Suswa Caves

Kenya is entire of hidden gems that we keep discovering and we want to exhibit our readers all of them! We lately camped at Suswa Caves, one particular this kind of concealed gem. Often you just need to have to get off the overwhelmed monitor, and whilst the street via Suswa is the very well-overwhelmed keep track of to the Maasai Mara, the diversion to Suswa Caves is pretty unbeaten. So, at the risk of producing Suswa Caves Kenya’s hottest destination, I am going to notify you about our weekend there and how you can appreciate your possess adventure.

Eight of us headed to Suswa loaded up with camping gear, foodstuff and h2o. Laura and Moses arrived from their camp in the Maasai Mara with their good friend Helen who was checking out from the British isles. Kip, Leonie and their daughter Fleur arrived from Nairobi, like us. We arrived at the turnoff to Mt Suswa Conservancy at the similar time as Moses and Laura so we established off together into the conservancy. The highway was so dusty! We had to preserve pretty much a kilometre amongst our automobiles so the kinds at the rear of didn’t get shed in the cloud. On their way in, Kip and Leonie acquired trapped in a dust drift – that’s how negative it was!

After we entered the conservancy we had to discover the campsite and established up camp. It was not the easiest to uncover, but some of the neighborhood Maasai who take treatment of the conservancy discovered us, waved us down and gave us instructions. We ended up pleasantly stunned to locate some thing resembling a toilet block – a hole in the ground surrounded by a composition with the doorway facing away from the campsite. There are two campsites in Mt Suswa Conservancy: one particular is on the rim of the crater (I forgot to point out that Mt Suswa is an extinct volcano) and the other is next to the caves. We were at the one particular near the caves. Apart from the crumbling properties about very long fall bogs, there is no other infrastructure at the campsites so you have to deliver every little thing. Fortuitously we are all ex-overlanders so we are employed to spending a pair of nights in the bush and experienced all the requisite provides for such an journey. For a cost the Maasai introduced us firewood, but it most possible wasn’t environmentally sustainable firewood.

Maasai drinking water harvesting
The future morning we hiked. We discovered a guideline to just take us up to the crater rim of Mt Suswa. On the way he confirmed us the ingenious technique the Maasai have been using to harvest water. Mt Suswa sits in the Great Rift Valley and is 1 of many volcanoes that induced the Rift Valley to exist Mt Kilimanjaro and nearby Mt Longonot being two some others. This volcanic exercise implies there are warm springs and geysers through the area. In simple fact this activity has resulted in Kenya Electrical power building a significant geothermal power plant in Hells Gate Countrywide Park, which is spitting length from Mt Suswa. Anyway, the Maasai have place pipes around steam vents in the mountainside in a way that directs the steam down the mountain. By the time the steam has travelled down the pipe, it has condensed to h2o and drips into a significant jerry can. Any person can arrive and just take water from this resource. On our way again to camp immediately after browsing the crater rim, we stopped by the most important h2o collection place and our tutorial doused every of us in chilly water harvested from the steam vents. It appeared a little bit extravagant presented the dryness of the landscape, but it was also quite welcome as it was so sizzling.

On our hike we noticed rabbits and shy vervet monkeys, a exceptional species as most vervet monkeys are quite cheeky and not at all shy. We also saw lots of birds which Kip was thrilled about as he is an avid birder.

In the afternoon, our manual took us to (and by means of) the caves. I would in no way have guessed how considerable they have been and how huge. Some ended up just enormous holes in the ground, which might establish a hazard if you weren’t searching wherever you were heading! Other people had been narrow passages which weren’t so a lot my cup of tea. There were being a large amount of bats, and I did not extravagant coming across a person trying to get out whilst I was hoping to get in! We were being proven a single chamber that was known as the leopard’s taking in cave. I’m not certain if it was accurate or not, I favored not to think much too really hard about it as our campsite was very shut. A single big cave was identified as the baboon parliament as it is a favorite accumulating spot for troupes of baboons. The rocks had been shiny and easy from the baboons sitting on them so considerably.

Future time we go, I believe the campsite on the crater rim is preferable to the 1 close to the caves, if only for the look at. Hikes need to have to transpire in early early morning and late afternoon with a siesta to go the warmth of the day. Conservancy and tenting fees are quite affordable and the guy who collects them is really fantastic at being aware of that you are in the conservancy – so even if the entrance gate is unmanned, you will nonetheless have to pay back as he will come to the campsite to verify on you. Hold your receipts nevertheless, so you can show payment in scenario another administrator comes all around to check out/collect.