OUR MORNING WALK WITH THE ANIMALS – OUR AFTERNOON DRIVE TO THE MAASAI MARA

Our driver Pete gave us an option yesterday afternoon.  We could head to the Maasai Mara early this morning and we could do a night drive in the Mara or we could do a walk with the animals this morning in Naivasha and get to the Mara later this afternoon and forgo the night drive.  I have done a few night drives before and as cool as they sound in theory, you really can’t see much on those types of drives in reality.  It is more of a sensory thing, listening to the sounds rather than animal spotting-in my opinion, and I think that the Elkins would get more value out of the walk, which I had also done before.  They also agreed and this morning we were off to Crater Lake Game Sanctuary. 

It was going to be a big day and after breakfast at 8.00am we were collected by our van for the 45 minute drive.  We got to pass some of the flower houses that are in the area and it really does give you an indication just how big the flower industry is in Kenya.  We passed the oldest and largest flower farm called Oserian.  It is the most technically advanced fair-trade certified flower farm in the country, consistently producing year round quality flower products.  Oserian meaning “Place of Peace” in the Masai language and it is the largest flower farm of its kind in Kenya.  Founded in 1969, they began as a family owned vegetable growing farm in 1969, with a 5 hectare production area and 6 employees.  Oserian gradually evolved into the first cut flower production farm in 1982. They support the welfare of nearly 4,600 employees in health, housing, education and entertainment and also supports 3,000 plus employee dependents.  Yes Oserian is a massive flower farm based on those facts.    

Our destination this morning was Crater Lake Game Sanctuary and after travelling for 45 minutes on a dusty and bouncy road, which apparently the road can differ in condition at different times of the year (depending on when it was graded last) I would hate to see this road after the rains as it would be muddy as hell.  We made it to the entrance of the sanctuary just before 9am where the park entrance fee was paid (20USD) and Pete dropped us off at the entrance to The Crater Lake Lodge, where we met our guide for the walk, Jerome.  We started at the lodge’s namesake, the crater lake.  The small tiny jade-green crater lake that is held in high regard by the local Maasai, who believe its water helps soothe ailing cattle.  At the beginning, Crater Lake was born from the violent volcanic upheaval that created the Great Rift Valley some 30 million years ago.  The lake has existed since some thousands years. Today it covers between 12 and 15 hectares of the 87- hectare crater. Its average depth is between 4 and 5 meters with a maximum of 8 meters.  The lake is highly alkaline and it can't support fish but only Spirulina algae that feeds flamingos.  As we hiked up the crater, Jerome was pointing out certain trees and how the locals use them for certain medicinal problems.  We also got a bird’s eye view of a giraffe, which was super awesome from up there.  It was a gentle hike and not to strenuous, which is good as I didn’t want to be outdone by my 9 and 7 year old god-daughters!

We climbed down a slight incline to the park itself and straight away we saw a herd of impala, about 30 of them, and they just looked up at us, and then they just kept grazing.  We would have been only 60m away from them.  There really is something special being able to walk with African animals in this type of environment.  There were a lot of zebra, a dazzle actually (a herd) which we got within 30m of, they really are a skittish animal and they just do not let you too close to them.  I tried about 5 times, walking backwards, no eye contact, keeping quiet and nothing would let me know get any closer.  But they really are a magnificent animal, even if they won’t let me get close to them.  We saw a single buffalo sitting under a tree and it felt a little surreal that we were walking in a sanctuary where lions live, giraffes, buffalo and wildebeest to name a few roamed freely.  We were at the mercy of the wild animals and on FOOT!!!!  The animal of the day (in numbers) were the zebra and we even saw a mini stampede of around 10 of them at one point which was super awesome, and a bit of a barney between two, where there was a bit of kicking and biting action between them.  We also saw a family of Pumbas (warthogs) and even though they are an ugly creature, when you see the 4 of them running in a single file with their tales high in the sky, they look pretty cute, and who would ever thought that warthog and cute would go in the same sentence? Last time I was here we did see giraffe in the sanctuary, which we did not see on this walk, but that is the nature of a safari isn’t it!

Crater Lake Game Sanctuary is located around the south-western side of Lake Naivasha Crater Lake on 10,000 acres and is only one of 3 parks that you are allowed to walk around in the whole of Kenya.  This small game sanctuary is great fun to explore on foot independently or with a local guide, which is what we had and I am not sure I would want to walk around on my own here without a guide!!!  There is no public transport to Crater Lake so it is best accessed either by either bike or with a private vehicle or taxi.  The area is known to be alive with hundreds of species of birds and many mammals, large and small.  It’s great that all the animals live together without any problems and after 1.5 hours we stated to make our way back into the crater, on the other side and back to the lodge in time for lunch.  Depending on the water levels of other Rift Valley lakes, there are sometimes large populations of flamingos on the lake, which we were not fortunate enough to see, but were told that there was ONE resident flamingo that we could see back at the lodge.  The lake was now to our right as we made our way back.  It was a rough track that had some loose dirt and rocks at the top and then the further we descended the more soily it got and more lush, like a rainforest.  There were lots of flying insects, but they didn’t seem to be biting us reaching the lodge 45 minutes later.  We saw a family of colobus monkeys as we passed them in the trees, and were told not to stand under them for too long, as they are known to urinate on people below!!!  We saw the single flamingo, which I felt bad that he was the only one there and then we were shown to the floating restaurant, where a set lunch was served to us overlooking the lake.  What a great morning!!!

We were back on the road at 1pm. 

We were lucky, we saw a tower (herd) of giraffes, and even though we really needed to start or journey to the Mara, we stopped for about 15 minutes watching these beauties.  I will NEVER get too tired seeing these incredible animals.  EVER.  So it made up for not seeing the giraffes in the sanctuary.  Pete mentioned that we were going to get a free massage on the road to the Maasai Mara.  Once you leave the main highway, there is an unpaved road that gets you to the Mara.  When we asked how long the ‘free massage’ was going to be, we ALL HEARD 8km.  Well that didn’t seem to bad and we all had 8km in our head.  The total journey was to be around 5 hours from Naivasha.  We did a pit stop at Narok, which is the last major town before turning onto the ‘massage’ road.  Like any type of these stops, it was at a souvenir shop, where you had to walk through the shop to get to the actual toilets.  It’s like this all over the world, but we were in a hurry, so we didn’t even look at the shop and figured we would see it on the way back in a few days.

So funny story, once we got to the untarmac section of the road, it really is a tough ride.  Bumpy just does not give you an indication on just how bone jarring that drive actually is.  We were all hanging on, literally, as Pete just gunned it over this ‘road’.  After the first hour, we all realized that Pete had said 80KM’s and not 8KM and we just had to literally hang on till we hit our turn off to the hotel, and I have NEVER been so relived to get somewhere in a long time, your bones really get a good rattle on that road!  Just before we got to the hotel, nature’s way of making it up to us with not seeing giraffes this morning in the sanctuary, we saw a MASSIVE tower (herd) of giraffes just before it got dark and after a quick head count there were 31 of them!!!!!!  THIRTY ONE!!!!  It was like nothing I had ever seen before and it well and truly made up for not seeing them this morning on the walk.  It was a shame that we were losing light fast and we had to get to the hotel after what was a pretty long, but as always in Kenya, AMAZING day. 

The hotel where we were staying was called the AA Lodge, which is located outside of the National Park.  The only other time I had been to the Mara was 3 years ago and I did a camping trip, so this was a little lap of luxury compared to my last visit.  We had been booked into the individual permanent tents, and they were just amazing.  As usual Kikwetu Cultural Adventures out did themselves,

http://kikwetuculturaladventures.com/index.php/kikwetu-safaris/cultural-safaris-tours and not only did we get two tents next to each other, we were given a third tent.  We had so much room we didn’t know what to do with!  In the end the Elkins decided to all stay in the one room and they all shared a double bed and I had my own tent.  The third tent was used for cold showers and toilet facilities for Shane (it doesn’t smell like roses dude).  The tented rooms are AMAZING.  They are large, well decorated, well maintained, had a small balcony with chairs and tables, double sinks in the bathroom and the WOW factor for me was the ceiling was draped with fabric just like a princess’s room, added in the massive mosquito net around my king bed, it really was going to be a great place to sleep for the next 3 nights.  The only down side was that there was no hot water, so after a cold (freezing) shower I headed to the party room, aka room number 2 before dinner. 

We pretty much had time for one drink, well a bottle of champagne, on our balcony, and then we headed to dinner.  The further out of the city we get, the availability of the ‘required’, no, the NEED of ice, gets harder.  I find it hilarious that out of all the things that my Aussie family could find ‘different’ here, or hard to comprehend, it is the issue of ice that is the biggest issue.  Definitely a first world problem.  We were lucky, due to our late arrival (7pmish) they had some ice ready, not much, but some and being the only guests at dinner tonight, we had a set menu and back into the tents with the last of the ice that the resort had to offer.  Shane is that driven by getting ice, he tipped our waiter in ADVANCE and asked to make sure that there was ice tomorrow after we get back from our game drive.  The lodge itself doesn’t run electricity during the day.  It is switched off at 9am and back on again at 6.30pm, so I was a little dubious on how we would get ice, but Shane was hoping that there were fridges and freezers that they must keep running during the day for the food stuffs for the restaurant, so we would just wait and see what would happen on that ice front.  It is one thing that Kenyan are NOT a fan of here, cold drinks, let alone having ice on hand for drinks and it was a big thing for me to get used to, as I love tonnes of ice as much as the next mzungu, but sometimes it just won’t happen.  The upside of the power not run all the time, is a good thing for me, as the electricity was only on till 10pm, I was able to get to bed at a reasonable hour and not get caught in the ‘one drink for the road’ call, which we can normally keep doing for hours and we had a big day in the park tomorrow!  We had decided to not come back to the lodge for lunch and spend all day in the park and have packed lunches in the park itself.

Bring on the animals tomorrow.