This weekend we did some more exploring of this amazing country we are in; but in an alternative way!
We left at 6am on Saturday morning to meet our guides in Nairobi. After meeting up we headed to the Ngong Hills, just south of Nairobi for a hike. It took a total of 3 hours and the views we had were spectacular. After hiking to the top of the hills, we spotted a giraffe who would be on our route to meet the safari vans. Luckily when we got down to his level, he was still there.... along with another 30 or so ranging from babies to fully grown males and females. We ended up surrounded by giraffes that were closer than I ever thought I would get to them in the wild! It was truly amazing!
After meeting up with our transport, we headed further south to Olorgesailie. This is an excavation site where early human tools have been found. It is part of a larger project in many countries in Kenya, unearthing the story of early humans and all of our ancestors. It is a fascinating story and you can read more here:
Next we headed to Lake Maghadi. This is a natural salt lake and has an entire township built around a factory for extracting the soda from the water. It was a British company but has recently been sold to Tata. It is very weird to see a whole town dedicated to one thing but it does provide housing, schooling and heath care town, which is a lot more than some other Kenyan towns.
Further on in the lake is a hot spring so we stopped off there and went for dip. It was really hot and left our skin feeling smooth and refreshed. It was getting late at this point so we headed to our camp for the night. We stayed in a Masai village where the local woman's group has build a small house and some outside straw-roofed huts. It was very warm so I stayed outside and we watched the moon rise over the mountains. It was very cool and a privilege to stay there.
Sunday morning started at 5.30. We headed to the Shompole Conservation Area. Not a lot of tourist go here (we didn't see any) but it is the home to a really expensive hotel called Shompole Lodge which has been visited by the very rich in the world. It is so remote that you have to fly to its private air strip! Lake Natron is mainly in Tanzania but a small part of it pokes into southern Kenya so we headed to see that. Our guide then took us on a walk around the outside of the lake where we saw hundreds of thousands of Flamingos. Again we were the only people there; including our guide there was a total of 6 people around the lake.
After this we headed home (it was a long drive!) to Machakos. Photos will follow!
We are all shattered heading into our last work week but also very excited to deliver our reports to the clients.
RA
#ibmcsc #kenya4
No comments:
Post a Comment