a few days in the Central Highlands

Hung was hot here in Nairobi, so he suggested we hit the Central Highlands, since he knew the Highlands in Vietnam were cooler than the cities. We took a matatu up to Nyeri which is a small town sandwiched between two park destinations: the Aberdares and Mt. Kenya Nat'l Park. It was green & lush and we enjoyed a beautiful cool rain on the way up & as we walked through the town.

After setting up our accomodations at a little hotel where all the safari drivers stayed, we got a bite to eat. Everyone is watching lots of English Premiere league football games, Manchester United and Arsenal are both very popular teams here - many matatus are covered with their insignias - so it was easy enough to find a place to have a Tusker, eat, and watch the town go by on a balconied perch.

On Sunday we decided to try & visit the park, though this is no small feat since there is no walking entry & renting a driver & four-wheel drive (needed for many areas of the park) is cost prohibited. We ended up finding out that there was a free bus tour every weekend day that picked people up by the post office in town. We arrived promptly at 11am just to learn that even this big bus would have to wait to be filled before it could leave.



Two hours later (we've come to understand that you pay money not to have to wait here) the bus was crammed with Kenyan families on an outing after church (+ us and 5 young japanese men) and we took off. The drive was quite fun, and we ended up seeing lots of water buffalo, families of warthogs and baboons, some colobus tree monkeys with fabulous puffy white tails dangling from the branches, and during our lunch break, thanks to our binoculars, we even spied a single male elephant in a clearing eating flowers off a tree.

The next morning I took a walk by myself while Hung slept in. The earth was vividly red and soft & spongy to walk on.

I took this picture during the walk.


you can see how lush the surrounding were.

Posting these photos has been a real challenge, but I'm glad to know it can be done now, even if its some trouble, so hopefully there will be more.

Hung stayed an extra day to walk around for himself and he just now walked in from a dusty hot ride. We leave for Mombasa tomorrow so we need to sort out our departure plans.