Church, Cheese and Chilling in Eldoret

Lucy joined us for an even heartier breakfast than yesterday, then we drove into town to Sacred Heart Cathedral for 10:30 Mass.

The hearty breakfast was necessary, as Mass started late and lasted well over 2 hours. The cathedral is large and full of people.

A stunning tree in the cathedral garden.

The rear of the cathedral.

From church we searched and found the famous creamery – and a cheesy photo!

Milk here still arrives in churns

And is manually poured into the tanks

As we stood outside the creamery eating Ice Cream, a big bird few low overhead.

From there, via Naiva’s supermarket, to Poa Place (“Cool Place”) which has a number of facilities, including a museum / animal park. The starlings were lying on the grass roofs of the huts.

Inside one of the Kalenjin huts

Gourds used to ferment milk to make mursik (like yoghurt with herbs). Lucy’s description doesn’t make one want to try it!

A cluster of huts

The animals include tortoises

Lions

More huts

Small antelope (duijker)

Cranes (non-construction)

Mambas

Snakes

Lucy is not a great fan of snakes!

The Pokot’s first wife’s hut

Then a picnic in the garden, a little stroll, and back to the hotel for chai and dinner.

 

Down into the Rift Valley

After a good sleep, a healthy breakfast and picking Lucy up, we headed towards Iten on the edge of the rift valley. There were some pleasant views on the way (and some amazingly bad “tarmac” road).

Iten is where many of Kenya’s long distance runners come from, and we saw runners and cyclists in training.

Kerio View is a hotel / restaurant / view point hanging on the edge of the valley, overlooking the Kerio river way below.

The gardens have many lovely flowers

The views are spectacular, but hard to capture on a hazy day

Maybe a panorama does better

The escarpment drops to a flatter area, then drops again towards the valley floor.

A crocodile sculpture

And his smaller cousin

We went on to Iten town, which had a massive market where we bought some lunch items

Down on the terrace, looking back at the escarpment

Looking down into the valley

Tarok Falls – we could have hiked in to the falls, but it’s a half day trip

Interesting flora

Looking up

A kind of starling

At our lunch stop, swarms of ladies descended on us trying to sell us their produce, but we already had most of what we need (but we did buy 3 mangoes for 20/-, that’s about 5p each. Lucy loved the water.

Back near Iten

Then back to Eldoret for tea, then into town for dinner and football!