Day 23 - 500 Miles

Today's blog was supposed to be about our KETRACO site visit, but unfortunately, it didn’t work out and we were left with a day off. To make the most of our time in Kenya, we decided to explore the Ngong Hills Forest Reserve which is a national park just outside of Nairobi consisting of 7 peaks with the highest one being 2,460 m above sea level.

We arrived at the gate around 10:30 in the morning without having any specific distance goal. Walking over the hills until we feel like going back felt just right. Although a lovely security lady told us that we can walk across the whole ridge and get a taxi back from the gate on the other side of the reserve, we were still leaning towards turning back at some point.

The hike started with a view of dozens of windmills labelled with KenGen. This was very exciting for us as the site of this company is our tomorrow’s destination. Climbing up the first few hills, we enjoyed the panoramic views of The Great Rift Valley, which we have already seen from a different perspective on our way to Maasai Mara.

On top of the third hill, we took a short break from walking, lay in the sun and applied the fifth layer of sunscreen since morning. A solo-hiking lady approached us there and asked us if we could take a picture of her with the valley in the background. Her accent sounded very close to home to me, so I asked her where she was from. I wish you could see the smile on my face when I heard the name of my home city, Prague. Both excited about meeting a co-national, we chatted for a few minutes in our native language and shared our experiences with the new country and culture.

Saying goodbye to my new friend, we had an important decision to make. Should we turn around and return to the starting point, or continue to the other side of the reserve? Doing our calculations, we decided it would be worth it to cross the whole ridge and enjoy the beauty of the entire park.

Absolutely exhausted, hungry and (some of us) sunburned, we made it to the end of the park. Ready to go home, we wanted to order a taxi, but as we were outside the city, none was around and we ended up waiting for a driver for ages. Luckily for us, there was a nice hotel right next to the entry gate where we ordered well-deserved chips for a dinner.

- Michaela