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Published: January 25th 2009
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I awoke at 6.30am & had a hot shower before all the hot water was used ! We had beans on toast for breakfast. We decamped & left Kembu at 8.30am. We arrived in Nakuru ( meaning whirlwind or dusty) the capital of the Rift Valley Province at 12.30pm.
I bought some postcards, stamps & some food. We were parked for about 1.5hrs so I mailed my postcards & ate lunch on the truck, while everybody bought souvenirs, water & food. Afterwards we entered Nakuru National Park. The park is about 188 square km & surrounds Lake Nakuru one of the Rift valley's 5 soda lakes. The lake is famous for the millions of Greater & lesser Pink Flamingoes that live here, there are pelicans as well. The park has Kenya highest concentration of Rhinos ( white & black ). It has Rothschilds Giraffes, Waterbuck, Wart Hogs, Cape Buffaloes, Lions & a Leopards. We were lucky & saw all of these on our 1st game drive. We saw the Lions & the Leopard through our binoculars, only they were too far away to get good photos.
That night we camped in the Nakuru Park close to Malakia Waterfall. We pitched our
Lake Nakuru Park
Greater & Lesser Pink Flamingoes tents in a semicircle beside the truck with a fire in the middle, this was to keep wild animals at bay. We had chicken & salad for dinner. After dinner Kanyo (our guide) was telling us about the Bantu & Nilot tribes in Kenya. I opened the bottle of Red Label whiskey I bought (illegally for dpts only) at Nairobi Airport. I enjoyed the campfire, whiskey, talking & listening to Hyenas & other animals.
The next morning we had breakfast,while a troop of Baboons made noises & looked on derisively. Then we went on our 2nd game drive in the park, we got very close to the Rhinos & Giraffes. Later we drove up to Baboon Cliff for spectacular views of the lake & all the Flamingoes, we saw Hyenas patrolling the shoreline & spotted Rock Hyrax on the cliffs.
We drove back to Nakuru & had chicken & chips in a local restaurant. Then we drove to Crayfish Camp on the shores of lake Naivasha. This is a freshwater lake which means of course Hippos! These bad boys are dangerous & killed a female tourist (near our camp) who ventured too close last year. In fact they
kill more people than Lions & Crocodiles combined in Africa every year !
The lake is about 125 square km but only about 20ft deep & is slowly drying up. A local showed me the original shoreline with boats stranded at there moorings, which was about 250 ft from the current shoreline. This change had only occured wihtin the last 10 years, & is probable due to overuse by agriculture. It has some of the best land in the country & a lot it land was taken by the English colonists. We pitched our tents & drove to Ellesmere for afternoon tea & cakes. I remember as a child seeing the movie, so I was chuffed to see her house. The cakes were great but the 1 hour vidoe presentation was slow torture. We returned to camp & I did my laundry. I walked down to the lakeshore to see the Hippos. For dinner Lucky hustled up a delicious fish massala. After dinner we all went to the camp bar for drinks & a pool competition, which took all night, this was 4th Nov, US election night, all the Kenyans were excited about the prospect of an Obama Victory. I
had been in the US only 10 days before & I had bought an Obama t-shirt in Union Square.
I felt sorry for these guys who thought that every Kenyan was going to geta free visa to the US or something, they were putting to much store in his Kenyan heritage, he is half Irish as well !
I woke up to the news that Obama had won the election, which was excellent. After 8.30 am we paid $25 for our Crater Lake trek. This invovled taking a boat across Lake Naivasha past the Papyrus where the Hippos hang out to the other shore. Here we disembarked & walked through a sanctuary with Giraffes gazing down at us, Zebra, Antelopes & Gazelles frolicking. They were not fenced in & because we were on foot, walking among them was less intrusive, which is a good thing. Then we hiked to the rim of the crater for a view of the lake. We hiked down through the jungle with Black & White Colobus Monkeys watching, to the lake in the caldera, we could smell the sulphur emanating from the water. We had a Stoney Ginger ale at the lodge &
One of our boats
On the way to Crater Lake hiked back to our boat. On the lake our guide whistled & threw a dead fish into the water. Two massive Fish Eagles took flight from the trees on the shoreline,then circled before the bigger one swooped on the dead fish. When we returned Dave & I went to a local bar for a beer & some chiapatis. Later after dinner a few of us were going to another local bar to see the locals celebrate Obama's victory, but 2 of the camp guards came running after us & warned us not to, they said some German from the camp was beaten there up the night before, so we reluctantly turned back.
I updated my diary & decided to go to sleep. As I reached the tent it began to rain heavily, I managed to grab my laundry off the clothes line before it got wet. This was the 2nd Rainy season between Oct & Jan.
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