Hell's Gate National Park

My team and I traveled to southwestern Kenya this past weekend to enjoy the beautiful wildlife and landscapes Hell’s Gate National Park & Naivasha (the surrounding lake and town) had to offer.  We stayed at a cozy lodge called Fisherman’s Camp only about 3 kilometers from the park.  Because of the close proximity, we were able to rent and ride our bikes to the park!!

 Once inside the park we continued to ride our bikes, climb, and hike throughout the park.  Our first big adventure, Fisher’s Tower, awaited us just 2 more kilometer’s inside of the 64 kilometer squared park.  Two of my teammates and I decided to climb to the top of the 30 meter high jagged volcanic plug!  It was amazing, yet frightening to climb up the flat-edged rock formation.  My body trembled the entire way up, but reaching the top and witnessing the spectacular view made all of the hard work worth it.  On top of the tower I could see hundreds of animals speckled throughout.  Within the valleys and steep surrounding landscape, herds of buffalo, zebras, gazelle, impalas, warthogs, and giraffes grazed for miles.

After the exciting climb up and repel down Fisher’s Tower, we then hoped back on our bikes to pedal 7 more kilometers to the Lower Gorge.  The pedal to the gorge was filled with countless zebras, buffalo, gazelle, birds, and a handful of giraffes.  The animals literally stood calmly alongside the road as we pedaled by.  The only time herds would run away scared was when larger tours of people came by in buses, matatus or cars.  We took countless pictures of the breath-taking sight, but sadly no amount of pictures could capture the magnificent beauty of these animals.

At the gorge we ate our packed picnic and parked our bikes in order to make the trek all of the way to the devil’s bedroom.  Getting to the devil’s bedroom included a dangerous hike that many tourists decide to turn back from or quit after beginning.  The hike to the bedroom includes climbing up and down steep rocks, over streams, and through tight rock formations.  After climbing the tower, my teammates and I were thrilled to take on any challenge, so we gladly ran through water and jumped up and down steep rocks.  The beauty of the abrupt changes in the volcanic rock formations was just as breath-taking as the rest of the park.

Upon successfully hiking through the gorge and devil’s bedroom, we decided to bike back to our lodge outside of the park.  We were exhausted and satisfied with our adventures of the day throughout the African Savannah.  As an added bonus, when were biking out of the park, a massive herd of gazelle crossed the rode right in front of our bikes.  The herd galloped steadily together to the other side of the grasslands ignoring the presence of a few bikers.

The only thing that could have made my journey any better, I thought as we were exiting the park, would be if I could see monkeys and elephants.  Elephants did not live in this area so I was out of luck in that aspect; however, there were baboons in the park that none of us had seen yet.  Just as this thought crossed my mind, right outside of the gate to leave the park countless baboon families were playing on the rocks and beside the road.  The baboons only acknowledged our excitement with a few territorial grunts as my friends and I hurriedly snapped pictures.  I believe the adventure to Hell’s Gate National Park was a tremendous success! 

The next morning before returning back to the CYEC, we all went on a boat ride on Lake Naivasha which was just footsteps in front of our lodging area.  We hopped on the small speed boat in search of the hippos living in the area.  We had witnessed the enormous creatures emerge from the water and come next to our lodging area the evening before (separated by a high electrical fence) so we were excited to hopefully see them in the water as well! As luck may have it, we were able to see several family units of hippos relaxing throughout the shallow areas of Lake Naivasha!

The weekend adventure has been one of my favorite exploration experiences thus far in Kenya.  My dream came true of seeing wildlife in their natural habitat!!  Moreover, I was able to fulfill this dream through my favorite means of transportation – biking!