Up the swampy Mt Kenya (Naro Moru route)

Thursday, 7.11.2013

The weather for today didn’t look very optimistic last night. Later in the night heavy rain started, so I was almost sure we are not going up Mt Kenya today even though me, Ilva and Artis had agreed on leaving around 6:30am. Yet in the morning it turned out that Artis is up and ready for the hike whatever the weather and Ilva started to get ready as well. For a couple of minutes I thought it’s not too wise to do this, but since those two were going to go anyway – with or without me, I made up my mind and started to get ready as well. It actually looked promising – wasn’t raining and the sky wasn’t completely covered either.

The road for cars goes up to Meteorological Station which is 3000m high, around 10km past the park gates. Yesterday the driver had assured us that he’s driven there before and would be able to go up there even in these rainy conditions. We hoped that after we’ve been dropped off at met station, we could get to the nice panorama place at around 4000m high, but if we don’t manage that, at least should get above the tree/bush zone somewhere around 3400m.

Got to the gate, paid for ourselves and 1000Ksh for the car entrance. About 2km further along the road the car got stuck when going up the 2nd hill after the park gates and we decided to walk. It had taken some time to get up the first small hill already after getting stuck there as well, and it didn’t look too hopeful if we were going with such a speed and getting stuck on every uphill. The driver said he was going slowly and without run-ups because he didn’t want to end up with one wheel in the much deeper mud on the side of the road in these slippery conditions. But such a speed was not enough to bring us to the top of the hill. It was also almost the time when the driver was expected to collect the others for bringing them to Aberdare National park for animals and waterfalls.

And so we started to walk. It started drizzling not long after that and my rain-poncho turned out to have started to disintegrate. Luckily Ilva had a waterproof jacket and gave me hers. After walking for some half-an-hour or more we heard a truck coming. Some park staff people were going up to Met station and they took us kindly with them in the truck bed. Such a luck! :) We found places to sit (e.g. on the spare tyre) and were holding fast. Their driver was really good and was driving quite energetically to get up the hills. But even with this swift speed his vehicle needed some extra accelerating to be able to go up a couple of steeper places. I cannot imagine our car/driver being able to go there. Also I’m not sure I would be able to drive up there myself with one of the originally booked cars (Toyota Rav4), at least in these conditions, even though those cars would have been smaller and thus lighter.

The hike for the first 1km or so till the Signal station was not bad as the trail was paved yet steep. After that the so called vertical bog started. It wouldn’t have been too bad in dry conditions, but it was all wet, a small stream was coming down the trail and it kept on raining. If anyone of us didn’t have wet feet before we got our lucky ride, they definitely got completely wet here.

The higher we got, the worse the trail became. The stream was coming down in different sections and it was hard to tell which was the real path. It was probably not that important as we were basically trying to step on some patches of grass where it was less water underneath (most of time). Starting from our ride up all we could see was fog when trying to look further away. Up here, where the trees had got scarcer we could see a bit further, however, there was still nothing more than some different section of fog in the distance visible. We noticed here that the trail was actually marked with some high enough white posts. Seeing the next post from the current one in these foggy and rainy conditions was, however, not possible, so we tried to keep on the ridge where the trail was supposed to go. Anders had given us the mountain map and Rudolfs his GPS and I also had a GPS in my phone, but I didn’t want to soak the map by looking into it all the time and it was warmer if I kept the hands inside the rain-poncho anyway.

We were higher than the tree zone now. I realized that I won’t get any scenery at all, so was not determined to go further, but Artis and Ilva wanted to stretch themselves a little more. I gave them the GPS so that they wouldn’t need to wait on me. For a moment it became a little lighter and I continued hoping that something will clear up a bit, but no such luck. The drizzle kept on, it was also rather windy up here and cold therefore with all the moisture in my clothes, so I soon decided to turn back having reached 3600m. Going down was much faster, but it was also much easier to slip. Walking poles would have been useful.

Back at met station I changed some clothes to dry ones and waited for Ilva and Artis. They came soon having reached 3700m. It was still raining and we now had the 10km ahead of us since there was no way our car could pick us up from here. It was also rather early – 2pm – we had planned our time well. Anders sent a message that they’d like to spend 1h more in the park as they reached it very late, and thus pick us up at 6pm. The weather became better and about the half way to the gates sun started to shine and dried us up to some extent. Artis was picking mushrooms (lat. Lepiota) and me and Ilva helped him to spot them. Artis and Ilva went to explore a sound of water rumble, but the waterfall was not found.

At 5pm sharp we were at the gate. Anders had messaged me that they are having some problems getting out of their park and thus reaching us at 6pm, so after a short rest we started to walk the next 10km towards the hotel. There were many deer along the road, but they were not interested in someone trying to photograph them. Artis considered the buffaloes more friendly when they looked at him and his camera with interest from a short distance. I didn’t consider them as friendly as him and walked on.

A couple of hours later and more than a half way till our hotel we were finally picked up. Since it was decided to not go to Nairobi tonight as the driver didn’t want to drive in darkness, we stayed in the hotel and arranged to start driving at 6am tomorrow.

Conclusion1: Even though it was not wise to go up in these conditions, we enjoyed to spend some time outside the car for once.
Conclusion2: It is possible to go from Met station to Picnic stones (path crossroads at around 4000m) and come back in one day if the weather is fine.

Part 1: Turkana republic

Sunday, 3.11.2013
Sunday, it’s been a week since we left Latvia for our trip to watch solar eclipse in Kenya. Today the set wake-up time was 7 AM since we were in no hurry to get to the next destination that was Kolokol near lake Turkana or Lake Rudolf as it was called before. Obviously we departed only after two hours as that’s our normal pace in mornings. Usually when we have a strict plan we can be ready in about 1.5 hours, but today we haven’t got such so we take our time.

Staying here at Lodwar is really nice because we have normal beds and I don’t have any more to wake up several times per night to get back blood circulation in the hand on which I was sleeping. Sleeping in tents has some advantages like being close to nature and being cheap but also sleeping is a bit uncomfortable. Well may be I just should sleep more in tents and this feeling comes from my lack of experience.

So at first we went to Eliye Springs which were located near the Lake Turkana. Eclipse started only at 4 PM so we had some free time to spend. Eliye springs was an excellent place for that. Agnese told us that Eliye springs was once a famous resort but it wasn’t so popular anymore. Roads north from Lodwar were much better than roads till now. Of course there were lot of holes but still we were driving much faster, oh, and there were no speed bumps. Eliye springs is located approximately 60 km from the main road.

To drive to the very resort was rather complicated since there were dunes starting in the proximity of the lake, so the car started to stuck and everyone had to leave the car to get it lighter. The temperature n shadow based on Ilgoni’s thermometer was around + 38 C, not sure how precise was his device, but the day was definitely extremely hot. Also the sun was strong and bright. This was actually the first day when I decided to use the sunscreen as already in the morning one could feel that the day will be hot. And, taking into account that it was planned to walk outside the car, I realized that if I don’t put the sunscreen on, there is a big possibility to get sun-burned. Usually I don’t use anything like that.

There were quite many people in the resort, music was playing, one could immediately see that many tourists have come, of course, to see the eclipse. For me the most surprising thing was an outdoors swimming pool as I didn’t expect to see anything like that in a perishing resort and at first I didn’t find it sensible at all. Later I understood as the water in the lake was very warm, too warm to cool down. When I went into the lake it felt like we could spend there the whole day, but of course, it gets boring after a while, so we went out one by one after a while. The time which was intended to be spent in this resort was only one hour, but I think it was excellently spent as the swim in the lake refreshed us from the horrible heath.

When considering the water of Lake Turkana, it is a bit brownish, but clean after all. If one drives his fingers through the water it seems that the water is a bit soapy. We discussed already when going to the lake that it is most likely caused by the carbonates in the water. When discussing it with Anders, we decided that it’s a sweet-water lake because we couldn’t feel any salt in mouth if swallowing some water and also the water of the lake is used for drinking.

Near the resort, as everywhere in Kenya, there were armed guards with machine guns. But it is a common thing here, so nobody is paying attention to it anymore. Of course, there were local articles as souvenirs under offer – all kinds of wicker baskets and other things that are very liked by older people.

After visiting the resort we went back to the main road to go to the eclipse place. It took an hour from the resort to the main road. The next object to visit in our plan was Namoratunga stones which supposedly have had an astronomical significance. But for me much interesting was the diversity of the sceneries and nature which could be observed while driving rather than a couple of humble stone blocks. The stones were located on the right side of the road, around 20m from the road. It was easy to spot them – they are rather big and cylindrical, dark stones, but yes, in my opinion nothing interesting, not really worth to stop for.

However, the scenery was extremely interesting. For Kenya characteristic mountains in the background, acacias around, all kinds of small thorny bushes, dried river beds. On the roadside one can see camels, donkeys, goats grazing and different small birds. Camels is another surprise of this trip for me as I was sure that all the camels are domesticated, but here one could see rather many of these animals, not looked after by anyone. Of course, I might be mistaken since also for goats it is not often easy to spot the goatherd, however most likely they belong to someone, but it seemed to me that these are animals living in wild. It did not seem that the camels were too interesting for locals. I am not sure about the donkeys whether the ones observed could be classified as wild animals or not as I didn’t see any people.

…to be continued…