August 3, 2009

Today was a pretty long day. It was a fun day though, so I guess that's okay. We got to sleep in! We didn't leave until 9:30am. We set out for Thompson Falls. It's about an hour from Nakuru. We got to pass through rural Kenya! It was so beautiful. The brown dirt turned to red, and those African trees that you always dream about appeared! There were beautiful gardens. Mostly corn... some tea. The tea here is so good. I think I'll get into the habit of having tea every night before bed. Tea with milk and sugar is the best. Anyways, there are tons of sheep, cows, and donkeys tied to the side of the road. It's a bit odd and kind of sad. They falls were nice. There were three waterfalls that made up Thompson Falls. Some people hiked to the bottom. I didn't know that we would be hiking, so I didn't wear sneakers. There was a little marketplace next to the falls. We all instantly got sucked in. It was actually quite stressful. Everyone's always all up in your face, and they try to guilt trip you! They say things like "you're my first customer, and if you don't buy anything I won't eat". They really overprice things though... so you have to haggle. It's kind of fun, but if you know me, you know that I can't do that very successfully. Haha. It's kind of fun, but really uncomfortable. The market will most likely be quite a challenge.

We then had lunch at the Thompson Lodge. It was again buffet style, and really good. We headed back to Nakuru to visit the crater. It was cool as well, but everyone was exhausted. Also, it started pouring, so our 'parade' was rained on. I've never seen a crater before, so it was pretty interesting. Very beautiful.

I forgot to mention this before. On the way to the falls we passed the equator! So we stopped at the official equator crossing spot. It was pretty cool! I guess I didn't know that Kenya was on the equator. It wasn't really hot... which I don't know about you, but when I think about equator I think hot! Then again, it's technically winter here. Did you know that on the north side of the equator the water drains clockwise? On the south side it drains counter clockwise? It might be the other way around, haha. Oh, and right on the equator the water drains straight through the hole.