to Hell’s Gate in the AM. We had dinner and drinks at the restaurant. It was by candle light, right next to the lake. I was pretty happy.

The next day we woke up early to beat the crowds and for the optimal chances to see animals in Hell’s Gate. It was about 5km bike ride on really bumpy roads and dirt paths just to get to the park. It was cool biking up to the gate and paying the entrance fee, then just biking on through. It was so different from the large park experience. For the most part in the morning it was just the two of us biking surrounded by these huge cliffs/rock mountains that looked like Pride Rock, right out of The Lion King, as well as extinct volcanoes. It is such a majestic sight. Also, it was awesome to just bike through and see animals on the side of the road. No dangerous and exotic animals like cats or elephants, but still the view of zebras, gazelles and wart hogs within feet of you totally exposed was awesome!  We also took a guided 1 hour hike through a small gorge that had extreme hot and springs/streams (so hot/cold) and varying types of ecosystems where molten lava and obsidian were found. We biked back and took it easy. Biking 15-20 miles for me is not easy, still working on my “Johnson-ness.”

Again woke pretty early and headed out to hike Mount Longonaut. Mount Longonaut, while close was still a ways away for us as we did not have a car. We started by Matatu, our first in fact.  We jumped in and there it was. Picking up people on the side of the road via cat call. The jammed packed bus filled with babies, kids, adults and elderly, maybe even a chicken or two. The music was loud, but I liked it. We headed into the town of Naivasha where we exchanged Matatus for the one headed to Mount Longonaut, though achievable, was a bit chaotic. We hoped on the next matatu not knowing how/when we should initiate our exit. However, we struck up a conversation with a nice local man who told us it was time, even got off with us and then made a connection with our next form of transport, a motorbike. We met two guys, kids actually took us the rest of the way there. We were still a good 7 miles away from the start up the mountain. The motorbike was fun. Aaron on one, me on the other we headed off road in the dirt toward the mountain. When we arrived we came across some weery hikers who were covered in dirt/dust. Some children simply looked like they didn’t have eyebrows or eyelashes, as they were covered. “Good Luck!” Or “Get ready” were some of the expressions we heard. And once we started up, we understood why. The path was mostly straight up in dusty dirt that flew at you at all directions. But the closer we got to the top, the expressions turned to “You almost have it!” and “it is absolutely worth it.” Panting and tired we reached the top, and the other hikers were right. What laid in front of us was a crater, rich with a dense green forest and it was so cool being atop the edge at over 9,000 ft on a dormant volcano. It was sooo worth it!

On our way down we met some girls, while students at Columbia in NYC were South African and Mongolian natives. They were in East Africa for the summer interning for some pretty cool organizations that our worthy of do-gooding impact. We struck a friendship and to our luck were thinking about staying at our campsite, so we caught a ride with them back. On the way I convinced them that they had to go on the Hippo Safari with us.

They agreed and I’m glad they did as we had so much fun! We met another couple who were looking to join our boat safari, which helped our cause to get the boat ride cheaper. We drove out while it was sunny and returned at sunset. And we saw hippos. Super close! Sometimes too close. At one point one of our boat mates asked the driver to back up, as the hippos would get really close, then go under and you were nervous where they may pop up! The feeling of fear, definitely added to the excitement and fun!

Woke up early and headed out by matutu. Again, a chaotic and stressful experience, since our big bags had to be tied to the roof of this beat up van, by a single string and we were winding through roads on mountains where if the string were to loosen or break, there goes our stuff. We also had to change matatus an extra time, which we were assured before it was “no problem.” When we had to get off, about 20 mins outside our destination all the matatus we needed were full and we were waiting on the side of the road, getting harassed until FINALLY a bus came that we could at least aboard, certainly not comfortably. But we made it back to our “home” Nairobi/Junction.