Wenchi Crater Lake

While we were away for our short break we visited Wenchi Crater Lake. We trekked down the mountain (the guide said we went from 3300 feet down to 2700 feet) on horses.

 Lily's first horse-ride: 5 1/2 months, Tommys first horse-ride - a little bit older than that ;-)

 We had driven through lots of mist on the way to the start of the trek and thought we might not see much on the way down, but the sky cleared and we actually had some lovely views of the lake as we rode down.

 Once near the lake we walked to the shore and took a small boat over to an island in the middle where the priest lives next to the Orthodox church.

Lily woke up to experience her first boat trips on the way back and then decided she was hungry, just as the heavens decided they would open. Our guide seemed pretty keen not to get wet, so we ran back up a little way to where the first houses were and he asked someone if we could go and visit them! They seemed to be fine with this, so we entered a family's Oromo hut, which initially seemed pitch black and quite difficult to work out where we could sit down! We sheltered from the rain and then headed on to find more horses to trek back up to the start again.

The boys LOVED the return trip as they were able to up the pace and galloped up the mountain. Josh later told me he nearly fell off three times, but fortunately Tommy and I were too far behind to know at the time! Tommy's poor horse was in go-slow mode, I think the poor thing needed to be retired from carrying people up the mountain!!  

They have their own eco-tourism website with some info and pictures about the area:
http://www.wenchi-crater-lake.com/about.php

There is a nice blog from a previous visitor here with a little background to the area as well as his photos:
http://salamboinaddis.com/2011/11/07/trip-to-wenchi-crater-lake/