Hell’s Gate

This could have been a separate trip but it ended up being just an excursion from our camping trip. In fact it’s very close to the camping area and it made a lot of sense to spend some time there. We could have spent a lot more time than we did but it was great to go see it and get a better idea of what it is. Now that we know, we will likely go back at some point.

Hell’s Gate is named after a narrow break in the cliffs, once a tributary of a prehistoric lake that fed early humans in the Rift Valley. It was established as a small national park in 1984. It is known for its wide variety of wildlife and for its scenery, including a couple of large columns and a rather beautiful gorge. The park is also home to three geothermal power stations and a Maasai Cultural Center. It has its own campsites which could be an option for us next time (though I do enjoy being by a lake).

We ventured out after lunch on Saturday. We were planning on having dinner in the restaurant at the campground so we didn’t need to hurry back to prepare food. We drove with another family in two cars the short distance to the park entrance. While we sat in a queue of vehicles awaiting our turn to pay the entrance fee, our windows were down. It was warm and the air was dry. Baboons of all sizes were milling about the entrance area. All of the sudden a rather large one jumped into Kiran’s backseat windows. She screamed and it realized it wasn’t a great idea and jumped back down. Poor Kiran was a bit traumatized. It is a bit scary.

A few minutes later one of them tried to do the same thing in our friends’ vehicle just in front of us. Pretty aggressive creatures.

With our fees paid we eventually were off and running. Quite quickly some pretty amazing landscape comes into view. The walls of the gorge provide some beautiful rocky walls. The grassy area on both sides of us provided us with views of zebras, gazelles, warthogs, buffaloes, etc. It was crazy to see how quickly the landscape changed from where we were by the lake just a few minutes before.

Our friends had been there before, many years prior, so they had a general idea where they were going. So we followed with no real sense of what we were going to see or do. Eventually we made our way to a parking area where we would be able to walk down into a narrow gorge. There seemed to be dozens of men wanting to escort us. We kept rebuffing their attempts to take us down through the gorge and eventually a young, skinny guy stuck with us long enough that he ended up being our de facto guide. In fact he ended up being somewhat useful and interesting.

One thing that he was able to tell us was whether or not the route we were taking was navigable for children. This was important since we had several with us. He also was able to tell us to avoid a waterfall coming from one of the cliffs, which was in fact toxic discharge from one of the geothermal power stations.

But overall it was a nice walk down through this gorge. There were a couple of hot springs coming out of the ground, too hot to even touch until the water flowed closer to the main stream. We followed it for some time before heading up a trail that would take us back to the parking area.

Once back in our vehicles, we decided that we needed to make our way out of the park and head back to our campground. It was a short excursion but definitely gave us an idea what it was about. Worth returning at some point.