Adventure in the Aberdares: Part III

So, if you haven’t been following this trilogy, please see Part I and Part II first :).

So finally we spot the river, yay! And then realise that it’s a very narrow part of the river. Given that we’d left our car at a place where the river was wide with huge rocks on the river bed, there’s no telling whether that part of the river is to our left, or to our right. And so we take a break, contemplating which way to proceed. Our clothing is soaking wet and I am squeezing water out of my jacket sleeves. Our jeans are soaked wet too, AB’s more than mine, seeing that he was breaking through the jungle first, and so took the brunt of the water and dirt coming off. My boots, which are not water proof are soaking wet too, and I can feel the water to my socks! We are thirsty and starting to get hungry, and are glad that at least, we stopped for lunch earlier. Otherwise I think the hunger by this time would have been a distraction hahahaha. And once again, we wish we’d carried water from the car. “O, for a small break!”, I sigh.

AB points out that we could go the left or to the right. Again, we could be going towards the car or away from it. I look at him as he looks around and debates, and I send more prayers up above. By this time he’s learnt that I am of no help as far as navigating us back to our car goes :(. Then he says to go the right. The river becomes our new compass hehehehe, and we continue navigating as close to the river as we can, making sure that we still hear the water flowing through.  The jungle is not letting up and we continue to push through it.

And then we come to another clearing. The river widens, there are loads of big rocks in the water and sitting majestically across the river is our car!!!  Jubilation!!! And I am sure the angels in heaven are singing, praising and causing a raucous with us as we celebrate returning to base! Yeeesss!!!! OK, for us, it is on the inside. We are bone tired and drenched, with little to no energy to make any outward gestures of celebration. However, our faces show it all, never mind that we still have to hop-skip-and-jump it across the river back to our car! O, that is one site I still can see clearly in my mind.  Thank you, Jesus! This is nothing short of a miracle from up above. Hurray!!!!

And after a few moments of celebration and gratitude to our Father, we start to manoeuvre across the river and get to the other side. We still have our car keys [yeesss!] and are super excited! We made it back, thank you, LORD! And I am happy that I triple layered my clothing: glad I listened to AB LOL. We open the car and remove the outer clothing: jackets & sweaters that are wet. Thankfully, my blouse is dry and I have a blanket [it’s freezing!] and another pair of shoes to put on. Unfortunately, we each only have the pair of jeans we have on, and are content to go on in wet & muddied jeans. This is a non issue considering what we’ve come through LOL!

And we take stock of lessons learnt hehehehehe:

1. Always carry extra sets of batteries for the GPS
2. Never leave phones behind in case of emergency
3. Carry some drinking water
4. It’s advisable to have water proof clothing & hiking boots

I am so grateful to our LORD and Saviour, Jesus, for bringing us back to base. And so proud of AB for pushing through and navigating us back. As we get into the car to leave the Forest, he asks if I would rather have been at Camp Carnelleys in Naivasha eating pizza instead? As much as I love Carnelleys, my answer is an unequivocal “Of course not! And miss all this adventure?”