More from Kenya '99

Mount Kenya

In July we headed to Mount Kenya, driving from Nairobi at 5,450 feet above sea level and then over fairly flat terrain.  We didn't gain much altitude until we reached the base of the mountain.

Our first night was spent at Old Camp Moses, 11,155 feet above sea level. (two scenes below)



The second night we stayed at Shipton's Camp (13,898 feet).

We woke up well before sunrise on July 4th to begin our scramble up Point Lenana (16,355 feet), the highest peak.  We reached the peak and rested on ice-covered rocks just as the sun rose over a blanket of clouds.  While we watched, the clouds burned away to reveal the valley and plains below.  It was a breathtaking site, no doubt, and a great spot to celebrate the 4th.

After our scramble to the peak we hiked down the west side of the mountain through the Teleki Valley along the Naro Maru Route and to MacKinder Camp (13,780 feet).

The below sketch was done soon after we arrived at MacKinder Lodge.  I showed it to one of the guides who commented on the disorder of our packs and boots and how he would've arranged them more carefully.

Our last stop was at the Summit View Pub near the Naro Maru Youth Hostel, where we waited for our van.  The hostel was an old brick farmhouse from the British colonial period.  Stories of the Mau Mau rebellion and its final days when the rebels sought refuge in the forest around the mountain made us consider the poverty and crippling kleptocracy under which Kenya strains and from which we were so heavily insulated.

Below, Guides and other patrons of the Summit View Pub

   

           

Africa: Kikuyu & Mombasa, Summer of 1999

My first sketchbook.

In the summer of '99, after graduating from college, I went to Kenya with five classmates to work at a mission hospital in Kikuyu, near Nairobi.  Before I left, a friend gave me a large black sketchbook.

We brought donated medical supplies with us, shadowed physicians during rounds and procedures, and helped with clerical work around the hospital.  We were there for six weeks and were able to travel around the country, as well.

The Green House, a prefab metal clad structure brought over by Scottish Presbyterians around 1910, was the men's residence where three friends and I stayed.

Guard's house behind the Green House

Inside the Green House.





Porch of the Green House.

Van ride back from our photo safari in the Masai Mara and Serengeti.

In mid June we took a train from Nairobi to Mombasa on the coast.  On the 14-hour trip I read The Man-eaters of Tsavo.  Written in the Victorian era, it tells the story of lion attacks on the worker camps during the rail's construction.

We stayed in a beachfront resort in Mombasa for a few days.  Most of the tourists were European, and of them most were German.

Camels for hire, and an ever-present and watchful policeman.

Entrepreneurs on the beach.  Men selling everything from boat-rides to photographs and trinkets.  Anyone of them could speak a handful of languages, and would try them out on you until they got it right.  German was usually their first try, and English came in second or third.  I showed this sketch to a few of them, and they appreciated the policeman with his back turned.