Hiking Mount Longonot

Wow. I can't believe I'm flying home to Toronto in just three weeks! This Friday the 8th will be my last day in Kianyaga. Afterwards, the plan is to do some more traveling in Kenya for about a week, and then go to Zanzibar in Tanzania.

I spent this last weekend just hanging out in Kianyaga (reading, learning how to make samosas, attempting to make 葱油饼), but the weekend before, we had a long weekend at work. Eid, which is a public holiday in Kenya, was on Tuesday and the office moved our "day off" to Monday since no one at the office is Muslim.

So obviously, I was in Nairobi for the third weekend in a row. I ate a whole pizza on Saturday night and then on Sunday, I went to climb a whole mountain! I went with Emma, who works with me. We brought way too many snacks but they were delicious so it was okay.

We went to Mount Longonot, which is an old volcano near Naivasha, a town about an hour and a half from Nairobi. It's part of the "Great Rift Valley" that runs through the length of Kenya. Nakuru is also part of this region. It's very, very different from Kianyaga - much drier, much more yellow.

Mount Longonot is a very popular day trip from Nairobi, and we assumed that it would be easy to get to by matatu. Our guidebooks told us the same. Lies. By the looks of it, NO ONE MATATUS TO MOUNT LONGONOT (and the Nairobi-ers I spoke to afterwards confirmed this). Either you are a) a tourist, in which case you go with a large, organized group and a driver who drives you there or b) a local Nairobian, in which case you drive there with your friends or family.

Emma and I took a matatu to Naivasha town from Nairobi, and once we got there, the matatu people seemed very confused about this "Mount Longonot", assuming we were going to Longonot town. We finally found a guy who knew we wanted to go to the mountain, so we hopped in his matatu, and as we pass by the mountain off in the distance, he stops the car at the side of the road. There are only a few small shops at the side of the road, this is not a town. He drops us off, points off to the distance, says "That is Mount Longonot." And drives off.

It was actually pretty hilarious. Luckily a motorbike driver was around to take us to the entrance of the park, by passing through unpaved, dry, rocky land. So much for the "clearly marked path" that the Lonely Planet book mentioned. The fact that the weather was cloudy, dark, and mysterious only made it worse.

But thankfully, we eventually arrived. Three hours after leaving Nairobi city centre. And it was so worth it! Gorgeous views. I also realized how terribly out of shape I am.

3.1 km (not 31 km), don't worry

That's meeee!

The classic, Rift Valley landscape

What a brave, lonely tree. I wonder how that happened.

I think this is another volcano?

The day started out really, really grey and foggy, as you can see in the background. My face is super red!

When you get to the top of the mountain, there's a large crater that dips down with lots of trees growing inside. Most of these pictures are from Emma's camera.

It's me again!! Going around the crater.

AND FINALLY, hours later, the weather clears up and the sun comes out.

On our way down we noticed some animal friends in the park! There are three giraffes in the photo below, but we saw a total of five. I suppose we could have walked closer to them, but we weren't sure if it was okay to veer off the path and we didn't want to anger the park rangers. 

I also want to add that I met a lot of Chinese people on the mountain. I found out they were all from one Chinese company in Nairobi that does work related to planes and engineering. They had 20 people come in four cars! The different people I spoke to had been in Nairobi for anywhere from three weeks to thirteen months and were from cities all over China, though I think their company is based in Beijing. I met them in different groups and all of them asked me how old I was. I always ask people to guess and they all guessed correctly. Good for them. (Meanwhile, one of the farmers I was interviewing guessed that I was 12, and one of the shopkeepers in town guessed that I was 25??)

All in all, great weekend.