In Eldoret we had applied for our Visa extension. While waiting for a reply, we drove south to the Kakamega Forest, the last remaining rain forest in Kenya. There is a lovely place called Rondo Retreat, which was once the home of a sawmill owner and is now a retreat run by a Christian organisation.
Rondo Retreat offers lovely accommodation in the middle of the forest, with a beautiful garden surrounded by the huge trees. But you can also go there for coffee and cake, lunch or dinner. We enjoyed a nice lunch in the shade of a tree after our hike.
We actually took two hikes starting at Rondo Retreat. The first one was cut short by the start of a heavy rain. It even started to hail later and we didn’t go to the planned campsite that day, as the last 100 metres to get there were so muddy, that we decided to find a different place. In the end we spent the night at the parking of a restaurant, which provided a lovely dinner of grilled fish that evening. The next day, the sun was shining again, and we did a longer hike with Wyclif.
We had enjoyed our hike through the rainforest, spotting Colobus and Blue monkeys and hearing the Great Blue Turaco and many other birds.
After another visit to the Immigration office, we will continued back to the lakes of the Rift Valley.