At around 10:30, an unexpected thrill came when I first saw the Great Rift Valley, a geological fault, while up in an escarpment. Think of the letter “u” and now stretch it so that the bottom of the letter extends almost 5,000 kilometres long, running from Syria to Mozambique. The valley itself is about 1800 feet above sea level but the escarpment (think again of the sides of the letter “u”) through which our car was passing was close to 8000 ft above sea level The valley is home to many villages and animals. The escarpments act like a fence to keep the animal inhabitants of the valley from emigrating except through the plains.

Along the highway we also saw the remains of a cargo truck that had slipped off the two-lane road and into a ravine.