HELL'S GATE

After a busy week of working in the mission office learning the network system and travel booking, we took a day trip on Saturday up into the Nakuru District in the Rift Valley to Hell's Gate National Park. We saw many of God’s wonders, from awesome rock formations to all kinds of wild game.

We encountered zebra, giraffe, warthog, ostrich, cape buffalo, baboon, elan, gazelle, and dik-dik, a small deer looking animal that hops like a rabbit. There were also many species of different birds.

We hiked on the rock formations and up into an area of small caves.

After a peaceful picnic lunch, we were visited by some mama baboons with their babies hanging on their bellies. One decided she wanted a Tupperware container full of nuts off of our table. She walked right up beside Jan, snatched it and ran. After opening it and dumping out some nuts, she left it behind. It was too funny.. We were warned to watch out for our cameras, that they would take them as well.

We also hiked down into a gorge. There were several hot springs running out of the side walls of the gorge with very hot water flowing or dripping out. Down in the gorge, we met a young Massai boy named Jacob. He lived over the ridge in a boma with his father and his father’s two wives. The Massai people are herdsmen, so we asked what type of animals they had. He said they had 10 cows and 50 goats. While we were in the gorge it started to rain and we wanted to get out of the gorge quickly, so Jacob led us up a steep goat path to the top and we walked to the road from there. Hiking at an elevation of 8,000 feet proved to be very breath taking.

There were 6 of us on the trip and 3 of them had a GPS with them. The plan was to find a Geo Cashe located in the park. It was listed as not having been found in over one year, so we believe it must have been taken by someone because they never found it.

On the trip back to Nairobi, we stopped and got some roasted corn from a street vender. Some here refer to this as “typhoid on a stick”, so please pray we do not get sick! It was really quite tastey, just real chewy. All in all it was a great day spent with friends and enjoying God’s beautiful creations.