This Will Never Get Old

On Tuesday we went to our first national park in Kenya. It was Hell's Gate National Park. For the drive from the entry gate to the parking lot where the trail started, a bunch of us jumped up on the roof for the best view of the animals. We saw zebra, gazelle, warthogs, and buffalo heading into the park. And not just one or two but a lot of each animal.

And then we pulled into the parking lot, under a tree, and I looked up and this Vervet monkey was staring us down. Yeeks.

Rachel was excited about all the obsidian lying around. Not all of it was as big as this display piece.

Dave and I were excited about the incredible views. Everywhere we looked was a postcard in the making. We walked down into the bottom of the gorge and we walked along this creek which was running through the bottom.

We checked out waterfalls. We learned that wherever there was green slime, there was warm water flowing. Supposedly, there are thermal vents near the park so some of the water was really quite warm, almost too warm to walk in.

We even did a trek into an offshoot of the gorge. It was amazing.

Also amazing, to me at least, is having all five of these kids together again. It's been so great!

Carla and I

Dave and I

There was a part of the trail where we had to hang onto a rope and climb up the rock. Rachel and Sam just went up like nobody's business. Dave and I were a little more cautious. This part of the trail was an "in and out" hike and going down this part of it was way harder than climbing up.

Each view was just incredible. We eventually stopped at a flat part near the river to eat lunch and hang out for a bit. After lunch we played in the mud for a few hours. It was heavenly. Rachel even gave me a foot mud spa :)

And then we drove out of the park. On our drive out of the park, Dave opted to ride in the truck and got all these amazing pictures.

 

Warthogs

Zebras

Baboons

At one point our friend mentioned, "After awhile seeing zebras gets to be old." I can see if you lived with this for while, you might feel that way, but since we're only here for two weeks, I have to say, I can't imagine this ever getting old. However, I'm perfectly willing to sign up for living here for a few years as an experiment to see if it does :)

*Days 5 and 8 were spent just hanging out. You can read here to get a sense of them. Or you can go here to read about Day 6.