easter weekend

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we went to naivasha lake and hell's gate friday and saturday. it was a good trip and a nontraditional but good easter weekend.
i loved hell's gate national park, but at naivasha lake i learned that there are obnoxious, inconsiderate people all over the world!
we went to a campsite right on the lake and it was beautiful. the lake was huge and the site was really nice. at night we were supposed to be able to see hippos when they come out of the water to graze! the majority of the people there when we arrived were families of mostly indians (they are the wealthy group here). we didn't have much food, so we walked up to a "village" along the road to get some fruit and chipatis to take back for dinner. that was fun for me (easy to please!) because it was the first time i have actually bought fruit from a stand along side the road here 😊. they look a little shady at first, but you realize everything looks they way they do here! we brought it back to eat dinner by the lake then went to bed early. we wanted to get up in the middle of the night to see the hippos. around dark time a caravan of loud people pulled up to set up camp - blaring music and loudly talking and laughing until 3 in the morning! there were families all around trying to sleep! not only could we not sleep, i was really worried about the hippos being scared away! regardless of the noise, i got up around 3:30 just in case and saw some large shadows in the distance, down along the lake. I quietly hurried toward the shadows, not taking my eyes away as if they were going to disappear. yup! an entire pack of hippos out of the water grazing! i was so excited! there was an electric fence to keep them away from the campers, but a momma and baby were still incredibly close to me! i didn't seem to bother them- standing frozen by a tree -so i simply watched for about ten minutes. i tried to take pictures but they were too far away for my flash. behind the pair was the rest of the group, standing closer to the bush and water making them harder to see. what a sight! they are such amazing animals -huge and goofy looking, being fat and stumpy. not to mention we hear how dangerous they are, but there they were- just minding their own business, eating their midnight meal. a few minutes later a man caught on to my special viewing, yelled for his friends, turned his car on to shine his lights right at them, and proceded to make ridiculous noises at them. it took less than 15 seconds after that for the hippos to all scatter back into the water and swim away. what an idiot! i not only felt bad for me 😊 but more so for the hippos having their dinner be interrupted! i just hoped they found a better spot to continue their group meal.
after that i just went back to bed, with the neighbors still talking and playing their music.
the next morning, saturday, we headed for hell's gate national park. we didn't have bikes or cars, which is recommended to see the entire park, so we weren't able to see everything, but it made our adventure more unique! we first set up our six person tent again(for three of us) then headed for the gorge, which is what we heard was the best to see. the hike was pretty amazing. we were walking through fields filled with gazelle and zebras with and occasional warthog scattering across the path. i had to stop and laugh at myself because everytime i saw something move i thought it might be a buffalo or one of the "big five" but when it wasn't, i thought to myself "oh, it's just a zebra". "just a zebra"?! zebras are beautiful and up until two months ago, i had never seen one, and after another two months, probably never will again! not to mention, keeping their distance, they do not run from us. groups of anywhere from 10 to 50 zebras would be ahead of us and i had to pinch myself to be reminded of how amazing that sight still should be!
once we reached the gorge a maasi warrior, joseph, wanted to be our guide - no one here does anything for free, but we told him we didn't have any money and he still wanted to guide us! was i glad he did too! also, half of the gorge was in maasi land, so i felt better he was with us. joseph took us through the first section which was the actual gorge. it was an area that was about 10 feet across and . . . well, pretty high up 😊 when it rains, it floods the gorge but then returns to being dry in about 30 minutes. it was beautiful. we had to turn around when we hit a end, but then at a junction, took a turn down another path with water running through another 'gorge' type area, however, this time, much greener. the water was cold on the ground, but the water trickling down the rocks was literally steaming hot! joseph told us the water was hot enough to boil an egg in. i know this may be not be too special, but i have never been around hot water among rocks like that yet! we kept walking/crawling/climbing along while he led us back up and around to the entrace of the gorge. it was another great time - but hard to describe it to do it justice!
we hiked back to our campsite and went to bed early- only after watching the sunset over the cliffs- to get up early with enough time to see some caves and leave before our 24 hour period in the park was up.
at 5 in the morning i woke up easily, but hannah and nicole took a little more time to get revved up 😊 after packing it in on the perfect, early, easter morning we headed to the caves. the hike was different than the day before being less cliffs and more trees and shrubs. the caves turned out to just simply be big rocks, but i am still super glad we checked them out. also, hannah had a surprise waiting around the corner. not only was it easter, but it was my birthday. she earlier, without me noticing, bought a "cake" (i use that term loosely because they don't really have cake here. it was more of hard, dry, sweet bread with hard, dry, chemically frosting!) with candles. she had it waiting for me on a picnic table. hannah and nicole sang happy birthday to me and we proceded with our breakfast. not only was it incredibly thoughtful and a great surprise, it was just in time because we were out of food from our trip into the village and all really hungry! it was a great birthday/easter morning. another great b-day present was that we got a ride back to our bags- which we ditched to make better time on our hike. when we reached them, hannah couldn't find her fleece anywhere. a rock climber asked what we were looking for and, after she informed him, he explained a baboon took it! he watched some curious baboons inspect our bags then grab the fleece and run away with it! not too cool for hannah, but how many people can say they had something stolen by a baboon?! i thought it was pretty hilarious! the truck we were hitching a ride in the back of ended up taking us all the way into naivasha - an hour matatu ride away- so that just made my birthday morning that much better. not to mention it brought back memories riding in the back of a pick up truck through town - right mom and pops!
so we went back home to limuru and headed to the center to spend the rest of easter with the kids who lived there. an easter egg hunt was supposed to have been planned, but the guy who was in town from mississippi, who helps fund the center, stood us all up! it ended up being a good thing though because we got to spend quality time with the older kids. they are away at school during the day - the time we spend there- and the children we help and play with are all younger and mostly from the slums in town. i feel as if i bond better with the younger kids and am not drawn too strongly to the older kids. i think this is simply because the younger children all are so affectionate and outwardly appreciative of your time and attention. they are cuter too 😊 but the older ones usually just hang out and don't want much to do with us. i learned my lesson, however, this weekend - i am ashamed to admit. we all watched wizard of oz in a room, on the floor, and the older kids were the ones who all discretely positioned themselves close to us, and they kept inching even closer. eventually they were holding our hands and playing with our hair. i realized they are still orphans too, with no family, and they appreciate us too, just don't really know how to show it. i am usually so caught up in helping and playing with the 3-5 year olds, that i haven't stopped to think that the primary age kids need my time and attention too. they just still aren't as cute! anyway, i learned my lesson and gave them their due respect.
after the movie we went home to our miserable family and didn't do anything else special for easter. i really dislike them. i could talk more about the dirty looks i get from momma doota and how she is a big bully, but i want to focus on the positive! actually that is a positive too because i am learning to stick up for myself more and speak up when someone is treating me inappropriately! so that is a good experience too!
okay, i am done! i tried to keep it short, but looking over it, i didn't do a very good job! thanks for sticking with it! happy belated eater!

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Comments

[Elaine]

Happy Birthday!
It sounds like you couldn't have celebrated it much better! What an adventure!