![]() ![]() "We arrived mid-afternoon at Meru National Park during the September dry season. The trail is not for the faint of heart you’ll ford streams, scramble over boulders, and scale short rock faces, but the impressive views are well worth the effort. Be warned, vervet monkeys and baboons abound and unlike Simba’s mandrill friend, Rafiki (which means friend in Swahili), these monkeys are more likely to steal your food than offer sage advice.įrom here, you can hire a guide-the area is community-run by Maasai people-to take you on a hike through the Ol Njorowa Gorge. Peek into Earth’s historyīring a packed lunch-and a cold Tusker, Kenya’s favorite lager-to picnic at the Ranger’s Station picnic area. Call Climb BlueSky, a Nairobi rock-climbing gym, for more details. ![]() This site is one of several places for rock climbing in the park. Keep an eye out for Fischer’s Tower, a 75-foot-high rock formation made from molten volcanic lava forced up through a tear in the earth-or, if you prefer local lore, a rebellious girl who was turned to stone after defying her family before her wedding. ( Find more destinations around the world to see unusual birds.) Give the water buffalo plenty of distance they’re more dangerous than they look. The park proves a popular spot for birdwatching, with more than a hundred species. Set out on the dirt road in the early morning or late afternoon to escape the harsh equatorial you’re likely to see animals all day, such as families of warthogs dashing across the road or herds of gazelles frolicking through acacias. ![]() ( Here are some tips for responsible wildlife tourism.) The best bike ride stretches four miles from the main entrance of the park, Elsa Gate, to the picnic site and ranger station near the entrance to the Ol Njorowa Gorge. Hell’s Gate is smaller and less packed with animals than Kenya’s other parks, but there’s nothing like pedaling your bike past a herd of zebras or trying to keep pace with a galloping giraffe. This is what makes Hell’s Gate a geological marvel worth visiting: towers of rock that provide rock climbing opportunities for adrenaline junkies and hiking trails that wind around a gorge formed by ancient, raging waters. Roughly 26 square miles in size, the park is situated in the Great Rift Valley, a jagged tectonic tear that stretches from Lebanon to Mozambique and cracks the continent in two by a few millimeters every year. (Walt Disney Company is majority owner of National Geographic Partners.) ![]() You can even go on a biking safari-a far cry from peeping animals through a safari vehicle’s roof. Hell’s Gate is one of the only places in East Africa where you can hike the totality of a park. The fact that you won’t actually see Simba (which means lion in Swahili) is the park’s secret advantage: the lack of predators means you can take in savannas and come face to face with giraffes, zebras, antelopes, and warthogs on your own two feet-or better yet, on bicycle wheels. ![]()
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