Hell's Gate National Park

As I mentioned before we have our first visitor. She was serving in the Peace Corps in Southern Africa and just recently did a big Safari with her parents, so Mike had to figure out a good out of the city activity. Originally we would've liked to go to the coast, but after the Westgate Mall attack a travel restriction was put on people working at the Embassy. The restriction has since been lifted, but it was too late of notice for us to get our act together. No safari and no beach, what else could we do with little time and kind of off the cusp...Camping!

Mike took the kids camping while Ty and I were still in the states, then again this weekend with Finn's Tiger Scout Den, so he was pretty knowledgeable on a  place, what to bring, what we could do without etc. So we grabbed up a few things and headed to Hell's Gate National Park, about an hour and a half drive out of Nairobi, with an awesome view of the Rift Valley about half way through.

Hell's Gate was originally named valley where lots of people died because a volcano erupted in the 1600's killing lots of people, but the first settlers who used the area to transport goods from Tanzania decided Hell's Gate sounded better.

In this national park there are tons of animals, but we are told no big predators, so we got to see lots and lots of Zebras, Impalas, Hartebeest, and even Warthogs, which I might add totally run like Pumba from The Lion King and it is too freaking CUTE! 

When we got to the park we had a nice picnic and watched the animals down below living the high life of not being hunted.

After our picnic, we went over to a gorge for a little hiking. Mike didn't tell me until we paid our guide that it might be a little steep with some parts making us lower ourselves down off high rocks. Probably a good thing because I doubt I would've tagged along for this one had I known what I would be doing and that my legs would still be hurting 2 days later!

Climbing down a particularly steep part of the gorge, wearing Ty.

Yes, I just did that. What a trooper little man is!

Always  good day when you get to see a tiny monkey, especially when he's not stealing anything ;)

Climbing girl

I like to call this "Doing it Pryor style" in other words something not suitable for children.

View from the bottom of the gorge

One of the many HUGE pieces of obsidian Maggie found. No, we didn't keep it, it's not allowed.

ZEBRA!

After a long hike we headed over to a natural hot spring that is being turned into pools for visitors of the park. Even though it was open the day before, it was closed for cleaning when we popped in, but Mike wasn't giving up, he was swimming. So he and the kids jumped into a pool that wasn't quite open to the public after being given permission from the manager of the building crew on site.

After Tess nearly drowned in a sulfur pool, we decided it was time to get to our campsite and relax a little. I slept pretty well on a bed in a room while Mike and the older kids slept in our tent. Ty did awesome and slept pretty much through the night, and didn't wake our visitor, which was what I feared.

The kids goofing off.

It was a seriously quick trip. Once we finished our breakfast we headed back into Nairobi. On our way home a lost Giraffe found his way onto the road we were driving on. While the park we were in was not controlled too much, some of the animals were kind of gated off from others to keep from spreading disease, so to find this guy wondering around was so strange that even the Kenyans about were shocked and staring!

Our morning traffic jam.