Blogs from Mt. Kenya, Central Province , Kenya, Africa

Us & the team were all picked up from Meru Bandas at 7am after watching a beautiful dawn and driven down the track through the bamboo and hardwood forests and out of the National Park. Sadly we didn’t see any elephants on the way. We were driven through lots of coffee, tea & banana plantations and tall grass for cattle feed. We had a brief stop to show us a tea plantation and were told how they just pick the top two leaves every 7-10 days - after hiking the mountain our legs did not appreciate the steep loose soil slope up to get there! We also passed the tea market and coffee processing plants in the village. We then headed to Chogoria where we waited for Moses in a café that had amazing fresh juice ... read more

As we felt ok with the altitude (with the help of Diamox!) we skipped the acclimatisation day and instead used this day to hike the 5km up to the next hut which would significantly cut down the night hike tomorrow morning. Whilst holding the dodgy toilet door shut for Chavaunne I got a lovely view of a mountain eagle! There were also several rock hyrax handing around the camp. The hike started with a nice gentle incline up the valley then went steeply up the scree slope, which we needed to take very “pole pole”! The only vegetation up here was some moss, lichen and a scattering of pretty yellow flowers. After what felt like ages but was only a few hours we made it over the ridge down to the Austrian Hut at 4790m by ... read more

Monday morning Speck is up early and looking for monkeys. He heard they could be seen in Nyeri but has yet to find any. This day David has been recruited to drive the Mercedes to Nanyuki. At 11am Mother, Caroline, Karuoya, Daniel and Speck are all in the car and on the way. On route they stopped at Narumoro, where Baba Kimathi is a member of a cooperative that has constructed retail space for rent. There many souvenirs were obtained before continuing on to Nanyuki. Shortly before they reached Nanyuki, the car reached the equator, everyone debarked and photos were taken with a sign marking the equator. Lunch at Muthui's was delicious, chicken, goat, 2 kinds of chapati, stew, potatos, and fantastic guacamole. Joanne Muthui had enjoyed seeing Speck and Caroline so much on Sat that ... read more

Today Speck will be introduced to the rest of the family and extended family. The rooster wakes him up several times and he finally surrendered at 9 am. Breakfast is a couple pieces of arrow root, a sort of purpleish potato, and tea. Everyone is in preparation mode, the plan is to eat at 1pm before the church elders arrive, then at 3 have a kind of ceremony, and then afterwards Speck will go through a dowry ceremony. In expectation of needing some money, Speck and Caroline went to Nyeri town and hit the ATM, then a quick stop at the grocer and back to the house. Speck and Caroline grab showers and get ready and shortly after 1pm are ready to eat. They are given some confusing instructions and then are left waiting. 2pm comes, ... read more

We only allocated one week of our itinerary toKenya, and the Kenyans seemed a bit insulted by this. We were told that most visitors toKenyawould divide their time betweenNairobi,Mount KenyaNational Park, the Maasai Mara National Reserve, andMombasaon the coast. Our itinerary merely had us spending one night inNairobi(at the beautifulFairviewhotel, called an “oasis in the middle ofNairobi” for a reason) before being picked up for a 5-day trek upMount Kenya. Our reasoning was that we had already seen landscape and wildlife very similar to what could be found in Maasai Mara in the Serengeti, and that coastalKenyawas supposed to be very similar toZanzibar, where we had spent a week. This being said, I would love to go back and spend some more time inNairobi. We had been warned that this was one of the most dangerous ... read more