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Published: October 10th 2007
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Stone hippo at Fisherman's Camp
(It looked cooler in real life!) You may have heard the saying, "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em." Well, we've modified that saying to be, "If you can't beat it, repeat it!" And that's exactly what we did. For our last few days in East Africa, we decided not to do a new national park as they all sounded second-rate, but cost the same. We instead opted to repeat some of our favourite places.
We first headed to Lake Naivasha. We stayed in a different campsite this time, Fisherman's Camp. This prved to be closer to nature than our last camp. Without leaving camp, we saw Maribu storks, vervet monkeys, colobus monkeys, and even a hippo. We decided to spend a day at Crater Lake as we had missed it last time. It seemed pretty simple: take a matatu to the town of Kongoni and then find a taxi for the remaining 4kn to the crater. However, there was one detail we overlooked - no taxis in Kongoni. More to the point, there seemed to be no cars in Kongni at all, and not even any motorbikes. You're probably wondering why we didn't just walk. We would have apart from the fact that our guide
The Dusty Bum
Well, there IS a lot of dust around here! book warned of muggings on the road to Crater Lake. There was only one thing to do: buy a couple of cokes from the "Dusty Bum" and wait by the roadside for a car to come along. After a few minutes, a shiny SUV came into sight and we flagged it down. The muzungu (foreigner) driving it offered us a lift to the sign, but then warned against walking the rest of the way due to the threat of attack by water buffaloes! He instead came up with the ides of contacting his friend "Kanji" in town.
Being only two intersecting streets, it didn't take long to find Kanji. In fact, he was the first man we spoke to (or at least claimed to be). Upon hearing our predicament, he rushed us off to an old Volvo in a field and said he'd contact the man who owned it. We spoke to him and agreed on a price and we were set to go...sort of. He first had to find and install the car battery. I guess this car isn't used much. With the battery installed, the owner proudly dusted off the back seats for us and gave them
a quick rub with cooking oil for added shine, and in we got. He started the car, and it stalled. He started it again, but it stalled again. On the third try it spluttered into life and we were finally on our way.
After a couple more minor breakdowns and battery adjustments, we made it to Crater Lake. While we waited for the walking guide, we ordered coffee and omelette in the lodge overlooking the lake. It felt so serene and civilized after our journey there. When our guide arrived, we spent a pleasant coule of hours walking among dozens of giraffe, zebras, warthogs, and various types of gazelle. When our guide pointed out a leopard footprint and mentioned that you can only see leopards on night drives, our ears instantly pricked up: night drive?!
After asking around at camp, we got two English girls to share the cost with us. We all set off at 9:30pm in a pick up truck for our first night game drive. It was quite exciting as you could only see what was in the headlights straight ahead, or what was in the powerful spotlight controlled by our guide. Elsewhere, it was
complete, utter darkness. Our guide was amazing at identifying animals just from the glow of their eyeballs in the light. We saw lots of nocturnal animals such as bushbabies, spring hares, zorillas (skunks), and a hippo, as well as the usual daytime animals such as giraffe and zebra. Amazingly, they seemed to be able to see in the pitch blackness, and they sleep with their eyes open in order to look out for leopards! How strange! By the time we got back to camp, we were frozen, but it was nothing a round of hot chocolates couldn't fix!
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Born to travel
Sharon and Scott
Fabulous Pictures - Aunty Sharon
Hi, Sharon and Scott, Thinking about this Sunday morning glad your safe. Love, Aunty Sharon