from the Lion King to the real thing

Last week (wow, can't believe it was only a week ago... feels like a lot more time has passed), I finally went to Hell's Gate National Park near Naivasha in Kenya's Rift Valley. As I mentioned in an earlier post, Hell's Gate is the real life inspiration for Pride Rock in the Lion King. Crew from the Lion King actually went to Hell's Gate. Let's just say the film has a lot more animals than the park... Also, funny enough, Hell's Gate doesn't have any lions. However, this also means that it's safe to walk and cycle in.

(I cycled.)

Fischer's Tower. There are better pictures of it on the Internet but quite honestly it's not that impressive of a structure in person. It's popular for rock climbing which I obviously did not partake in.

Just to the right of my head in the picture above there is a zebra. There were so many zebra in the background but honestly taking a selfie with animals in the background is SO HARD. Oh the struggles of solo travel.

Antelope

I thought Hell's Gate would be a full-day excursion (and brought a lunch of unhealthy snacks in expectation of that), but it really only takes (part of) the morning. It was about 10km biking and 2km walking one-way.

Hell's Gate features a spectacular gorge to walk through. There's a ranger station to drop off bikes at because obviously it would be terribly inconvenient to bring your bike into the gorge. Apparently Tomb Raider, that movie with Angelina Jolie, was filmed here. I haven't watched the movie though, so I can't comment.

While I biked solo to the gorge, I had a guide for the gorge portion of the park... mostly because this guy just started following me even after I told him repeatedly that I did not have enough cash for a guide (I really didn't, but here no one ever believes you when you say you don't have money). I'm pretty sure he was just some random guy because all the other guides I saw were park rangers in uniform and real shoes while this guy was wearing a t-shirt and plastic sandals. With that said, I'm glad he came along because there were a lot of steep areas in the gorge and it was nice to have an extra hand to pull me up when necessary. There are also no signs in the gorge for direction, so I would have completely missed that you were supposed to climb up with this rope.

I had lots of fun! Once I finished the gorge portion I decided to eat the chapati that I packed for lunch on a picnic bench... I had taken about two bites when a monkey came over and snatched it out of my hand. Sneaky thing.