Around Fisherman's Camp and Hell's Gate National Park

14/11/11

On the 12th, we had a nice mellow day.  We walked up to the little "town" an bought some melon, and orange (which are green outside; let's call them greenges), a mango, an avocado, and two tomatoes all for 60 Ksh--that's 60 cents for all you back home.  We walked down the street looking at the shops.  We then headed back to camp and shared a couple beers, Tusker (the local Kenyan lager), while we read about what to do the next day.  After that we wlked back to town and had an early dinner at the Acacia Cafe.  There seemed to be only one option, a bowl of peas with a whole potato and some cabbage.  We had some chapati (almost like thick tortillas) with it.  The food was pretty good and we watched some TV in the corner while we ate.
After eating we went back to camp and hung out on the picnic table with our neighbors, Sam and Gloria, a couple from Nairobi.  They were celebrating one year from their first date.  The camp had filled up a bit, as had the bar and we enjoyed our time away from it talking with them.  Eventually we sparked up the fire and moved there to continue our visiting.
They were very interesting and fun to talk with.  At some point Gloria brought out smokeys for us to heat on the fire.  Carrie declined but did eventually take a bite, her first meat in some 20+ years.  The night was very nice and calm.
The next day we woke pretty early and had a mango, melon, greenge breakfast.  We hired some bikes and prepared to bike to Hell's Gate National Park.  Before we left we met Darren from UK and he asked to come with us.

The three of us biked off for Hell's Gate.  We entered at Elsa Gate and within the first km we saw six or more ostrich.  They were a little way off and we peddled to Fischer Tower where some people were climbing.  There we turned and started up the Buffalo Circuit.  We climbed slightly and saw some giraffes and zebras and another hoofed animal we did not know.
We back-tracked a bit from the zebras and did another circuit.  It brought us up to some views and we saw more ungulates and some carnivore tracks along the road.  Then we dropped back to the Buffalo Circuit.  There were quite a few animals; zebras, giraffe, impala, gazelle, and others.  As we climbed we saw vultures landing and walked off the road to see what they were doing.  Many flew off and we discovered the old remains of a zebra.  It smelled bad.  We walked our bikes most of the way to the highpoint of the road as it was very hot (to us anyway) and humid, and I wasn't feeling very good.
We had a pleasant, steep coast down to to where some boys were herding sheep.  We stopped and said hello and carried on.  We made it to another spot where there were giraffe and zebra and Darren and Carrie convinced me to rest.  I was feeling heat exhaustion coming on.  I rested while they walked toward the zebra.  From there it was a short distance to finish the circuit and then 2.6 km to the Ranger Post and the start of the walk down the Lower Gorge.

We stopped and ate the avocado and some snacks while watching a monkey and some baboons, pumped some water--thankfully there was some there as Carrie and I didn't have enough--and hired a guide, John, a local Masaii to take us into the gorge.  Options were short, medium, and long, and we went for the medium walk.
The gorge was pretty and reminded us of canyons we had seen in Utah.  First we went up a side canyon to a sheer-walled pour-over.  On the way to this spot we had a couple of spots which required some climbing moves, one next to a large chockstone, and both with some foot/handholds that had been carved into the rock.  It was a bit more intense than I had expected and our guide, John, made it up and down with the greatest of ease.  He led the walk 3-5 times daily so we weren't surprised.  He was very helpful to us getting up and down.  When we made it to the pour-over he scrambled right up the 20-30 foot wall.  That is where I decided "no more," but he was only showing off.
We turned around and went down the main canyon.  Within we were shown a couple hot springs.  It started thundering and raining and we went down one steep step and then another tight squeeze, which I was afraid to climb back up.  Fortunately we exited the canyon another way.  John stopped and showed us a little hole that had red mud that he said the Masaii used to paint their hair and faces.  He put some on our cheeks and foreheads.  We walked back to the start with thunder, lightning, and fairly heavy rain.  It felt great, though, with how hot I had been before.

We then got back on our bikes after most of the rain passed and biked home.  We walked a ways as our bottoms hurt from so much biking.  We saw many animals, with some new ones from earlier; warthogs mainly and what I believe was two separate secretary birds.  They were big.  As we were biking back to the gate there was a whole troop of baboon.  There were a lot of babies holding onto mothers as they walked, youngsters, and the large patrolling male or two.  We made it back to camp, had dinner at the restaurant and passed out early, exhausted after 40 km biking with a short walk in between.  Hell's Gate had been great.