Mali Saba...

At the beginning of the summer a precious couple with one of our groups gave us some money. This money was conditional however.  It was not for the ministry.  We had specific instructions that we could ONLY use it on ourselves.  WHAT??  Yep.  We have been much too busy this summer to use it, but this past week we cashed it in.  My Chris took me to one of the most beautiful places I have ever been to.  We went to a place called Mali Saba near Nakuru.  It is a massive crater, the 2^nd largest in Africa.  I will tell you more about this place through pictures.

You just gotta see it!

We stayed in a nice Banda which is a glorified tent.  I DO mean glorified. It had a nice, big shower, toilet, sink and all. This is the front porch of our banda:

 

This is laying in our bed looking out over the dormant volcano, aka: a crater.  

We actually signed a waiver for our ”nature walk.”  I was cool with this, I figured it was because of snakes. I’m well aware by now of the risks with snakes here seeing as they all almost all poisonous.  You just avoid ticking them off at all costs.  That’s my rule anyway.  Toward the beginning of our “nature walk” I asked Peter a question after thinking about this waiver we just signed saying if we die, Mali Saba isn’t responsible.  Curious about this and thinking about snakes I asked “So how many times do you see snakes out here on this “nature walk”.  Peter replied “We don’t see them 60% of the time.”  Well, what the heck about the other 40%.  I didn’t even want to know so I stopped there.  Little did I know, poisonous snakes were the LEAST of why we signed our lives away.  Goodness gracious, this was no nature walk.  

This is what we climbed.  The next pictures are our journey to the peak.  The one closest to us is the one we climbed.  The farther one is even higher!

This was IN the crater, in front of our massive hill... only it doesn't look that big in the picture....

This is it... this is about the steapest part of the whole thing.  WHEW!  Makes me tired just looking at it.  

Check out this kid cutting grass on the side of the mountain while his cows graised below.  He acted like it was no big deal.  I think I could find less scary places to cut grass...

We had to take a breather on the way up where it was flat enough to sit.  We were almost there.  CT looking out at the hill we didn't climb.  He really showed me up guys.  I never heard him panting not once... and he's not the one training for a half marathon!!  WTC?  Apparently my mans' inactivity in the physical department hasn't fazed him a bit!

 

When we returned back, I insisted they change the name from “Nature walk” to their choice of: “Eco challenge: Mali Saba”, “Nature death climb”, or “Man Verses Wild: Mali Saba style”. 

Finally!  We made it to the top.  For our next outdoorsy endeavor- Kilimanjaro, here we come!

                                          

This is at the top.  You can see our Banda waaaaay off in the distance..

This is where we went to eat our dinners, but you really can't tell much other than CT loves UNC and that hat!

We had an absolutely wonderful time.  It was definitely one of the most beautiful places I have ever been in my life!   We got to spend some time together just the 2 of us.  It was perfect.  We spent most of our time just sitting on the porch of our Banda with coffee- admiring God's infiniteness, and affection for us. I will never forget the wonderful gift this was!

 

Run for Revolution picture...More on this to come! ;)