Where is Mt. Kenya? Oh, it’s in Kenya.

I got back to Nairobi and ran errands/relaxed for the next two days. I met some cool people around the hostel; namely, a bunch of Dutch guys who were there for school/work and Erin Clark, a girl from San Diego who had actually been in the Peace Corps for the past two years with a good friend of mine from MN, Bryce Gloppen. Small world! I hung out with her and her brother before they left for the beach and I left for my four day hike up Mt. Kenya.

I met at the office at eight a.m. and found out that I was hiking with another girl who was actually from North Carolina but lives in Western Massachusetts. Her name is Elissa; a 26 year old who was working as a deaf interpreter when she was in Kenya with the Peace Corps two years ago; she had to be pulled out early due to the post-election violence and has been in MA since. We spent most of the day in matatus. After having lunch in a restaurant, we met up with two Dutch kids and a German girl who were hiking with us, as well. The first day was an easy, 9km uphill walk along a road to the Old Moses camp at 3300 meters. We went through the bush and an open, charred area that had been burned in an accidental fire back in January. It was so sad to see how much of the area was destroyed due to someone’s carelessness. We stayed in a big dorm room which was freeeezing. Upon arrival, we had teatime and dinner (which consisted of massive amounts of food that neither of us could consume even half of) before heading to bed early.

We were up at six and out the door by seven the next day. The view here was better since we were in areas not destroyed by flames. We went up over and down a massive valley, then along cliff sides and rocky paths through dense clouds up to the second hut. We got in after about eight hours. We had dinner while playing cards (though the deck was a couple short) until maybe eight p.m. when we tucked ourselves in our sleeping bags with hot water bottles to get a few hours of sleep before our three a.m. wake up call. We started hiking a little before four in the morning to try and summit by sunrise. I made sure to highly caffeinate for the long, steep hike. We trekked slowly under the stars (I saw TWO shooting stars!) because the terrain consisted of crumbling rocks and the altitude was making breathing a struggle. Elissa was having difficulty with the altitude, so we had to make a lot of stops. I kept trying to give her tips to move easier because I knew exactly how she was feeling from when I hiked to Mt. Everest Base Camp. However, I didn’t want to sound like a know-it-all, either; I know I easy get pissy when I’m struggling physically and knew that that would not have helped. The sun was lifting when we were overlooking a beautiful lake. Sammy, our guide, took her pack and we made it to the top at almost eight a.m. The view was stunning! Brown/orange rocks jutting into the sky with lakes and plateaus in the distance and a glacier hanging out behind us.

We hiked three hours to our breakfast spot where we passed out for a bit, then had to continue down four hours past the lakes and some crazy plants/flowers (see flickr account for all of this photos, they provide a better picture than my words do when describing nature) to our lunch spot in a small clearing along a babbling brook. We then had to walk another 7km down a road to our camping spot. We had a proper two person tent to share where I immediately huddled in a ball, only to escape for a quick dinner and a hot water bottle to shove down my shirt in order to be warm enough to sleep.

The next day, we had to walk 32 km down a road to town for a matatu. I was miserable because my knee was killing me (too many marathons too close together, I can only assume). at 22km, a man with a car offered to drive us for 400ksh—yes!!! We had a lunch of Kinyedji (sp?) which is mashed potatoes with peas, maize, and beans and then spent about four hours on an extremely crowded matatu to get back to Nairobi.