Hell's Gate National Park

This weekend I decided that although Nairobi is not one of my favorite places, Kenya as a whole is worth a return visit. I’m in polluted, dusty Nairobi everyday and I sometimes wonder why I came here and then I leave the city and remember.

This weekend I went to Hell’s Gate National Park (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hell's_Gate_National_Park). We left our apartments at 6am to take a matatu into town. Then we walked around for a while trying to find the right bus. We finally found a matatu to take us to Naivasa. We got on the matatu but before leaving for Nairobi we made a pit stop at the local police station. We all had to get off the bus and be searched for weapons and whatever else they were looking for. Thankfully, no one had anything illegal and we got back on the bus and headed for Naivasa. About twenty minutes outside of Naivasa we had to get off the bus again to switch matatus on the side of the road. It was really confusing because our driver just left and didn’t tell us we needed to switch buses but we eventually figured it out. We made it to Naivasa for breakfast and then called a cab to take us to Hell’s Gate.

The driver let us out at the bike rental stand. This is where our adventure really began.  When I went to get on my bike I realized I had probably not been on a bike since I was about eight-years-old. The cab driver felt like he needed to help me get started. It was pathetic. At 20-years-old I had my taxi driver hold my bike up and run alongside me to make sure I didn’t fall. I told him I’d be fine but he didn’t listen. It was embarrassing.

After renting our bikes, we had to take them a mile up the road to the entrance of Hell’s Gate. It seemed easy enough except our bikes didn’t work perfectly and the road was almost impossible to bike on. My wheels locked up once on the way to the gate. I decided to walk most of the way.

We we’re able to get resident passes which saved us a lot of money and then started our journey through Hell’s Gate. Thankfully the roads inside were much better and we could bike. About 10 minutes into our ride my camera battery died. Then we stopped for breakfast next to a herd of antelope and Julia’s breaks broke. I was expecting Hell’s Gate (emphasis on ‘hell’) to live up to its name. Thankfully, I was wrong.

The park was wonderful. Right after the break incident, we biked through a bunch of zebra. There were dozens of them. A few even crossed the road right in front of us. We rode alongside beautiful cliffs for about two hours (thankfully most of it was downhill).  Then we stopped for lunch. After lunch we realized just how much we had walked/biked. I was so sore and the lack of cushion on the bike made it difficult to sit on the bike for long periods of time. We ended up walking most of the way back.

We relaxed for a little at the main gate before taking a matatu back to Naivasa. The driver told us we were going nonstop to Nairobi- he obviously lied. Once in Naivasa, we switched buses to get back home. The problem was there weren’t any sets left on the bus so I sat on Julia’s lap in the very back. We were squeezed in and had a live chicken under our seat (Kenyan is an interesting place). Eventually more seats opened as people got off along the way. The conductor called me up to the front to sit next to him (I’m guessing I looked really pathetic in my contorted position). We eventually started talking about where each other were from and why we were here then he gave me a twig. I was so confused and had no idea what to do with it. He told me it was ‘like candy’ and I could eat it. He told me you’re supposed to pull the bark off and eat it. I had absolutely no intention of eating a twig a stranger gave me but he had given them to a few other passengers and was eating it himself. I had a flashback of Kibera where my tour guide had given me sugar cane to eat. He was excited to have me try something form his country that I had never eaten before. I thought this was a similar situation so I decided one could not hurt me. Obviously it wasn’t poisonous if others were eating it. I peeled the bark off and ate it. It was a little juicy then got really dry and hard to swallow. I knew I would not be trying it again. Then the conductor kept insisting I eat more. That’s when I really realized I would not be eating it again. People are rarely willing to give half of something they have to a complete stranger (especially one they assume has much more money than them). Thankfully, we got off the bus a few minutes later and took a cab back to our apartments.

In the elevator in the apartment complex we asked a Kenyan girl if she knew what I had just eaten. She laughed and said it was a legal drug in Kenya that was highly addictive and created a reaction similar to ecstasy when eaten in large quantities. I later learned that it can also cause your teeth to turn green. The moral of the story is- Do not accept candy or twigs from strangers.

I’ll put up more picture once I steal them form Julia and David.