Field school, Mt. Kenya, and onwards, FTA

Habari!
Finally, a bit of time to sit down and recount some of the amazing adventures we have been experiencing.

Field school was quite neat (BOG, BOC, JMIPP, SYLN,FTA) and we saw an awful lot of wildlife, enough to come close to satisfying our nerdy biology selves. Apart from the cheetahs (and Sanch missed out on the leopard) we have seen nearly every member of the charasmatic megafauna that you associate with Africa. We met some very awesome people on our trip, both from UBC, the University of Florida, and the University of Nairobi, and Todd and Jake (our instructors) kept us constantly entertained with their ridiculous back and forth conversations. The lovely Nat, a masters student from UBCO is staying on at Mpala for three weeks of smammal research and upon hearing our plan to climb Africa's second highest mountain, decided to join our little adventure.

Last wednesday morning Nat, Sanch, and I said our goodbyes to our fellow classmates and got dropped off in Nanyuki, a large-ish town, with perhaps not the most pleasant of atmospheres, but it served our needs quite well. It was then that we met the man, Joseph, who was to be our guide for our Mt. Kenya adventure. We worked out the details and trustingly forked over the cash for what we predict to be one of the largest splurges of the trip. Joseph also introduced us to our cook Josephat (more on this saga later). We spent the evening stocking up on snacks (chocopower!), packing, and eating curry in a bag (Sanch and Nat asked Marina's if they did take away, they did, it consisted of veggie curry in a plastic bag and tinfoiled ugali and chapati), yum!

Mt. Kenya
Day 1: We got picked up from our hotel in the morning and were carted off to the gate of the Sirimon route (about an hour drive outside of Nanyuki), the car was older than all of us (1978) and managed to fit all our gear and 8 of us, despite being clearly meant for a few less. Our group consisted of Sanch, Nat, and I, Joseph (our slightly sketchy guide who may or may not have been stoned the entire way up), the very sweet Josephat and Michael (cook and porter respectively), and Ben (surly porter who's only redeeming feature that first day was a thumbs up as he stormed past me). From the gate we hiked for about three hours with a break for lunch, winding up an old road surrounded by some very neat vegetation and huge swatches of burned areas. The plants started getting awesomer and awesomer as we made our way up the last hill to our home for the night, Old Moses camp, at 3,300m (note to self, look for a book on Mt. Kenya veg). We spent the afternoon hanging out and exploring and later met a group of four hiking poled (insert jealousy) americans who are all students involved in Kenya in one way or another (interning vet, school aid foundation runner, interner at said foundation, and traveller). The evening went well with a delicious meal until one unfortunate exchange, which is really best recounted in Nat's words which I unfortunately don't have on hand but I will try my best.

We were sitting down for dinner and it went something like this:
Nat: "Hey Joseph, do you think we could get our sleeping bags now?"
Joseph: "Your sleeping bags? (long pause) Aren't they in your bags?"
Nat: "No"
Nat (inside thought): "Are you f* kidding me? We're at 3,300m, it's freezing, and it's not even dark yet, of course they're not in our bags, when would they have gotten in our bags"
Joseph: "Oh my God, oh my God, not in your bags? They must be in the office, I must have forgotten them"
Kylie, Sanch, and Nat: raised eyebrows...oh really...
Nat (inside thought): "No f* way they are in that office, the office is the size of a cupboard, we were in the office, there weren't any sleeping bags in there"
We ended up getting a couple blankets each, filling our nalgenes with boiling water, and wearing every layer we could find.

Day 2: After a sleepless night due to the cold and the howling wind that sounded like it would rip the roof off of poor Old Moses, we got a 6am start some ugi (cornmeal porridge of sorts), fruit, and pancakes. Fortunately the wind sounded a lot worse inside and once we got going we had an amazing day of hiking down and up valleys surrounded by some truly amazing plants that I cannot describe (but I will try, and in a few months time there will be pictures). These plants look like they are prehistoric and many have inflorescences that tower over me, some are fuzzy (think a cross between cousin It from Adams family and the muppets), some are water filled, even the sedges and grasses are stunning. We arrived at Shipton's camp (4,200m) at a timely 2:00pm and spent the afternoon alternating between oogling over the towering peaks, the vast valleys, and the adorable rock hyraxes (favourite animal so far, like Mr. and Mrs. Beaver from Narnia). Luckily our sleeping bags arrived and we were all coping pretty well with the altitude (despite Tod's horror stories) and eventually had to force a pill down Sancha's throat to get rid of the nausea. We went to bed ridiculously early because...

Day 3: After once again not sleeping we roused at about 2:00am and were setting off into the dark by about 3:20. We blindly followed Joseph up to the peak, taking it slow so that we didn't get too out of breath due to the steepness and the increasing altitude. The stars were amazing (Nat pointed out Scorpio, first time!)
and we could see Nanyuki off in the distance. As we approached Point Lenana (our final destination at 4,985m) we could see the amazing colours of sunrise and by the time we made it to the top (6:30) the sun was rising on the horizon and made for a beautiful view of the valleys and the nearby peaks. Of course it was freezing and windy at the summit and we lasted perhaps 7min before hopping down off the rock ledge and making our way down the back of the mountain. It turns out that the Naro Moru route down required us to skirt a glacier and pick our way down an icy snow covered ridge (that dropped off on either side). Unfortunately Nat's afraid of heights and the slightly sketchy situation did nothing to calm her nerves. We finally made our way off the ridge, down a scree slope (2 hours of death of me) and down to McKinders camp (4,300m) in time for a 9:30am breakfast. The camp was beautiful and we then set out for some more hiking. We spent the rest of the day wandering through cloud-filled valleys (more amazing plants), the never-ending vertical bog (requires pics or google to explain) and finally through a bamboo forest. It was an exhausting day of hiking (total of about 11h, many kms, and many vertical meters on the move) and required an awful lot of focus such that when we arrived at the Bamboo Lodge (3,050m) we shovelled down food and napped, absolutely exhausted.

Day 4: After waking up at a leisurely hour we packed up and spent the next three hours wandering through the bamboo forest towards the gate. We got to take our time, chat, and right near the gate Joseph spotted a chameleon for us (so awesome)! We hopped in a minibus that was waiting for us, stopped at the equator to take the tourist picture (there is an entire row of shops numbered one through about 30 set up around this sign), before getting dropped off in Nanyuki.

I'm currently holed up in an internet cafe in Nayahururu, it's quite lovely and shady (from sun, not sketch). Yesterday Sanch and I took our first matatu ride and were pleased to find out there is an enforced limit to passenger number and price (quite certain this doesn't hold true in Uganda and Tanzania). We spent the afternoon wandering around and housed ourselves in a cheap, if somewhat iffy guesthouse (LP describes the bar as a spot for late night carnage...not entirely sure how to interpret it and we didn't wander from our room to find out). We decided that for this evening we would splurge on camping in the isolated and empty (but perfectly manicured) lawn of the touristy hotel (hot showers!!!!!!!)
We spent the morning wandering and trying to get our hands on a stove that may be conducive to transport, it's proving to be a bit of a challenge, one lady tried to convince us that a stove that would take up half my pack would be perfect.

That is incredibly long and doesn't come close to covering everything we've been experiencing. So far it's been amazing, we've been ripped off a little, have dealt with visa from across the ocean, have figured out how to phone home, are stared at constantly, often yelled at, but have met some really neat people. We have yet to decide where we're headed to next (task for this afternoon), but this summer certainly promises to be full of adventure.

Muchlove, FTA
HBFT

Kyles and Sanch