$40 weekend

I am constently amazed at how far my money gets me in Kenya! Case in Point -- the amazing weekend I recently had for a total (including EVERYTHING) of less than $40 US. Pretty much everyone in our group spent the weekend at Hells Gate National Park (which is what the lion king is based off of -- even though there are no lions here). I left y house super early (like 630 am) on Saturday morning and went dontown to catch a matatu to Naivasha, a trip that takes about and hour and 15 mins. From there we took another matatu to the Park, about 30 mins away. For those who don't know matatus are the big public transportation (sort of -- i don't think the government runs them but its essentially a cheap way to get places both near and pretty far) that is basically a glorfied van. They ususually get stuffed with about 10 people, you put your bags on your lap, and lets just say most have seen better days. Its a trip in itself. Once we got to the park, which is one of the smallest in Kenya, we rented bikes (which had also seen better days) and traveled through the park that way. I must say, seeing zebras, waterbuffalo, birds, baboons, antelopes & gazelles, and warthogs from a bike is definetly the best way to see them!!! You can really enjoy the scenrey and the animals when your out in the open air. There aren't really any big predator animals at Hells Gate, which is probally why you can bike. There are also Giraffes, but I never saw one this time. We biked several kilometers into the park to the back end, and then hired a guide to take us on a 3 hour hike of the gorge that lays right outside the park. The gorge was so pretty, and reminded me much mmore of the gorges I saw in Oregon as a kid (not the fake gorges in Ithica). The African wilderness is so vast and impressive it is really awe inspiring, exspecially in the rocky, stark environment of the gorge. Hells Gate got it's name I think from soething having to do with the eruption of Mt. Longaunat about 100 years ago, so there is a lot of volcanic activity in the area. One thing that was really cool about the gorge was that a lot of the water coming out was hot from this, and we saw lots of natural hot springs and steaming areas. At one point, about half our group got lost (its a long story that involves someone wanting a picture of a dancing spider) and while we were trying to find them, a storm came through, which made the rest of the hike (and borderline climb) pretty funny. After our hike, we had to bike back to return our bikes, which was so hard because the bikes werent very good, it was 8km uphill, and we were all sore! Thankfully, we were able to catch a ride from the gate to our campsite! We camped inside the park, which was so pretty! We did have some technical difficulties when we realized our tent was missing a pole, but we used some rope and got it standing. We watched the sunset, cooked food, and watched the moon rise. I didn't know the moon could rise, and I dont think Ive ever seen a moon rise before, but it was absolutely stunning to watch it rise up over the horizon like the sun. We all tried to get a good night sleep, but between the wind, hard ground, and occasional tent collapses (and my sunburned back) it didnt work out so well. In the morning we watched the sun rise and a few of us that still felt like we had some energy hiked with our stuff down to this giant rock tower-like thing near the gate where we were able to go rock climbing with the resident climbing guy. At around noon we caught a cab back to Naivasha and a matatu back to Nairobi, which ended up taking 3 hours because it broke down and we stopped to pick people up and let them off every 15 minutes! Needless to say, I slept very well that night!