Jan 2026 Western Kenya

 

Northwestern Kenya is beautiful. We crossed the border from Uganda at Busia where Boaz's brother and a friend picked us up.

After another couple of hours in a car (we'd already driven 2 1/2 hours to the border from Jinja) to Boaz's mom's house, we met most of his siblings and their families, and shared a couple memorable meals.
Boaz's mom is in the blue dress. Two sisters are on either side of mom and his brother is next to Chris.
The next day, we hiked up this valley to visit his grandmother. To the right of the stream is Kenya. To the left is Uganda. There are no border or customs enforcement agents here.

The hike was steep.

And many children were interested in following us. In fact, many of them go to school where we started our hike. They go down and back up this trail 5 or 6 days a week!

The view behind us as we climbed up.


Some of our escorts!

The neighborhood swimming hole!


Crossing into Uganda without our passports! The stream was underground at this point.
Our destination! Boaz's Sho-Sho or grandma. He hadn't seen her for 11 years and both were very excited to be together! She was so surprised. She doesn't use a phone so there was no way to let her know we were coming. She lives surrounded by family on the side of this mountain with no electricity nor running water. They grow food and go across the river to Uganda to go to the market. 

Boaz's great uncle who also lives on the mountain.
From the border with Uganda, we drove to El Doret, a larger city in western Kenya that appears on most maps. East of El Doret is a town called Iten where world class long-distance runners come to train. It's perched on the top of an escarpment that drops into a valley the locals call a rift valley. It's north of the very large Rift Valley of Kenya. We had snacks at this lodge on the edge of the escarpment.

Looking from the lodge down into the valley.


Many famous runners have stayed here.
The lodge even had a giant slide for kids!

We were told that the parasailers can take off and land at the same location because of the wind patterns.

Another hotel for runners







The next morning we flew back to Nairobi. We had a choice between flying or an 11 hour bus ride. The flights were very affordable!

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