December 31, 2007: Frog, Kenya

Someone had a serious sense of humor when they developed the climbing area known as Frog. For starters, it is located on a crazy dirt road (parts of which are more riverbed than road) that turns into an impassable barrier of mud when it rains, meaning a quick evacuation at the first sign of moisture in order to avoid being trapped. Now add in the fact that the area is directly adjacent to Kenyan military training ground and you've got a real party. When I say "directly adjacent," I mean a stone's throw. Literally. One of the climbing spots is called Target Buttress because it is in line with earthen embankments that comprise the shooting range and contains stray bullet holes. There were so many shells around that Henry made a bracelet out of ones he picked off the ground one afternoon. The truck notes say that when the military is there they will usually grant a ceasefire for a person to gain access to the climbing. Thank you very much, but no. There is no way in Hell I would be asking for permission to climb while the military is there shooting wildly about (Luckily, they were deployed in cities in anticipation of election troubles.). And where did we park BiRT? At the base of Target Buttress. Which, ironically, has some of the best climbing in the area.

I was a little disheartened at first with the climbing at Frog. I was still on a trad kick, but the "easy" trad climbs seemed way harder than their Australian ratings. I tried a 14 that should have been a walk in the park and wound up having my ego handed to me in a sling. Thankfully, I felt somewhat better when I onsited a 16 that had really difficult moves right off the ground and no protection for 7-8 meters. The initial moves were so difficult that the two people following me both fell off several times each, and other people that had attempted the climb abandoned it after being unable to get off the ground. For some reason, the "easy" climbs had sandbag ratings and it wasn't until a person got into the more difficult climbs that the rating seemed to be more in line.

Ian gritting his way up a route:
I wanted to try top roping a harder sport climb with an eye toward leading it as I had been doing nothing but pretty easy trad for a few weeks, and finally got my chance on a 24. It was the third best climb I've done so far on this trip -- only because it was not longer. It had some crimps, some layback crack, some face climbing, some boulder-y power moves, and it was tough, but had great places to rest. My only regret is that I didn't lead it straight away because I never got another chance at it. The next morning we packed up and left in a hurry because the clouds looked like rain.

Although it ultimately didn't rain, it turned out to be a good thing that we left when we did, because things started to get a little crazy as a result of the elections. We were heading back toward Karen, a primarily well-off and expat district outside Nairobi, to spend the night and rendezvous with Emma who had been in the hospital there while we had been at Frog. The plan was to do shopping for our next destination, Mt. Kenya, that afternoon at the shopping center in Karen. However, there was some significant unrest as a result of the disputed elections that had taken place a few days earlier. The opposition leader, Odinga, had been leading by a significant margin in the voting counts, but then, somehow, the incumbent president, Kibaki, emerged as the winner. The shopping center was jammed with people withdrawing money and stocking up on supplies in case things turned ugly. Some of the group spent hours in the supermarket lines that snaked throughout the aisles waiting to purchase their food. At one point, the supermarket closed its doors and would not admit new customers. Not that it made much difference, most things were cleared out in a few hours anyway.

Rumors were rampant: the supermarket down the street had been torched, there were riots in cities, borders were shut down, curfews were in order. A man in a well-tailored business suit shouted into his cell phone "I don't care what it takes, get me out of here now!" I heard people in line mulling over escape routes out of the country. It was impossible to sort through fact and fiction, but that did nothing to lessen the underlying sense of urgency as people tried to gather what supplies they could. A few of us went to a bar in the complex to have a drink (it was New Year's Eve after all, plus I couldn't handle the crush of people throwing elbows outside) and met an older, expat couple who seemed rather relaxed. We asked them what they thought of the situation and the gentleman replied "We have plenty of supplies in the pantry and food in the freezer. What we don't know is how long all of this will be around [gesturing expansively around the bar] so we thought we'd come down and enjoy it."

It wasn't until I was in a cab with Matt B. and Drew running a couple of errands away from the shopping center that we heard some of the first reports of violence on the radio. And it was disturbing. In less than a minute we heard "shot," "butchered," "arrow in the head," and "circumcised." Yes, circumcised. Apparently, an angry mob had grabbed a couple of men and forcibly circumcised them on the street! Ok, not that I particularly want to be shot or butchered, but circumcised by a mob?! I do believe I'll take the arrow in the head option, please.

Although we were supposed to be going to Mt. Kenya, we spent the next few days holed up in our campground waiting for more information about the escalating unrest that would help us determine if we could proceed as planned or needed to make a run for the border.

December 28, 2007: Hell's Gate, Kenya

I found it highly amusing that we would be spending Christmas at a place called Hell's Gate.

Birds fly overhead with Fischer Tower (left) and the main wall in the background:
Tourists take photos of zebras walking along the base of crag:
Mt. Longonot in the background:
In fact, the entire time we were there was highly amusing. Here are my top five favorite events:

5. The Brotherhood of the Badger shaved their beards and Mike cut his dreads off (!).
The Brotherhood of the Badger was composed of a bunch of guys that grew their beards out -- in some cases over the course of several months.

L to R: Adam, Jase, Matt B., Drew, David:
It was an emotional time when George created some fantastic facial fashion statements (although usually more emotional for the guys' girlfriends).

Drew goes under the razor:
George well pleased with his creation on Adam:
David needed someone to hold his hand when it was his turn:
Matt and Drew try to look tough:
Showing off the chops:
George's handiwork:
Mike had the most drastic transformation.

Mike with dreads:
After three years of dreads, he had George cut them off in anticipation of a job. It was sad, in a way, to watch what had been such a defining part of Mike fall beneath the ragged scissor cuts, but ultimately it was for the better.

Mike couldn't stop touching his head:
Finished product (note the fistful of dreads in Mike's hand):
It took a couple of days, however, for us to get used to seeing the new, improved Mike, and many times we didn't recognize him.

4. George dressed up as Santa.

Somewhere Henry purchased a set of red coveralls and George took to the part with gusto. None of us had any idea that "Santa" would be making an appearance, and we couldn't stop laughing when George popped out of BiRT with our Secret Santa gifts in a big bag. After the unavoidable come-sit-on-my-lap jokes, we got down to the serious part of distributing gifts.

Adam reverts back to being a five-year old:

No, Ian, you can't eat a loofah:
Later, George entertained us with some long, slightly bawdy holiday poems he had composed while cycling on his own from Dar to Arusha. It was really quite impressive to hear him recite the often hilarious stanzas that lasted for a good 15 minutes.

3. Drew, Jase and Mike performing an original song for the group.

Hot Rock has been fortunate to have several excellent musicians on board BiRT. Drew and Jase had been in a band together for years and wrote a song for everyone which they performed after Christmas dinner with Mike on drums. Because the mood got so sentimental, they were forced to launch into a rousing rendition of our theme song "Eye of the Tiger" and we sang/shouted ourselves hoarse.

2. A fabulous Christmas dinner featuring a steak for every person. Enough said.
1. Nearly getting kicked out of the campsite for setting off extremely loud fireworks.
A few of the more observant folks on the trip had found fireworks -- firecrackers, really -- at a town we had stopped in on our way to Hell's Gate. Some were Secret Santa gifts and other people kept a supply for themselves. David couldn't resist setting off the first couple in secret and they exploded with an unprecedented decibel level, practically sending out shockwaves. These were definitely Shock and Awe firecrackers. I've never heard firecrackers this loud, ever, and frankly I'm a little surprised that nobody's eardrums dissintegrated. After our initial shock, the follow up urge to set off more could not be supressed and we discovered that five lit together pretty much created a crater in the ground. And drew the attention of guys with guns. Mind you, Kenya was in a hard fought race for the presidency at the time with elections scheduled the 27th, so loud explosions were not taken lightly. Anyway, a phalanx of large men with machine guns suddenly appeared demanding to know what was going on and threatening to throw people in jail. Apparently the blast was so loud that people had fled the bar and restaurant area thinking someone was shooting. Although potentially serious, it was still hilarious to see Emma, all of 5'3", surrounded by these huge guys with guns. Talk about David and Goliath. Thinking quickly, however, Emma explained that it was our custom to set off fireworks at Christmas. If anyone other than innocent looking Emma had tried to pull that explanation off, we likely would have celebrated the rest of Christmas behind bars in a Kenyan jail.

David clearly wins the dirty foot contest:
Climbing was mixed at Hell's Gate.

I'm concentrating way too hard:
The massive, main wall looked like it would be really good,

Drew heading toward Fischer Tower and the main wall:
but turned out to have chossy bands that caused some scary moments for people. George, in particular, had a bad fall after some rock gave way, ripping several pieces of gear out of the wall, tearing a sling, and narrowly missing serious injury. That guy has more lives than anyone else I know. I led a bunch of single pitch trad on solid rock. There was one really great area composed of a line of individual cracks of varying difficulty where I worked a bit on crack climbing.

Everyone played around on the cracks one day:
Matt B. works a route at the crack crag:
I wouldn't say I've found a new love in rock climbing, but I was feeling slightly more comfortable with some crack techniques by the time we left.

Adrian and me on top of Fischer Tower:
David satisfied with a day's effort:
Despite the mixed climbing, everyone was pretty much unanimous that it would have been spectacular to camp in the park instead of our campsite, Crayfish Camp.

Although this hyrax (aka rock dassie) doesn't look like he cares for our kind...:
Not only was Hell's Gate gorgeous, there was no club 400 meters away operating until 6 a.m. with thumping base so loud a person could feel it in their bones.

December 22, 2007: Equator!!, Kenya

Last time I crossed the equator was when I was on Semester at Sea during Spring 1994 and wound up crawling through garbage to kiss a fish at some ridiculous hour in the morning. This time around it was much more civilized.

Yours truly:

Group shot:

December 22, 2007: Lake Baringo, Kenya

Let's take stock of the near death experiences I've had so far on this trip: exposure (South Africa), angry elephant (Botswana), river rafting (Zimbabwe), lion (Zimbabwe), boredom (Malawi), snake (Kenya), and truck accident (pretty much every country). Hmmm, what is missing? Ah yes, Africa's most dangerous animal, the hippo. As soon as we arrived at our campsite on the shores of Lake Baringo, we were met by an employee that told us to not to pitch our tents along a particular fence line because the hippos liked to walk that way up from the lake in the evening to forage. Ok, I can handle that, no biggie. I'm sure they would not be interested in my tent anyway. So I found a nice spot surrounded by trees that looked like it would provide some shade from the sun. I had set up my tent and was getting ready to go take a shower when Emma sauntered over and said offhandedly "Isn't that hippo poo on the trees by your tent?" On closer inspection, yes indeed, hippos had apparently been backing it up and rubbing their butts on the tree trunks surrounding my tent. Great, one thing I had not been looking for was hippo crap on tree trunks. No worries, I would just move my tent, I figured. After close inspection of all tree trunks in the area, I found another nice spot completely free of hippo dung and set up my tent again. Some folks had concerns about where they had put up their tents so Emma fetched the camp employee to get his ok on where we had put our tents. Guess whose tent was "um, maybe ok"? Yes, that's right, I had pitched my tent near yet another favored hippo path. Rather worried, I grabbed the employee and asked him about the safety of other potential tent sites until he gave me a definitive ok. Which happened to be all of 20 feet from my last tent site. Why a hippo wouldn't trample my tent a mere 20 feet from a site that was off-limits is beyond me, but, hey, the employee is the expert. Regardless, I had completely neurotic dreams that night about hippos snagging my tent inside their gaping jaws and dragging me around. It didn't help that I would wake up repeatedly in the night to one of four sounds: loud splashing, heavy footsteps outside my tent, hippos grunting and squealing back and forth (on opposite sides of my tent, no less), or, the worst, something large loudly chewing grass on the other side of my tent's thin, nylon wall. It was rather unnerving and I didn't dare pop my head out for a look. Needless to say, I didn't sleep so well in Lake Baringo.

Which means I saw quite possibly the best sunrise on this trip:

Hippo ears in the center and you can just make out a croc swimming in the lower right. I wasn't getting any closer to the water!:

As for climbing, well, I spent one day doing short, single-pitch trad leads trying to stay out of the sweltering sun. None of us were particularly inspired by the area and we voted to leave Lake Baringo early. I slept really well the night we left.

December 20, 2007: Lukenya, Kenya

I finally led trad at Lukenya!

Campsite at Lukenya:

Sunrise with morning mist over the valley:

Emma watches the morning parade of cattle through camp. One day some calves decided to slobber on my tent (my tent continues to attract trouble):


It had been a long time coming, but I had a rack to use (Diana left her rack in my care until she returns), not enough sport climbs around for me to fill the time, and, primarily, George telling me in no uncertain terms that I was going to lead trad.

George has to take a moment and rest with Steve to recover from following my trad lead:

Steve can't wait to get away from me:

And celebrate with a Gin and Tonic at the bottom. Oh, wait, this is Steve and Kat the night we had their "Goodbye!" party in Lukenya. Neither had smiles this big when they actually had to re-enter the real world.:

Since Lukenya is the traditional training ground for Kenyan climbers, it was fitting that I should have my first trad leads there. In fact, other than one sport climb and a couple hours bouldering, I spent the rest of my time getting cozy with cams, hexes, and nuts, anxiously awaiting critiques of my gear placement from the more experienced trad climbers in the group.

Turns out, trad climbing is a completely different head game. I got scared even though I was climbing way below my level so that I could concentrate on placing gear. It didn't really help matters that my very first lead involved both a crack and a slab -- the two features I am least comfortable on. It felt like it took me an hour to climb the simple 15 meter route as I tried about 20 different pieces of gear in each promising spot before finding one that was suitable. As the days progressed, however, placing gear became more intuitive and I was more comfortable with slab style run-outs. It will be quite some time, I think, before my trad climbing level matches my sport climbing level, but I can afford to be patient on this trip. Unfortunately, it is apparent to me that I'm going to have to spend some coin in order to build up a rack of my own.

Although I considered my potential death on several occasions while leading trad, I feared for my life most when I was not climbing.

Adrian, however, was fearing for his life on his first outdoor climb:

Which was overhanging??:

We needed to pick up several people in Nairobi who were joining the trip, and I decided to take a day off and go along for the ride. What a ride it was! The highway between Lukenya and Nairobi is undergoing major construction, and it is absolute mayhem on the temporary gravel roads currently supporting traffic. Theoretically, the temporary roads are standard two lanes. In reality, cars, trucks, vans, busses, and semis attempted to pass each other at breakneck speeds, successively swerving out to create a line of five or so vehicles across the road.

The white SUV is about to get sandwiched:

Lanes were absolutely meaningless. Now add oncoming traffic and enough dust to make the American Dust Bowl look like a non-event and you've got accident central waiting to happen. I lost track of all the death-defying near head-on collisions that took place as four lanes of traffic going one way played chicken with three lanes of traffic going to other way.

Note the truck on the far right coming the opposite way at full speed:

There was one little white truck in particular that would somehow swing out around four or five vehicles, face down an oncoming tractor trailer that would honk its horn but not reduce speed, then, at the last possible second, dart in front of the outermost vehicle missing the tractor trailer grill by seeming inches. The insane driver did this on several occasions, prompting Matt to coin the phrase "That guy has his balls in the passenger seat, strapped in!" It was an absolutely terrifying ride.

My second near death experience happened after Matt, Drew, and me had finished a lovely climb and were returning back to camp one evening.

Drew staring pensively at the valley below before starting the climb:

Matt looking heroically pensive before the start of the climb:

Drew belaying:

Matt on the crux. That wall bulge was a bit more steep than it appears from this angle...:

Drew working for it. Must...find...crimp...:

As we were walking down the hill through the brush, Matt skidded to an abrupt halt, exclaiming "Holy @#%! That's a big snake!" I was more concerned at the time with a large ant that was winning the war with my foot inside my shoe, but completely forgot the ferocious toe biter when I caught sight of the snake. It was about 15 feet away, on the other side of a large sloping rock that was a couple of feet high, directly in our intended path. Granted, this snake was no anaconda, but it was easily six feet long from what I could see. Initially, it was a standoff: the snake didn't move and we were petrified in fear. Then, since the snake was just lying there, our adrenaline dissolved into curiousity and it seemed like a good idea to take a picture. I snapped a couple of photos

Trust me, this fellow was a bit larger than a garter snake:

before Drew said "You should get a closeup." "With this thing?" I replied, gesturing to my small digital camera. "Here, give it to me and I'll get closer," he offered. I handed him my camera and he jumped up on the rock, cautiously moving forward, his camera arm extended to the max in front of him, while Matt and I craned our necks to watch. Drew had taken a few steps across the rock when the snake started to move back into the brush, parallel to the rock but seemingly away from us. Just as I was starting to breathe a sigh of relief, I saw the tip of its head just over the slope of the rock moving rapidly toward us. The snake was indeed parallel to the rock, but it had made a U-turn in the brush and was now right next to the rock, slithering toward us with alacrity. Now, I'm not one to anthropomorphize, but that snake was definitely using the rock for cover and definitely coming for us. Fast. My flight response kicked in immediately and I heard myself say "It's right there! Time to go!" in a rather strangled voice as my adrenaline level went through the roof. Drew practically levitated off the rock while Matt and I shot through the brush faster than a sprinter outrunning a doping charge. We speculated on what type of snake we had seen on the walk back to camp. Some sort of rock python? Something benign that ate field mice (albeit a lot of field mice)? Perhaps even the most poisonous snake, a black mamba? It was only after we consulted the African wildlife guide in BiRT and mined our memories of Snake Park that we determined, yes, we were absolute idiots for trying to get close to a black mamba. Thank God I wasn't tempted to peck it between the eyes like I had seen that baby chick do at Snake Park...

December 12, 2007: Arusha and Snake Park, Tanzania

The road to Arusha is paved with speed bumps. The fact that speed bumps are located roughly every 193 meters ensured that not even major roads could be considered highways, however. And let me tell you, when BiRT hits a speed bump everyone goes flying. At first it was kind of fun (sort of a "Woo-hoo, I got air!" feeling), then it got annoying since the books kept flying off the bookshelf onto my lap, then it got downright scary when Steffi actually hit her head on the roof.

Battered and bruised, we arrived in Snake Park, a campsite outside of Arusha, for a five day hiatus while BiRT went through some necessary repairs. And it was boring. So of course we spent time at the camp bar.

Group shot L to R: Jase, Steffi, Me, Henry, Sonia, Drew, Mike:
Henry after one too many "Hot Rock Hurler":
Drew discovers a business not yet franchised in America:
Danny and Ian took off on their own for our next climbing destination, Lukenya, instead of waiting around, which, in retrospect, was a wise move. I was forced to entertain myself by either eating my weight in chocolate at an upscale sweet shop in Arusha, or watching feeding time for the crocodiles at Snake Park.

Yum, dinner!:
Drew plays chicken:
The campsite also had a large exhibition area full of poisonous snakes which was somewhat entertaining, again during feeding time. I got to see a downy chick take on a black mamba and win. Or maybe the most poisonous snake on Earth was not particularly hungry at that time. Regardless, I chose to believe that when confronted by a black mamba, pecking it squarely on the head between the eyes would allow me to survive another day. If only I had a beak.

I also accompanied Sonia, a doctor from England on the trip, to a local free clinic that is primarily supported by the folks that own Snake Park. Mostly local Masai frequent the clinic, which is run by a couple of nurses who never get a day off. I missed most of the interesting cases that Sonia had seen in the morning (like extracting maggots from a child's neck. Apparently, there are these flies that lay their eggs in laundry drying on the line, then the eggs hatch and the maggots work their way into the skin of some unfortunate human. Needless to say, most everyone irons their clothes when they come off the line which fries the eggs. Unfortunately, I had given my laundry to a local Masai woman to do that very day...), though I did see a woman who had an ankle that had gone septic, and a fellow came in with a STD (I left the room for that one). STDs are rather difficult to treat in communities where multiple wives are standard because everyone has to be treated together and typically at least one of the wives is pregnant at any given time, unable to take appropriate meds. It was quite fascinating to flip through the logs and note that injuries sustained from things like snake bites were not uncommon. It was quite disconcerting, however, to be flipping through the logs and hear the decidedly out of place twang of Shania Twain singing "I Feel Like a Woman" blaring from a small stereo surrounded by waiting Masai. Regardless, it was heartening to see a successful, working example of free health care for an underserved population in operation.