Kenya 2014

Ilana was doing some work while we were getting ready to go for dinner.

After flying from Nairobi to Kisumu, we stopped at Kiboko Bay for a few hours before heading to Rondo Retreat in the Kakamega Forest.

We stayed at the Rondo Retreat for the night and went on a hike before going on to Bungoma where Ilana lives -- and meeting her very cute dog, Wimbi (which is Swihili for millet).

From Bungoma, we visited One Acre Fund test sites for their cow project and new crops and planting methodologies.

We visited the field in Chwele District. There were some farmers who were learning about a new electronic payment method, M-Pesa, and also about the OAF life insurance benefit.

From Bungoma, we went back to Kisumu where we flew to Nairobi and drove to Lake Naivasha. At the lake there is an enormous diversity of bird life. We stayed in bandas (huts) and used the location as the jumping off point for visits to two parks in the following days.

We rented bikes and rode to and through Hell's Gate National Park. There were animals around us on the ride. At the end, we got to the gorge where we hiked, with a required guide, through it.

We hiked up Mount Longonot, a volcano that last erupted in the 1860s, to the rim of the primary crater. The rim is at 2560m (8400 feet) and the trail was quite steep in places and sometimes gravelly soil made the going challenging -- both up and down.

We left Lake Naivasha and returned to Nairobi by car where we had a quiet evening.

On our last day in Kenya, we went to the glass factory outside Nairobi. It was actually two facilities and they were fanciful and had interesting sulptures and other constructions. That night, we started our flight home. We flew through Dubai and then to Boston going over countries I never thought I'd see, in particular Iran.