friday the 1st was kenya's independence day, so i had a long weekend my very first week of work here at the national commission. score!

so the long weekend went like this: i took off early on friday morning, bound for naivasha, a town about 1.5 hours outside nairobi and the first stop-off on my adventure. it was great to just find myself on a matatu headed out of the city...

the weather wasn't so amazing, and i wound up scrambling to the top of this big volcano called mt. longonot in the rain, but it was a wonderful day. the park is off the main road, so after getting to naivasha and negotiating the matatu fare to the next village, the van just dropped me at the sign and i started walking. it was almost comforting to know that matatus lose their manners outside nairobi - we were stuffed in three to a seat on the way to longonot village.

anyway, i had been trudging to the mountain on this dirt path for about 20 minutes when a van appeared out of nowhere and this lovely kenyan family gave me a lift to the park gate. they were up from nairobi and couldn't get over the fact that i was on my own. it was hysterical.

so i climbed the 2 or so hours to the rim of the volcano in the rain but i just felt good to be out and active and alive and in kenya. the reward for all this huffing and puffing is supposed to be the view at the top ("incredible vistas of the rift valley"), but all i could see was fog on either side of a kind of narrow path. i decided to do the hike around the rim anyway in the hopes that it would clear up (and thinking it couldn't possibly be as tough as the steep climb up had been), but in fact i spent the better part of the next 2 hours going hand over hand with fog on either side, not at all convinced i was heading in the right direction and wondering if/when i was going to fall into the crater i couldn't see. whoops.

i bumped into a few other lost souls and there was some debate about turning back, but we soldiered on and at one point the clouds finally lifted and it was glorious. the view down into the crater was incredible (an entirely different ecosystem) and the view of the surrounding rift valley breathtaking. and then, of course, when i saw the jagged rocks i had been scrambling over i didn't feel so bad about the exhaustion seeping into my bones!

the best part is, i ran into the nice family again before i headed down the mountain and they insisted on giving me a lift all the way back to naivasha (meaning no long walk out to the main road or long wait for a passing matatu), where i caught a matatu to a place called fisherman's campground right on lake naivasha.

i got there just after dark having heard that they have cheap rooms, but the rooms were sold out, so i wound up renting a tent and a blanket and bundling up in all the clothes i had for the night. it was kind of a bummer after such a long day, but i was so tired that i dropped to sleep and didn't even notice the chill until i woke up at 6 the next morning. the view on the lake was gorgeous, there were monkeys chattering in the trees - i knew it was going to be a good day.

and it was. the weather on saturday was as good as friday's was bad. a matatu dropped me off a few kilometers from the entrance to hell's gate park and by 8 i was paying the surprised ranger my entry fee. hell's gate is one of the only parks in kenya that allows visitors to hike, but it's still pretty big so i think most people take bikes. the ranger was like, "you want to do it on foot?" hell to the yes, ma'am.

so i set off, grinning to myself like a fool...there were clear skies but still a slight chill in the air, and i was just so thrilled to be alive. as if that weren't enough: no lie, within 30 minutes i was 100 feet away from a family of zebras. insane! i did a 16 kilometer circuit of the park (at which time i saw only one car and no other hikers or bikers, so i essentially had the place to myself) and kept (literally) running into impalas, gazelles, warthogs, zebras, giraffes...i seriously thought the giraffes were fake at first. i just kept walking and muttering out loud to myself. every time i turned a corner and saw another group of animals i was like "holy crap! no way! this is impossible!" i was so close to them it was freaky at times...

at one point i had gone for awhile without seeing anything and was getting a little tired when i heard a loud snort. i looked around for more zebras and suddenly there was an enormous baboon lumbering down the path with one eye fixed on me, a little baby scrambling after her. truth be told, i actually got kind of nervous at that point since baboons can be pretty nasty...so i backed off to give the lady some space, walking backwards down the path until they were out of sight (and i was out of mamma's radar). i hung out for a while until i figured they were gone and then continued on, ultimately getting a spectacular overview of the entire park, with mt. longonot (the one i climbed friday) in the distance and plumes of smoke from hot springs dotting the landscape.

the travel gods were with me once again as that one car i did see on my hike had to turn around since the road was so bad and wound up giving me a ride out to one of the lower gorges. they were a cute couple from nairobi who had never been to the park...it was a hysterical few minutes in the car, trying to spy buffalo out this dude's badly tinted windows as his terrible outdated american rap and hip hop blared from blown out speakers. on the other hand, they gave me a fanta and i thought i would faint from gratitude. if such a thing is even possible. after four hours of walking in the sun, it was about the best damn thing i've ever tasted.

anyway, i convinced them to hike down to this lower gorge with me, which was a total trip since they were such citified kenyans: the guy, kegan, scrambling over boulders in sean john baggy pants and a big furry fleece and the girl, brenda, a law student, in a jean skirt with little ballet-type slippers on. they were intrepid, though, and, along with a very persistent "guide" masai named franklin, we explored this gorge carved out by the rain for a few hours, even finding runoff from the hot springs.

it was wonderful. and the best part is i scored another ride all the way back to naivasha, where i had to get a matatu back to nairobi. it worked out impossibly well and i made it back to my flat just as night was falling on saturday.

sunday was a lovely day reminiscent of so many rainy mornings in my togolese village, kaniamboua. i drank coffee, finished reading "the world according to garp," talk to the fam for a bit, did some food shopping, made dinner...total relaxation. totally fabulous.

and now i'm back at work, writing overlong emails while the human rights curriculum i'm supposed to be revising languishes, minimized, in the corner of my computer. priorities, eh?