kenya: aberdares

over the weekend we had decided to go for a camping trip - only the destination was unsure. one day looking at the map, i realised that the aberdare national park is only a few kilometers away from naivasha, our usual campsite, and that there wouldnt be too much difference in distance. of course, maps and reality are not always comensurate and later it dawned that 20km on paved road is a bit different from 20km on dirt / rock / potholed roads.

however, it was totally worth the added cost, time and being jagged around by the rough roads. the aberdare mountain range is awesomely beautiful. it averages about 3300m (12,000 - 13,000 feet)above sea level (its also cold) and on the first night we camped at the 'reedbuck campsite'. i thought this name was just to impress tourists, but during the night we kept on hearing noises and turning the flashlight on them, found the pretty reedbucks. a little bit too curious as at one point in the middle of the night one tripped over our tent wire scaring the daylights out of us.


the vegetation and landscape is very different from the commonly pictured savanna of kenya. rolling windswept moorland and lush rainforest are much more common here


when we entered the main gate, i asked the ranger what are the highlights of the park. so he says, 'you have to see the waterfall - this one is called karuri, it is THE BEST!!!!' he was so enthusiastic. then when we got to the place, we walk down this little trail into the bush, and there is this small stream and some rapids, cute, but hardly 'the best'. we almost went back but decided to walk the trail to the end. finally we come out at the top of this cliff and a totally spectacular waterfall. the pictures dont do it justice because you cant see the scale. the first drop is 383 feet, 2nd is 84 feet then third, which was so far down we couldnt even see it is 427 feet - for comparison sake, niagara falls is 173 feet. (of course niagara is spectacular for volume, not height). you can barely see the start of the 3step at the bottom right of this pic.



another really nice thing is that we were the only ones there. the whole 3 days we were there we passed only 3 cars. so we sat and enjoyed the BEST waterfall all by ourselves. going back to the enthusiastic ranger, he told us after karuri falls to go to these other falls called the queen falls (queen elizabeth became the queen when she was visiting this park in 1952) and he says, 'the queen falls are THE BEST!!!' sure enough they were really beautiful...



the second night we stayed in a different campsite at a lower altitude and thus a little bit warmer and a lot more vegetation around - much more forest like. this one didnt have a shower, so i had a bath in the river (smith genes run deeper than you might think)...



haha thats just the river. you didnt seriously i would have a picture of myself actually having a bath there did you?

on the last morning, we woke up early in the hopes of seeing some wildlife, since we hadnt seen too much. we had, though, seen enough elephant poop to last a lifetime. after driving some way and then giving up, on the way back in the space of about 15min, we saw a buffalo fight...



it was like watching wwf. (not that i watch wwf).

then a few minutes later down the road, who do we meet?



dont know why, but i really like elephant pictures in black and white.

minutes later, we ran into a herd of maybe 50 buffalo. so all in all it was an exciting trip, and we ended it on a high note.