SHOW US SOME ANIMALS – LAKE NAKURU NATIONAL PARK

If you had of asked me 12 months ago that I would be starting a safari in January 2016 with my best friend and her family, I would have just laughed and said I WISH.

But my wish came true and my ‘family’ made the trek to see me and we had a precious 16 days together.  We had a five day safari booked with a company called Kikwetu Cultural Adventures. http://kikwetuculturaladventures.com and it started today.  Shane had made the booking direct from Australia, and knowing Shane, he did a hell of a lot of homework before making the booking, which was a plus from my side, cause if something was to go wrong the responsibility was not on my shoulders……  A 50% deposit was paid from Oz and then the final payment was made the morning of the tour in USD.  The gentleman that Shane had been dealing with, Kenneth came with the van and the driver on Saturday morning at 8am.  Even though Kenneth was not joining us for the tour, and besides having to collect the monies, it was nice of him to meet us before we set off on our journey.  Kenneth aka Kenny’s customer service was mind blowing.  Especially in a country where customer service is non-existent, it really was a surprise at how good he was.  Kenneth walked us through what today’s itinerary involved and as a surprise he told us that upon our return he would shout us all for dinner at Carnivore.  We all just looked at each other, as we had only been there 2 days ago, and thankfully the god-daughters didn’t say anything and we just let him believe that we hadn’t been there yet.  We didn’t want Kenny to feel bad, when it actually was quite a nice surprise and totally unexpected.

It was a private tour and Eric had made the decision not to join us, with his reasoning of he grew up with African animals in his back yard.  He didn’t see any super excitement in seeing giraffes, zebra’s and elephants and I can kind of see his way of thinking.  I have always had the thinking of not making people do something they don’t want to do and we would be catching up with him at the coast anyways.  What a GREAT husband he is.

So after loading the car with our bags, which consisted of a small overnight bag for myself, a suitcase for the Elkins and then another suitcase that contained the snacks, about 25 bottles of soda (lots of diet coke for me and soda water for Shelly and Shane) and a bottle of vodka and a bottle of Jim Beam.  Yes that took up another suitcase and the three bags fit perfectly in the back of the safari van, we were on our way!!!! 

Our first stop along the Nairobi-Nakuru Highway was a stop at the view point of the escarpment overlooking the Great Rift Valley at 2666m above sea level.  The weather was a beautiful and we had a magnificent view of the mighty rift valley.  The Great Rift Valley was a name given in the late 19th century by British explorer John Walter Gregory to the continuous geographic trench, approximately 6,000 kilometers in length, that runs from northern Syria to central Mozambique in South East Africa passing through Ethiopia, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Kenya, Tanzania, Congo and in southern Ethiopia / northern Kenya the Rift Valley splits into two branches. The western branch passes to the west of Lake Victoria, through Uganda, Rwanda/Burundi and Congo and the Eastern branch passes to the east of Lake Victoria through Kenya and Tanzania.  Either way you look at it, it is pretty impressive.  We snapped a few photos and made the mistake of entering one of the many souvenir shops that are located at the view point.  You wouldn’t believe what we ended up buying.  Sheepskin hats.  Yep 100% sheepskin, Russian looking hats to keep us warm on the chilly safari mornings.  After a little haggling we go them for 1500KSH each and imagine, Shane did not want one!!!  He’ll be sorry not getting one. 

We made a second stop when we saw some zebra by the side of the road and we weren’t even in a national park.  That’s what I love about getting out of the city, the opportunity to see animals just roaming around.  It was cool to see the Elkins reaction as well……  I will NEVER get tired of seeing wild animals EVER!

We arrived into Nakuru and our hotel for the night just after 12pm and with the lower altitude the weather was picture perfect.  As part of the package to keep my price low, I was happy to share a room with my God-daughters, as a lot of hotel rooms, especially in the Mara cannot accommodate two adults and two children. It was going to be a great opportunity to spend a little more time with the girls.  Well as it worked out, Kenny had arranged to have a room all to myself!  When we were taken to our rooms they were massive, my bathroom was as big as the bedroom and I had a couch and table and a bar fridge.  Yes this hotel was just going to be perfect.  All meals were included in our package, so we headed down to the restaurant for lunch.  It was a set menu, with about 8 different dishes, so there was even something for the fussy eaters (Shelly, Tess and Zoe) and there was time for one cheeky vodka and coke before meeting our driver Pete for an afternoon game drive of Nakuru National Park.   

We left the hotel at 2pm for our game drive in Nakuru National Park which was only a 10 minute drive from the hotel.  Eric and I were only here 2 weeks before, so we stopped at the entrance to the park, where I had to get out with Pete, to show my Kenyan ID, as I only have to pay 1200KSH (12USD) as a resident where the park fee for tourists at Nakuru are 70USD per person!!!  A big saving.  After just a few minutes and our tickets checked at another gate, we were officially on SAFARI!!!!!!!!   Pete popped the roof, so we could stand and look for the AFRICAN ANIMALS…..

We started a game on what would be the first animal we would see and I won with the beautiful zebra.  Lake Nakuru is one of the Rift Valley soda lakes at an elevation of 1754 m above sea level.  It lies to the south of Nakuru, in the rift valley of Kenya and is protected by Lake Nakuru National Park. Normally the lake's abundance of algae attracts the vast quantity of flamingos that famously line the shore, but due to the water levels being so high, the flamingos have moved to other lakes and it was certainly a different lake from the one that I saw 2 years ago with millions of the pink birds along the water line. Other birds also flourish in the area, as do warthogs, baboons and other large mammals. Eastern black rhinos and southern white rhinos have also been introduced.  The lake's level dropped dramatically in the early 1990s but has since largely recovered. In 2013, the lake received an alarming increase in the water levels that led to the migration of flamingos to Lake Bogoria in search for food supply.  Nakuru means "Dust or Dusty Place" in the Maasai language. Lake Nakuru National Park, close to Nakuru town, was established in 1961. It started off small, only encompassing the famous lake and the surrounding mountainous vicinity, but has since been extended to include a large part of the savannahs.

Also of interest is an area of 188 km around the lake fenced off as a sanctuary to protect giraffes, black rhinos and white rhinos.  The park has recently been enlarged partly to provide the sanctuary for the black rhino. This undertaking has necessitated a fence - to keep out poachers rather than to restrict the movement of wildlife. The park marches for 12.1 km on the south eastern boundary with the Soysambu conservancy which represents a possible future expansion of habitat for the rhinos and the only remaining wildlife corridor to Lake Naivasha.

I think the best view point of the park is Baboon Cliff.  A few weeks ago when Eric and I were there, there were over 100 baboons and they are scary as hell.  Today there was not one, but said the baboon troop that we had passed were making their way to where we were as we speak!  The view from Baboon Cliff is sensational, on a clear day, which we had, you get a great view of the lakes edge and as far as the eye can see.  After a few pictures and some moments to take it all in we were on the move before the Baboons came home. 

We spent a good 3 hours in the park and what a cool 3 hours they were.  I just couldn’t keep the smile off my face as I saw my GD’s scouring the countryside for animals in their leopard jackets that we had bought for them at Carnivore.  We even had binoculars, looking every bit the safari enthusiast.  We saw waterbuck, giraffes, the lions, a MASSIVE troop of baboons, Vervet moneys, hyrax, dik diks, rhino from a distance, the usual suspects, warthogs, impala and Thompson gazelles.   At 5.45pm we started to make our way back to the gate for a 6pm closing time when would you believe, we spotted two lions lounging in the long grass.  We were the only ones there and the male popped up his head to have a look at us for about 2 minutes and then he disappeared again lying back down next to his lady, who never looked up once the whole time we were there.  He raised his head once more when another van arrived and we got a good quality look at the magnificent animal.  A LION!!!  What a great start to the trip! 

                

We headed back to the hotel with Pete saying good night and a departure time for 8am in the morning.  Dinner was at the hotel, again a set meal, a few drinks and then back to my room to listen to tunes and drink a ‘few’ roadies before bed.  Well there is always 100 roadies with the Elkins and I think I fell into bed a little drunk around 1am…. with a smile.  

My family were in Kenya.