Mt. Longonot

This past Saturday was incredible. A group of 11 of us planned a trip to Mount Longonot, an inactive volcano located 90 km from Nairobi, near the shores of Lake Naivasha. We hired the Jazz Quartet (the bus our program uses for our trips) and left Nairobi at 6:30 AM to get an early start on conquering the mountain.It was a beautiful drive; I loved getting out of the city scenery and smog. We arrived at the Mount Longonot National Park at around 8:00, bought our entry passes, and began!

We had anticipated a leisurely walk (the guidebooks always make things seem more strenuous than they are; I think mountains always turn out to be hills). But we soon realized the hike would be more challenging. 

The paths were sandy and steep at some points; the views were amazing for the entire way up. We even spotted a pack of giraffes grazing below us.

We reached the top of the volcano in just under an hour, and the last bit was tough..but this view greeted us when we made it up:

Looking into the crater

We then began the walk around the circumference of the crater, up and down the many peaks and valleys. I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.

Nearing the highest peak

We actually climbed. And saw these crazy people who ran around the crater, some of them barefoot. This is why Kenyans dominate the running world.

It took a couple hours to span the crater. After a PB'n'J lunch, we started the journey to the bottom. Inspired by the barefoot runners around us, a couple of us followed suit and jogged when we could, making the trip down soo much shorter than the hike up.

We ended the climb exhausted and filthy (we had basically rolled in white sand and volcanic rock), but we were grinning from ear to ear. Days like this one make me stop and marvel at the fact that I’m living in Africa and am able to experience these incredible places.

Mount Longonot and Lake Naivasha are located at the start of the Great Rift Valley and on the way back to Nairobi we were able to stop at a lookout point to take it all in. That night after dinner, I passed out at 9 o’clock and slept a solid 10 hours. Such a great Saturday!

The Great Rift Valley