Kenya, Day 3 - Crescent Lake, Giraffe Centre, Carnivore

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After breakfast at Sentrim Lodge, we left for our next adventure. I really would have loved to relax at the resort for a few hours, but that is not how Trekkup rolls. You definitely get your money's worth on these trips!

Hippo Hunting
So our first stop was to Lake Naivasha to go hunt for some hippos. We arrived at the beautiful Lake Naivasha Lodge, just gorgeous, where we would have our tour.
We were each given a life jacket on our way to the dock and were split into three groups. You could already see many hippos hanging out in the water nearby! We precariously entered our small boats, with me wondering what would happen if an angry hippo nudged us. Then we were off traveling through the murky waters. They were mostly just standing in the water near shore, but it must have been that time of day as when we returned a couple hours later, they were gone. We came near a village with small houses on stilts at the water's edge. Here was a little sand bar that sleeping hippos were lounging on, including some adorable babies! It was so cool. Then we moved on toward an island and saw some kind of huge bird a type of falcon I think, that caught fish or driver thru in the air when called. Also very cool.

Crescent Island
So this past I did not know that we were going to do and it was probably one of the best parts of the trip. We disembarked at the entrance to Crescent Island, walked up a small hill, and stated a tour. I had no idea what to expect. Our guide from the previous day, John, was our guide today and he walked with us around the island and.... it was just so amazing. Crescent Island formed when the lake water's rose a bit and cut off access to the mainland. I'm not clear on how the animals were introduced - they were cut off to return or they were properly brought here. It's even said part of Out of Africa was filmed here... Who knows.

But wow.

Again, no carnivores so you could just walk the whole island along various animal types. We first saw Gazelle in a little herd. Then zebras. Then impala. We visited a little open museum which discussed some of the creatures, not just on the island, but their general characteristics. Basically John had to drag us up there away from the animals - I guess it's not like they were going anywhere! Leaving we saw a tall proud Waterbuck watching us walk by. Right behind him a female was laying in the grass, making us wonder if he was protecting. Soon we saw a group of them hiding in the bushes. We kind of scared them out and they slowly moved up hill towards me zebras and Gazelle - I love seeing them all hang out together. A little further and we saw a her of wildebeest who slowly made their way away from us, and we turned uphill.

As we came over the rise, you could look down towards the other side of the island which was a little greener. Here were even more zebras! We also saw a couple monkeys. What was cool is that for some reason, we saw a herd of wildebeest hightailing it over the ridge in the distance. Soon after, a herd of Gazelle were swiftly running the same direction. One even did an impressive jump right in front of me and I got it on camera. Well, phone camera, not professional quality. While everyone took some time here with the animals (one girl got real close to a zebra), I moved on. And here was the amazing part. There was a giraffe eating at a tree near the water. It was just me, John and another girl and we quietly approached. I took a few pictures but mostly just enjoyed watching it in its element. Then I saw two more giraffes up hill, so I quietly made my way. One was alone keeping his distance, with a great backdrop of the island and sky. The other looked very young, and was just enjoying his food. I just stood still and keep watching as he slowly came closer and closer to me until he was basically wasting right over my shoulder. I was in heaven! I had wanted to do the giraffe trip last year but couldn't, but this now than made up for it!

By now everyone else had caught and we continued on, saying goodbye to this incredible island, lake and lodge.

Giraffe Centre
Now was time to head back towards Nairobi. We stopped at a crafts shop on the way, which also had a place to buy Felicia cold beer. Here we are our packed, basic lunch and just enjoyed the day.

We got to the Giraffe Centre just in time for their evening feed. I had never fed a Giraffe before(I let my niece and nephews do it), and it was so fun! They give a little coconut like shell full of feed and you can feed the three giraffes, one of which was a baby, one piece at a time. It was pretty crowded but everyone was pretty cool. When it was my turn, I got the baby Giraffe who was on the middle. Its tongue was so slimy! But it was adorable. I saw a few people try to pet the giraffes, but they were pros at this and deftly avoided human contact anywhere else but hands to black tongue. Indeed, there were warning signs to watch out for a Giraffe head butt.

While waiting for everyone to finish, I went to the little museum / visitor's center. They had some facts about giraffes on the walls, but what I really wound up enunciation was the display of art work by students. The hand drawn pictures appeared to have an environmental theme with community involvement. Some of the displays were quite impressive!

Carnivore
Our final stop on this trip was to a huge well known restaurant in Nairobi. It's like those Brazilian steakhouses, where they just confine to bring meat to you. A few vegetarians in our group, but otherwise we all got to try some different things. Nothing really stood out. Maybe we had an ostrich meatball that was interesting. It was good of course, just not memorable... but I don't eat much meat anyway. I loved the recommended sauces they had though!

Then it was on to the airport where there was a crazy line to get in and I again got shafted on the priority line at check in. Otherwise a fantastic, quick, but jam-packed adventure. I would say my favorite things were Crescent Island, the day with giraffes, cycling in Hell's Gate and just setting so many zebras! I used to only ever see a couple, so this was incredible for me!

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Comments

[D MJ Binkley]

Beautiful
Kenya looks amazing.