Facing Mt. Kenya

“According to the tribal legend, we are told that in the beginning of things, when mankind started to populate the earth, the man Gikuyu, the founder of the tribe, was called by Mogai (the Divider of the Universe), and was given as his share the land with ravines, the rivers, the forests, the game and all the gifts that the Lord of Nature (Mogai) bestowed on mankind. At the same time Mogai made a big mountain which he called Kere-Nyaga (Mount Kenya), as his resting-place when on inspection tour, and as a sign of his wonders.”

From Kikuyu Creation story, found in "Facing Mt. Kenya" by Jomo Kenyatta

After reading Facing Mt. Kenya, an anthropological study of the Kikuyu ethnic group written by Jomo Kenyatta, the first President of Kenya, and also reading Unbowed, the excellent memoir written by another Kikuyu Wangari Maathai, founder of the Green Belt Movement and the 2006 Nobel Peace Laureate and the first African woman and environmentalist to win the prize, I had learned that this mountain held major importance for this ethnic group, and for Kenya itself. Traditional rites and customs were historically practiced facing this mountain, and it has taken on mythical proportions as it is covered in clouds and/or haze the majority of the time. With this mountain having so much importance for the country, I desired to see it. I did some research, and found that the town of Nanyuki offered the best views and was the closest to the mountain, and thus was my destination to see this mountain. So two of my fellow program participants, Amanda and Alexis, and I set off for Nanyuki this past weekend.

If most people were asked to describe an equatorial environment and climate, they would imagine a tropical climate with hot and sticky weather, forests and possibly even a beach. Kenya’s scenery is completely different; however, as the second tallest mountain in Africa at 17,000 ft, Mt. Kenya looms over the equator and acts as its marker. Friday afternoon we took a matatu to Nanyuki. I was very excited for the scenery en route, as I was expecting it to be much the same, but even more spectacular than the previous week’s trip to central province (see previous post). It was up to a certain point as the hilly highlands and heavily forested area of the Central Highlands was passing by my window. But then, I was surprised at how quickly the scenery changed and became flat, as the Lakipia plains unfolded in front of me. This area was mostly flat with low, dry shrubbery dotting the landscape. This was not the scenery that I was expecting as I neared the equator. The first time I saw Mt. Kenya, I was unsure that it was the mountain. It was certainly impressive, but unlike any other mountain I had ever seen. Looking out over these flatlands, I saw the gradual slope that steadily rose up until it became these two peaks that served as its crown. True to form, the peaks were shrouded by cloud-cover, so I was unsure of how tall the mountain actually was. I had never before seen a mountain so spread out, as it started miles away and culminated into the clouds.

While looking at Mt. Kenya as we were entering Nanyuki, we crossed over a sign that said equator on it. Before my eyes I had two of the three reasons why I chose Nanyuki over the other towns with views of the mountain. The third reason was the place where we were to be staying that nite, Nanyuki River Camel Camp. I was very excited to camp in authentic nomadic Somali-style huts on Friday nite. When we arrived to the camp, the sun was just sinking into darkness. Since there was no electricity at the camp, a camp worker showed us to our huts by kerosene lantern, and gave these to us so we could find our way back. These huts had tree branches that served as support beams, and very tightly woven straw that served as the walls of the hut. The door was not very big, as it only set about 3 feet off the ground, and was made of something like burlap or canvas. Inside the hut were two small beds made of very tightly woven straw. The floor was the earth, just the dirt that was underneath of my feet. The camp was created by a British expat named Chris, who worked for over twenty years in the northern part of Kenya as part of a UN “take back the desert” campaign to combat desert encroachment. He is a trained zoologist who worked alongside veterinarians with the animals from that region, including camels. I learned a lot about camels and far Northern Kenya. That area of Kenya is completely different than the rest of Kenya, full of deserts and lax law enforcement, giving it a wild-west feel. The campsite had eight huts and a central, much larger, different hut that resembled a gazebo with a fire pit and a floo that was a congregating point. Besides our group of three, there was one other group their of students/young professionals who were working at a hospital in the town of Meru, on the other side of the Mountain from where we were. These students were mostly Danish, but a German and an American were also in that group. Over the fire Chris talked of his experiences and then we discussed camel riding the next day. We suggested doing it in the early morning and agreed that we would do a short two hour ride early the next morning. By this time it was late so I grabbed my kerosene lamp and found my way to the hut to go asleep.

The next day I woke up very early because I wanted to see the sunrise over Mt. Kenya. I was told by many people that the only times that the mountain could clearly be seen were during the early morning and evening hours. This was not true as the mountain was as hazy as the nite before it, but it was still pretty seeing it as the rising sun painted it a palette of vivid blues and purples. Also unlike most perceptions of equatorial climate, when I first woke up in the morning I was cold for the first time on this trip. For the whole time that I have been here the temperatures have been in the mid-80s in the day and the low 60s at nite, but when I woke up on Saturday morning it was probably below 50 degrees, but it felt great to have this nice change. Soon enough it was time for a camel ride, which was an experience in itself. I have ridden horses, I have ridden elephants, but a camel is nothing like either one. And low and behold, they gave me the playful kid of the group of camels that was subsequently the hardest one to handle. As soon as I climbed onto the saddle the camel stood up. Camels are incredibly tall and instantly I was about ten feet up in the air. It is not a smooth climb either as they rock back and forth to stand up or sit down, so when the camel sat back down, stood up and sat back down again all in the span of about 10 minutes I felt like I was on a roller coaster with all the extreme angles I had to orient myself with. Once the camels were all calmed down and the group all settled up, we set out for our ride. Riding a camel is an interesting experience as well because of the way that they move. They move their legs according to side, so the left front and hind legs will move together, and then the right front and hind legs will move. This creates a constant swaying motion from side to side. It was a beautiful morning for a camel ride, and the scenery was pretty as well. We were in a desert setting around Nanyuki, as the long rainy season has not started yet and much of the country is suffering from a drought. So the scenery during the ride was of low, dry shrubbery in the foreground (from which the camels just stepped over), and the mountain as the backdrop. As we were riding, I encountered Massai children herding their sheep, goats, and cows, and the occasional person riding around on a motorcycle. It was truly an amazing experience getting to go camel riding in a desert setting and look at a large mountain. I felt like I was crossed between being Lawrence of Arabia and John Wayne. After about an hour and a half of riding it was time to go back to the camp, experience the rollercoaster that is getting off of a camel once more, (only once this time), and then head off towards the next adventure in our day.

This adventure involved heading to the equator. We walked a little ways outside of town where the equator sign was, and it really illustrated that Mt. Kenya was on the equator, with the angle of the sign pointing straight towards the high peaks of the mountain. On the equator we took many fun and funny pictures: Me lying on both sides, sitting down, and climbing the sign, and the girls running through the equator and jumping over it. The one trick that we absolutely had to have illustrated was the demonstration of Coriolis Effect. This is the effect that causes water to spin in a certain direction depending on if you are in the northern or southern hemisphere. They have pitchers of water set up for this experiment. We walked about 50 feet to the side that the southern hemisphere is on, poured water into a bowl, and put a stick in the water, and the floating stick started to rotate clockwise. Then, we walked to 50 feet on the northern hemisphere side and did the same thing, and the stick rotated counter-clockwise (as most of you have seen every time you flush a toilet). Then, for the climax of this experience we stood under the equator sign directly on the equator and performed the experiment. The floating stick sat idle in the water without rotating. One other thing of note that I forgot to mention that just happened to be a cool coincidence is that we were on the equator during the Spring Equinox. I learned on that day what an equinox exactly is, and that it is the day (or days because there is a fall one too) in which the amount of daylight and nite time are the exact same. And only directly on the equator during an equinox will the sun be exactly straight over head, and it just so happened that we were on the equator at noon on the spring equinox so we got to experience the highest point of the sun’s path for the entire year. It was a unique coincidence that I had no idea was occurring until we were told that.

Having done everything there was to do in Nanyuki, but not quite ready to go back yet as it was only early afternoon; we decided to do a little exploring. We found bota-botas (the motor cycle taxis in Kenya, see Kisumu post for more) and told them to take us as close to Mt. Kenya as we could possibly go without going into Mt. Kenya National Park (this national park surrounds the mountain and costs quite a bit of money to get into, which is something that we did not have nor were willing to pay for only a short time period). So the bota-botas dropped us off inside this Wildlife Preserve, and it just so happened that it also had the best views of the mountain. As well as lucking out with being on the equator during the equinox, we were extremely lucky because the mountain was in full view with no cloud cover or haze surrounding it, which for this time of day was extremely unusual but worked out in our favour. So we just hung out in this field and took more pictures and pulled crazy shenanigans with the mountain in the background. We almost forgot that this was a nature reserve, until we were soon joined off in the distance by some antelope and warthogs. We decided to explore more and walked down this dirt path in the preserve further, and on this walk we also saw llamas, baboons, and wildebeest. It was like a safari, only we were not in vehicles and unintentionally much closer to the animals than we should have been. It was still amazing to see these animals just roaming free and open to us, but did not press our luck to get any closer. After a time spent in this park we went back to town and went back.

It was truly amazing the amount of cool, unique experiences that we could have in over just a 24-hour time frame. We lived like Somali nomads in their type of huts with kerosene lanterns as lights, watched the sunrise over the 2^nd tallest mountain in Africa, rode camels, hung out on the equator during the spring equinox, and made friends with animals. When I decided that I wanted to see Mt. Kenya and planned a trip to make this happen, I had no idea that I would end up facing Mt. Kenya from a camel’s back.