Long day to Earth Camp

We had an early rise from our tent since we had another long day ahead. After a quick breakfast and a few minutes of monkey-watching, we set off towards Hell's Gate National Park - the only national park in Kenya which you can cycle through.

Somehow, this led us to think that this would be a tranquil experience, since there would probably not be many others who would actually do such a thing! However, we were very wrong, since this turned out to be a lucrative business opportunity, and thus we found ourselves in a queue of 30 tourists on rented bicycles, all waiting to pay the 65 USD entry fee per person.

The ride through the park itself was nice for the first half, where we did get to see Warthogs, Zebras, and Buffalos. The second half led us through an industrial geothermal energy site, which was less nice. Interestingly, there were multiple groups of Kenyan workers being led around by Chinese engineers. Similarly, there are also multiple Chinese road construction projects throughout the country.

Our route continued around Lake Naivasha. The road started nice and paved, until the last fancy tourist lodge, and then turned back to dirt and awful washboard for a long time, through small villages with tin hut shops, until reaching an area with (mostly Dutch) flower farms, which were again connected by smooth tarmac. We stopped at the most modern gas station yet, which had a small restaurant and shop serving international cuisine and even having a portafilter espresso machine. Kenya is a country of contrasts.

Already quite exhausted, we turned off the main road for a final 2h climb on dusty and gruellingly bumpy tracks. With the sorest of butts we reached the Earth Camp - a rustic but eclectic retreat run by an old Japanese man. It even had a natural geothermal sauna (okay, more like a plastic covered geothermal hole in the ground), which - together with the multi-course Japanese dinner - helped our recovery after the long day in the saddle.

We are taking a rest day here and will be reporting back with day 4 soon.Read more