Adam’s Blog Post

July 22, 2019 – Day 5 in Kenya, Day 7 of our trip.

After waking up at 7:00 and leaving by 8:00, our group left the hustle and bustle of Nairobi for the rural Rift Valley. On the bright side, this will mean more sun and warmth than we’ve had so far on the trip, but many of us have gotten more bugbites today than we did over the past 5 days, so we’ll see how that works out. On the way down, Patrick drove through the clouds, and we got to take pictures from a lookout point along the highway. This would prove to be the last relaxing moment for the rest of the morning.

An hour later, we arrived at Mount Longonot, which sticks out of the Rift Valley as prominently as a ball in a disappointed neighbor’s lawn. Our physical activity for the day was to be provided by hiking the 3.1 km from the gate of the park to the top of the mountain through plains, volcanic ash, and a few clouds. After the first 20 minutes of hiking, packs started to emerge, with Edwin, and the boys leading, followed by the girls, the Zumari group, and our vigilant supervisors, taking anywhere from 1-2 hours, but the view was worth it!

When the first goup arrived at the summit, we couldn’t see more than 15 metres ahead of us, but about an hour later, the clouds cleared, and we got a view of just how truly massive the volcano was. It was a 7 km walk around the rim, so most groups stayed close to the way we came while we waited for stragglers to arrive and see the volcano for themselves before beginning the descent, which was far less physically demanding than the climb, but still demanded a fair amount of dexterity to avoid slipping in the now sun-baked volcanic sand which kicked up plumes of dust behind our group and left our shoes a few shades whiter than when we left. We even got to see giraffes and zebras on the way down, something which is apparently a first for any of the previous trips, and had Alison doing tippy-tappy dances in excitement.

Most of the afternoon was spent on the bus, driving to Nakuru and settling into our beds for the night, where I am currently writing this blog post.

TO BE CONTINUED.