back to the Great Rift Valley

We first experienced the Great Rift Valley last year, when we spent a week and a half in Nyahururu.

This past weekend, we went up to visit a friend from the US who came with a team to lead a conference at the Rift Valley Academy. This was a much shorter trip, and we took a much longer route to get there. Last year we flew. This year, traveling with another family, we decided to all take the night bus together. The boys had been super excited about going in an airplane before we decided on the bus. Fortunately, they found the bus equally as exciting as a plane.

After an exhausting night on the bus, we arrived in Nairobi early, where a driver was waiting with a touring van (like they use on safaris) to take us to Kijabe. We stopped at the overlook to view the Great Rift Valley at dawn. And there was even coffee! Not good coffee. It was instant. I take what I can get.

The Great Rift Valley is one of my favorite parts of the world. I have yet to see a picture that captures its awe-inspiring magnitude. If you ever come to Kenya, we would love to have you visit us at home. However, we would not be at all sad if you wanted to meet us at the Rift Valley instead.

^click that^ - it looks way more awesome full sized!

Mt Longonot. It is not the other edge of the Rift Valley. It is a volcano which sits in the valley. Hell's Gate is on the other side of Mt Longonot, and was the inspiration for the landscape in The Lion King. 

The weather was beautiful. It was a bit chilly for us. The forecast didn't look that cold, but we are so used to being hot, I wished I'd packed more long sleeves...

There was much playing outside. It's nice to be able to enjoy the sunshine instead of feeling like it's melting you!

We spent one morning at a park nearby. It has no playground, just a volleyball court and soccer field.

The boys all showed off their athleticism: racing, doing push-ups and pull-ups, sliding down fire poles. Nate isn't nearly as fast as his new friend Don (who is 5½ years old), but he has some kind of stamina! We kept losing Don, then finding him hiding under a tree resting. Meanwhile, Nate was still going, back and forth, up and down the soccer field.

Ben got frustrated when everyone else got to the end of the field before him. He would stop running and start crying for someone to come get him. But when we started cheering for him, he perked up and finished strong!

Of course we had to do silly faces. They were both pretending to be "cross." You can tell, right?

I didn't manage to get any pictures of the Americans, but they were there. The boys got A&M T-shirts and Goldfish (the snack, not the pet), which made a big impression, as I expected. Nate prayed last night for "my friend Laura who gave me Goldfish."