Poisho! Poisho nyoman.

Greetings from Kitale... again.
But wait! we had gone and now we have returned and inbetween we enjoyed many tings.

Premierement, Blarney's Guesthouse, half way to Makutano.
Barnley? Barnley?
The matutu driver (and a dozen other onlookers) puzzled. Out came the guide book (shame shame).
Yes, here: Barnely's Guesthouse, or, Sirikwa Safaris.
Ah! Sirikwa! Yes! Sirikwa!
The confusion erupted into relieved laughter. Silly mzungu, they seemed to say. Get in. Twende twende.

Sirikwa Safaris. A lovely garden getaway.
The lady in charge - 83 years old (and a little hard of hearing), but showing no sign of slowing.
She has lived around Saiwa Swamp all her life and built her house sometime in the 1930's. A house decorated with pewter beer steins and coats of arms. *Smile.*
On our tour of the facilities: Please do remember to shut the lid. It is a long drop and I have a rather silly puppy.
The puppy in question was one Jack Russel by the name of Ginny. Ginny was one of four dogs, and the dogs were counterpart to 4? 5? 6? cats - the biggest (and most persistent) of which was Huggins.
... And two horses who wandered about munching the lawn.
The lady's son, Richard, was also about. Tall, rakishly thin, and always a cigarette in hand. When he was [our] age he worked as a guide on Mount Kenya before becoming an avid birder (at a time when birding entailed shooting and shipping to museums in the U.K.).

From Sirikwa, we took a day trip to Saiwa Swamp.
Rose bright and early to reach the gates for 7 am.
The best bit? The boda-boda ride in. I climbed onto the motorbike behind Kylie and we raced along the red dirt road through lush farm land. Bumping along, the wind was cool and the morning sunlight illuminated yellow from over my left shoulder.
Our primary objective visiting the swamp was a sighting of the elusive sititanga (a semi-aquatic ungulate). Fait accompli! We spotted them from a wooden viewing platform that afforded us a lovely view of the grass sea.

Many thanks to Jane and Sven. They took pity on our state of car-fridge-lessness and fed us olives, macadamia nuts, avacado and tomato salad with fresh basil (Fresh basil!) and penne with mushroom and gorgonzola (Gorgonzola!) sauce and grated parmesan (Real parmesan!). And all this served with a brimming glass of red wine.

From Sirikwa we caught a lorry to Marich Pass in West Pokot.
Our first lorry. Quel ride! A little slow, a little bumpy, but, sitting in the cab, we were afforded the best view of the most beautiful stretch of highway. Green rolling hills patched in maize, tea, and (ghostly) evergreen forest.
Our driver treated us to a cob of boiled maize each.
The landscape changed from lush to dry. Acacias reappeared.

The campsite at Marich Pass was the best to date - peaceful, on the river, and shaded by so many tall trees.
The best bit? A cool breeze at dusk and dawn.
Vervets and goats. Goats. Mbuzi in Swahili. Kylie and I have become quite familiar with their colourful repertoire of sounds. Everything from a call that sounds like a crying child to a squelching fart noise that might be a sneeze.

With our base camp at Marich, Kylie, Laurel (grad student hailing from Maple Ridge), and I headed up and into the hills to the Mtelo View Camp. 5 hours uphill left us a little wiped (Ha! Humbling to see barefoot elderly folk tripping nimbly up and down the paths like mountain goats. Poisho! Poisho nyoman.), but the sight of our banda and its pink door was enough to compensate.
And the hammock.
And the shower! Whilst soaping, one could glance upwards and have one's eyes filled with the glory of the surrounding peaks.

One of those peaks, looking impossibly far away, was Mtelo, a holy mountain.
Kylie and I started our climb shortly after 6 the following morning. Down to the river and then up up up through maize fields, bamboo forest, and alpine slope. A lone bamboo plant to mark the top and a rewarding view all all around. A hurried lunch of maandazi, chapati, and banana before we scurried down.
Back in the village, an elderly man seated on a bench pointed back at the mountain and asked if we had really been there. Yes! To which he responded (and as our flip-flop-sporting guide, Hillary, translated) Will I climb there before I die? To said elderly man seated on a bench: we climbed it for you.

Back at Mtelo View, we settled our bill, rested our legs for a bit, and then continued on down the mountain back to the pass. We scrambled down a "short cut" but only arrived shortly before dark. Kylie has mirror-image blisters on both heals and toes and we can't remember our legs ever having been so sore.

Alright. Thems be the bones. J'ecrit lentement and Kylie and I are hankering for some icecream.
She'll swoop in with some meaty tales one of these coming days. Perhaps hailing from Uganda?

Mucho amore.
A la prochain!