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| Thompson's Falls |
This morning began like any other on this trip, at 6am...this wake up time is beginning to feel more like a job then a vacation! Oh well, when there is so much ground to cover and a limited time to do it, this is the result. This morning it was really cold, I don't think the hotel had any form of heat which made it even harder for me to get up. The hotel has a feature where you can be notified via a buzzer, located in each room, if any animals of interest are roaming around the water holes in the middle of the night...we didn't receive any buzz. So off we go! They rounded us up and sent us on our way back to the restaurant via shuttle bus to enjoy a large buffet of food which included everything from crepes to chicken wings...boy do they have a skewed view of what westerners eat for breakfast LOL...though I guess I didn't help that view any since I went back for seconds.
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| Great Rift Valley |
After breakfast we patiently awaited our driver and guide to pick us up, once he arrived he told us he had received some very bad news. The news was that his mother-in-law had passed away. The result was that he had to go back to Nairobi and would therefore be unable to remain with us for the duration of our journey...which was sad for us because we really liked him! Natural Treks Safari was going to be sending a new driver/guide to meet us at Nakuru so it really wasn't a big deal for us but it was still sad to see him go.
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| Thomson's Falls from below |
Today's drive took us through the fertile highlands and down into the low lands of the great Rift Valley. What a stunning view that was! We were told many (many) times that the Rift Valley extends all the way from Israel to Mozambique, which is very impressive, but everyone we met in this area insisted on telling us this fact which of course then led to them pushing their crafts relating to this fact. Along the way we stop at Thompsons Falls for a quick glimpse at the falls which descends a 72M cliff into the lush forest below. This was supposed to be a quick stop for us, but since we really hadn't had much exercise in the past few days we decided to get adventurous and climb down to the bottom. I'm always amazed at the sheer energy of the falls, once we climbed down through the dense forest, the temperature must've dropped 10 degrees as the falls blew cool mist into our faces.
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| Thompson's Falls |
Once at Nakuru we meet out new guide George, who is a total wealth of knowledge. We are sad that Mike is leaving us but George seems to be pretty good too! Nakuru is a smallish park, for Kenyan standards at 150sq KM but it has a gorgeous fresh water lake at its epicentre. Here the main attraction are the flamingoes, millions of them! They estimate somewhere between 1.5 and 1.8 million live here. They stretch the entire length of the southern shore of the lake, it is quite the sight to see from upclose and afar as the waters look like they are stained with some sort of florescent pink dye! As we make our way towards these shores to check out the birds, where we can get out of the van and walk around, we come across two white Rhino's, a mother and its baby. This was what I had been waiting for, finally a healthy Rhino with horns! What a sight to see, they just look like an animal of raw power, I for one wouldn't want to be standing in front of a charging rhino! Anyway, on to the bird viewing. As described before, we aren't really too interested in birds, but I have to admit, this was pretty incredible to see ALL these flamingoes in one place...just the colours are stunning enough to merrit a visit. There are also a few other birds around such as pelicans and meribu stroks which look like old men in trench coats when they are sitting down. These birds are enormous...probably 3-4 ft tall when standing upright.
After spending some time with the smelly flamingoes we make our way into the forest where there are plenty of animals to be seen. I was completely shocked by this park, at its variety and amount of animals in here. The first thing we see is what we think are two female lions laying lazily in the tall grass, yawning and rolling around. Then we hear some rustling in the grass on the other side of the road, yep, two more lions...or is it 3? Yep turned out to be 6 lions in total! They really weren't doing a lot until one of them decided she had had enough of the flies and proceeded to climb a tree! Apparently this is very uncommon in this park and our guide George had never seen that...yet another first!
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| Nakuru - Leopard in tree with catch |
This game drive just kept better and better, the next interesting thing we came across was a leopard which was sleeping high up above the forest floor on a very large limb. We almost drove right past it until I spotted its tail and paws hanging from the tree and thought "this doesn't look right...there has to be something in the tree" it took a while for my eyes to focus on exactly what was different about this tree. For 1, it had a leopard in it, for 2, it had dragged its kill up the tree with it! This was one of the most thrilling things we had seen to date. We weren't very close to this tree which held all these secrets, so all of these things were not seen immediately, in fact I think we were sitting there for a good 5 minutes before our guide with his naked eye (we were using his binocs) said, what is that in the tree beside. Sure enough, it was a gazelle! After watching the leopard and then a few giraffes, we started to make our way up to Baboon Cliff (or as Marlene called it, Buffalo Hill...at which point she started to serenade me with Blueberry Hill, filling in her own words as she went along...lets just say she was a little disappointed when I told her its actually called Baboon Cliff which doesn't rhyme at all with Blueberry Hill) and on our way, we actually crossed paths with a black rhino and its offspring!! Once again, an extremely lucky sighting to be there at the exact moment when these animals were crossing...this was really the only place we could have seen it since we were driving through fairly thick forest at this point. Unfortunately the sighting only lasted a few seconds, it was so quick that I couldn't even get a proper picture of it...darn!
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| Nakuru - Lion Yawning |
Finally we arrive at baboon cliff to watch the sunset over the park, it truly was an inspiring view but what was most interesting was our guide's encounter with the dominant male baboon of baboon cliff! As we drove up to the cliff tops there were a large number of them around but as the van approached they all scattered, except the dominant male who patiently waited. As we exited the van and headed to the look out point I saw this large male baboon approaching the van out of the corner of my eye. When I turned to look the baboon needed all of 2 hops and a bound, and he slipped right into the popped up roof of the van! Now THIS was exciting, how to get an angry male baboon out of the back of a van when you're blocking the only entrance. Well, George used the only thing he had at his disposal, a plastic water bottle! He yelled at it and continued to slam the water bottle on the seat and faked to throw it at the primate, the primate eventually stopped hissing and baring his teeth and with one carefully executed bound, made his way back out of the van throught the roof. We all had a good laugh at George's expense and this became a running joke for the rest of our days together. Actually, this was the second time today that we had a primate in our vehicle, the first time was when we were waiting at the gates of Nakuru, I was outside the van and Marlene was inside on the far side chatting with me when a small monkey lept in from the window and sat directly above her head on the seat rest! I thought it made for a nice hat!! She could tell by the look on my face that something was wrong and all I had to say was, "I think you should get out" and she darted for the door! HAHAHA that was funny too :) This monkey just got out of the van without any resistance but it was quite humourous regardless.
After taking in the spectacular view of the park from atop Baboon Cliff we returned to our "home stay" accomodations, had some dinner, and watched the rain come pouring down. The first time its really rained since we arrived.
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| Nakuru - Baboon Cliff (all the pink are flamingos) |
After a quick stop in Nakuru for some supplies, and another stop just outside the park to pick up our guide (Simon) for the day (George is apparently not comfortable on a bike LOL) we made it to the park gates with little time to spare. In fact we actually got the last 3 bikes for rent, just some simple mountain bike style bikes, good enough for us at this point. This would prove to be a very long bike ride for my new bride, who doesn't like biking all that much. It was a 2 km bike ride just to get into the park and then another 7KM to get to the top of the canyon. Regardless of distance, energy and effort we both agreed that this experience was more then worth it. The beauty of the natural landscape here was enough, throw in the countless zebra, gazelle, warthogs and giraffe, it was and incredible and breathtaking experience. The park is set in the beautiful rift valley, with hanging ochre cliffs and jagged towering peaks. 
