Day 4 – Homeward Bound

Distance hiked – 8 km (5 miles)

The reason that we had the descending route almost entirely to ourselves is that the bottom part is really, really muddy. It’s also too far to hike in one day with nowhere to camp along the way, so you have to hike out part of the way and then get picked up by a four wheel drive vehicle to pick you up and take you out to Meru, where you then get on a minibus for the 3-hour drive back to Nairobi.

So we walked for a couple of hours through a bamboo forest, keeping an ear out for elephants as we did. We didn’t see any, but one group of hikers had run into one on the way up (luckily it didn’t charge). The weather was great and I think that wind through bamboo is one of the most beautiful and peaceful sounds there is.

Unfortunately, before we knew it, we met up with an old Land Cruiser, and it was time to start the bumpy ride out to Meru. At that point, we met up with another hiker and his guide and porter, so it was a really, really tight squeeze. There was absolutely no air moving in the back where I was sitting, and my infamous motion sickness started to kick in – it wasn’t quite as bad as the ferry from Zanzibar to Dar es Salaam, but it was close. So we stopped so I could sit in the front with the driver where there was a little bit of air moving, and that made a huge difference.

The trip was long and so, so bumpy – I think that some of the ruts were over a foot deep. We only got one flat tire, though, and eventually we made it to Meru, stopped for lunch, and then got in another minibus to head back to Nairobi. Even with the bumpy ride, I’m glad we decided to take this route out – it was so beautiful.

This experience was by far the most amazing that I’ve had here in Kenya, and it definitely ranks up there in terms of life experiences in general. That said, it was nice to be home in Nairobi, take a long hot shower, drink water that didn’t taste like the iodine puritabs we’d been adding to stream and lake water for the past couple of days, and sleep in my nice warm bed!

We passed this sign as we were hiking. Could someone explain to me just exactly how you’re supposed to yield the right of way to a wild animal? (We didn't see any, by the way, but we saw a lot of elephant and buffalo droppings. And yes, I've now seen so many that I can differentiate the two.)

Stopping to change the flat tire. I'm on the left in the pink shirt, and quite frankly, just glad to be out of the vehicle for a while. (Photo courtesy of Eleonora.)

OK, well after that marathon of blogging, I don’t really have too much more to say right now, so type to you sometime next week. Have a great weekend, everyone!