26km of the roughest road

"Abandon hope all ye who enter here"

The view from the "bandas" the camp at the entrance to the Chogoria gate.

Fog would roll in without warning.

From the bandas it didn't look that far.

A little bird outside my tent.

Patrick, my guide, leads the way on our first day out.

That peak in the distance is called something in Swahili that simply means "sharp peak"

Patrick tells me this stream grows quite large and eventually reaches Nairobi.

The forest on the early part of the first day.

A chameleon.

This is called the "Giant's Billiard Table" it is perfectly flat on the top and covered with bright green grass.

Halfway to the roadhead.

Very strange flower.

I walked through a field of these strange grassy pillars. Patrick said they had been there for hundreds of years.

We set out on a walk to a nearby lake so I could better acclimatize.