Morning on Mount Motigo

You may have wondered what kind of leisure activities are available to us here in rural Kenya. Well, we're not exactly clubbers anyway, so most of the home activities, like playing games and watching movies, are still available to us. But, truth be told, though there are exotic locales within shot for a 3-day weekend, there isn't exactly an extensive city park system, for the rare Saturday morning off.

However, this morning, during one of Maggie's naps, we decided to take one of the few popular local sojourns: a quick hike up and down (2 hours) "Mount" Motigo (which is more of a hill, though the highest hill around. It started off well, by traversing the bridge over the Tenwek dam, which provides hydroelectric power for all of our homes and the hospital.

With some directional assistance from a few friends, we didn't have any trouble going up the dirt road, then off the road through the Motigo Secondary School grounds, to the grassy bald summit of Mt. Motigo. There are some great 360 degree views, including of the Tenwek village, and Rachel befriended a sheep at the top.

One the way down, we got a chance to again admire the tea fields that are scattered around here, Kenya being the 3rd largest tea-producing country in the world, after India and Sri Lanka. Recent interesting fact: a mature tea tree (which are about waist-high) gets its leaves picked every 17 days. Talk about prolific!

Our re-crossing of the waterfall bridge was slightly detained by a pack of quite stubborn donkeys that had to make their way across first. All in all, we made it back. Maggie was still sleeping, and the Cropseys (who were manning the baby monitor) never had to check in on her. Excellent. I'm sure we'll take this little jaunt again.