Mount Longonot

 

 

We used our Uber driver from yesterday to take us on this nearly two hour ride to Mount Longonot National park.

Along the way we saw heaps of Baboons which had the kids excited for what we might see on our hike, I was hoping for no monkeys on the hike after the aggressive ones in Sri Lanka. 

As we were driving we saw Mount Longonot looming in the distance, it looked like we had a very big climb ahead of us. The driver had quite a chuckle when he saw the mountain and our reactions. There was a smaller crater nearby which appeared quite tempting. There was a very entertaining gentleman who gave us directions to the base of the mountain. We all were laughing at his hand gestures and facial expressions.

The mountain didn’t look too bad from the base and seeing a 4 year old getting ready to climb was quite reassuring.

There were animal skulls as decorations at the gate and then to our amazement we saw zebras and giraffes in the distance within 10minutes of our walk. That had us very excited. 

The climb was steep to the crater but very doable. It was beautiful to see the crater and there was a massive drop to the bottom. 

Then we made an error by not eating our sandwiches before starting the hike around the crater including the summit. The summit was very tough for the kids and us, the trail was steep, slippery and at times very close to the edge. It was not enjoyable at all , then we got to the slippery downhill with multiple falls but no major casualties. 

We ate lunch and suddenly the world was brighter, the trail was easier and smiles were back on our faces. It was all smooth sailing from there on. 

We got to the end where we saw zebras very close to us, with that and the nice second half of the walk the kids all were overall very happy with the hike. 

13kms with 850m ascent was a good achievement!!