That's deadly....literally

This weekend I climbed a mountain or at least attempted to. Alone that presents a pretty interesting challenge. It was a hard climb with narrow trails plus the whole climbing altitude thing. But Mount Elgon proved to take this to another extreme.

Mount Elgon is in north west Kenya on the boarder between Kenya and Uganda. Actually the peak of the mountain lies in the Uganda side and with permission beforehand you can climb down into the country. It is an extinct volcano with very distinct wildlife and vegetation. The park itself is beautiful but has the nickname of the 'loneliest park' in Kenya. After visiting I can see why. The entire time we were there we did not encounter any other humans just wildlife and the park rangers!

The plan for the weekend was to camp in the park, hike the mountain, and explore some of the caves. Did we do all three.....I'd say about 1.5 things were accomplished on this list. The camping, no. And why did we not camp when both of our cars were loaded down with camping supplies? Because it rained, no poured, the entire weekend. This made camping very unappealing. You can see from the pictures that the rain caught most of my attention over the weekend.

The mountain. This qualifies as the 0.5 because yes we did climb. We did not make it to the top and some of us didn't even make it to the base camp (i.e. me). I blame this on many factors mainly the altitude and poorly marked trails. The trails were nonexistent. In fact there were many times where I just stopped and looked around hoping to find some kind of marker or footprint. I also managed to roll my ankles at least 50 times on the way up. Its wet up on the mountain and wet translates to potholes and mud. The combination will of course soak your pants and shoes. I was lucky. I managed to make it pretty far, turn around, and get to the car before the rain hit. Everyone else came back soaked.

Overall the hike was an experience. I'll have to say though the trip up the mountain is one I'll remember more though. Its a 30km drive up to the peak and then a 6km walk to the summit from there. 30km not bad right or so I thought. At the time I was just thankful that I wouldn't have to walk it. But it turned out to be 30 kms of hairpin turns and muddy ditches. There were times where we slid sideways both up and down the mountain! Which I didn't think was possible. There were times where figuring out how to cross a downed tree was necessary and of course we had to get out and push at one point. Sometimes I'm thankful for 4WD and a little prayer doesn't hurt either.

The one thing that I can definitely say we did was explore the caves. We went to Kitim cave which is famous from the book the Hot Zone where is is reported that two tourists visited the cave and then came down with Ebola, a very deadly virus. And yes we actually wanted to go visit this place! The hike was semi easy. Only about a mile of sink holes to avoid and a river to cross but the view was worth it. Both caves boasted waterfalls and a resident bat population. They didn't take kindly to us waking them up but it was an awesome site to see them take flight.

To cap off the weekend it poured the whole way home as well. Normally not a big deal in America right. Well Kenya roads aren't set up for monsoons surprisingly enough. Add in the already poor road between the park and Kisumu and its a recipe for disaster. Think rivers and lakes instead of roads and you have the gist. Again thank god for 4WD and an awesome driver! The fourth of July was definitely one to remember this year. Another adventure and great memories to go along with it!