Mad Dogs and English-men...

...climb a crater in the midday sun with no map and wearing only small strap tops and shorts.

Yes I am sunburnt, but luckily only on my back where it cannot be seen if I wear a t-shirt.

We decided to climb the Menengai Crater, which is a big dormant volcano that you can see from our road. From one side it just looks like a big wooded slope, not very high, covered in parched maize crops being tended by small children and women with large metal instruments, but when you get to the top there's this amazing view of an ENORMOUS valley. As far as you could see were all these spectacular rock formations, tiny little detailed trees and rocks, and smoke rising occassionally from areas where native tribal Kenyans still live and farm the land. I thought of Louise and all the geographers looking at the view because it was like geography come to life :)
At the top of the cliff there was an large wooden structure that swayed from side to side in the wind which we clambered up onto, Ben, one of the boys, shuddering and swearing that we were going to die. It was about the height of a three-storey building and the view was even more amazing from up there :D

Having walked uphill for about 2 hours to get there, we drunk the best cokes in the world (they were warm and exploded all over my camera but they were SUGAR and LIQUID), admired the view for a while and then got the sweatiest, bumpiest and most-delayed-by-silly-official-women-trying-to-make-us-pay-for-being-white bus ever back down. We stopped at a cute little hotel called the Graceland Hotel, ate some very nice and appreciated food, and then swam in their pool :D

Tuesday night was also interesting as we had offered to cook a full roast dinner for 10 people in our host family's kitchen. We made the mistake of not checking the equipment beforehand, and so a victoria sponge cake was mixed in a saucepan, and we soon discovered that:

1 dish of roast potatoes
+ 2 dishes of yorkshire pudding
+ 1.5 kilos of meat to be roasted
+ 1 victoria sponge cake to be cooked

does NOT = 2 very small shelves in an oven.
Consequently, the meal took 3 hours to cook, the victoria sponge cake was burnt and had to be made into a crumble with pineapple jam and icing sugar (sweetest thing ever), and we have vowed never to do this again.

BUT, the food all tasted rather good :)