Onward to Lake Nakuru



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.  

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.



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. 

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! 

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!

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.



Nakuru - Baboon Cliff (all the pink are flamingos)



Samburu - Quest for the Big 5



Baby Elephant

Boy was it windy last night!  The heavy cancass tents were flapping and flailing like an angry raven resulting in very little sleep for me...ya that's it, the wind...had nothing to do with the roars and grumbles we heard through out the night.  All joking aside we did here a few strange noises which were later revealed to be elephants disgustive systems, which can be heard for kilometres. The experience definitely wins over lack of sleep, by a long shot.  The feeling here in Samburu is one of very remote authenticitiy, which is what we have been so excited for.  Unfortunately, that authenticity was also met with slight disappointment as this morning's game drive was pretty much for not. Althought 2 hours in authentic Africa is much better spent then 2 hours on the job, we did end up driving around for 2 hours in the safari van without seeing a single point of interest!  After the game drive, Mike declared that all of the animals must have migrated southward already toward more fertile lands.



Samburu war dance



Women of the Village



As previously mentioned, it gets way too hot by mid day to be searching for animals, whatever animals were still remaining, would be hiding in the shade of trees and bushes.  So we decided to take a drive into the local Samburu village which we had passed yesterday on our way in. The understanding here is that we would be given a detailed tour of a traditional Saburu village.  The deal here is that it is regarded as rude and disrespectful to take candid shots of the villagers, who instead invite you to join them in their daily activities.  Judging by our guide book and our official tour guide, the belief is that these villagers are the real deal, what you see is what you get.  Being who I am, I often approach situtation like this with skeptisism.  My first hint was that they wanted $25 US from us each for this village tour.  In our opinion this was quite a bit of money for people who don't own, nor have a need for, a material single item.  Anyway, we decided to go as this was the proper way to be able to take pictures and it gave us the chance to interact with the tribe. 




how the Samburu make fire

My failed attempt






Inside the Hut

From the introduction to the end, their manner was very professional, polite, and inviting. They performed a few war and welcome dances for us and even gave us the chance to join in on a couple of them.  After the dances and a quick round of questions, we were brought inside the Samburu village, which consisted of about 2 dozen shelters.  The village guide explained to us that the shelters are made of cow dung and old cardboard making it easy to pack up and move the entire village as the Samburu people are nomadic hunter/gatheres.  For me, the $25 entry fee became worthwhile when we were given a glimpse inside the hut, and were even allowed to climb into the hut itself.  The hut consisted of two areas to sleep (sheep skin blankets on the ground), one for the parents, and one for the children, and also fire place in the middle. placed for both cooking and for warmth...although its very hot during the day, its quite cool at nights.  The next stage of our tour brings us to fire making 101.  This is fire making African wilderness style...with two sticks, a few grains of sand, and some bark shavings. The demostration seems easy enough to replicate until I attempt it for myself.  The process seems fairly straight forward, you've got one piece of stick being rubbed quickly between the palms of your hands as you drill the tip into another stick which has a hallowed out bottom where they throgh some sand in for added friction.  The idea is creat enough friction to bring smoke, add some tree bark, blow a little oxygen into it, and voila!  I have little (no) success and am quickly demoted.  Clearly there is much more complicated technique that I'm not about to master in a couple of minutes.



Authentic Samburu Hut - The reality is they do sleep and live in these things

    

Samburu children getting primary English lessons

Later on it is explained to us that some of the local villagers are sent off to be educated by catholics in the local schools. But in order to do so, the children must have uniforms which cost money which, of course they do not have...of course this is all mentioned to us very casually...but two and two? We casually ignore these "subtle" hints but this of course, resulted in further eyebrow raising on my part. The interesting thing I discovered while here is that a) they can't wear traditional clothes to attend these schools b) they can't have those huge holes in their ears they make as part of their tradition if they wish to attend, and c) they can't wear their traditional jewelry to the schools either.  Its no wonder they think the west is trying to brain wash, manipulate, and control them.  The second to last portion of our tour takes us directly into and area where a "professor" is teaching the village children to count to 10 and sing the alphabet in English. The Children vary in age but are all looking at us with their best puppy dog eyes.  Our guide continues, "it is through the donations of people like yourself that we are able to educate ourselves".  He had already mentioned this to us at least 4 times by now and eventualy asked us directly "so if you'd like to donate, if you can find it in your heart, just let me know".  At this point I began to feel very awkward as I felt as though the $25US I already gave, should be going to these children. It is one thing to bring in foreigners in an attempt to guilt them in to handing over peity money, but what really bothered me was the fact that this tribe owes its existence to their persistant refusal to adopt to Western norms.   



Samburu Warriors





So by giving this money am I not contributing to the destruction of their traditional ways of life, instead of their prosperity? These sale by guilt tactics continued as we were introduced to the town "black smith" who, as far as we could tell was just some random guy sitting beneath a tree.  We were then quickly ushured/escorted toward a large number of local women encouraging and begging us to buy some of their beaded jewelry.  I am always one for supporting locals when I travel but in all honesty, neither of us were interested in anything they were offereing. I'll leave it to you to decide for yourselves as I seem to be jadded when it comes to these things, but again, other then education, what could these people possibly need money for?  The Samburu diet consists of milk, blood, and goat meat..no vegetables as nothing grows here...their houses are free, they own no vehicles, they don't have electricity and they are nealy 100% self sufficient except in times of drought. 

 

Some additional random information ont he Samburu:  their enemy is the Somali tribe to the north east and they apparently still have raids on each other once in awhile.  They still have traditional medecine men, and blacksmiths, and they are pretty well 100% carnivors as there is very little edible vegetation which grows. All in all I'm glad I went as I really did enjoy learning about them, meeting  them, and of course, the pictures are absolutely stunning if I do say so myself!



The elusive greater Kudu!! These animals are extremely rare, we saw 2 in 2 days!

Later that afternoon we went to see how the rich travel Africa.  We went with our guide to the nearby resort to see what life is like on the other side.  He needed to check his tire pressure and get a shave so we decided we needed to tag along fo a cold beer!  This place was very extravagent and we sat in a covered oval room perched high above the meandering river and watched the birds fly by, all while enjoying our cold Tuskerrs.  I was informed that later they would be feeding the crocodiles in the river for the entertainment of the resorts guests...but we didn't stick around.  As nice as it was, it didn't have the genuine feel of the park that we had in our campground. After some quick tea and biscuits at our camp we were off to our late afternoon gamedrive. 


 Todays late afternoon drive once again began very slow but ended spectacularly.  We found ourselves hanging out by the river as yesterday this is where most of the action was .  Sure enough this time the river yielded us a couple of lionesses that seemingly everyone else in the park was also aware of.  The lions were very actively moving around (maybe even hunting?) but Mike wrangled his way into an incredible spot for us where we were able to get extremely close to the lioness' resulting in an incredible sense of amazement.  They are such beautiful animals, and to see them from this close, in their natural habitat is truly a thrill. The lionesses actually walked right beside our van at this point and Marlene swears they were eyeing us hungrily head to toe contemplating the difficulty of the kill!


Dinner tonight was traditional African food including oxtail soup, chepati with fish masala and veggies...and of course lots of passion fruit for Marlene.



Lions on the prowl



Amboselli - Kenya - Day 2 Safari



Mt. Kilimanjaro

  

Sunrising over Amboseli



Marlene in the Banda



Our second day began early in the morning (6am) as we were both eager to catch a glimpse of the elusive Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest point in Africa at just under 20 000ft.  Although we were extremely tired and the morning was quite chilly, the view we got the second we opened our tent was truly magnificent and made us forget everything else.  The camp ground we were staying at sat directly adjacent to the extinct volcano of Kilimanjaro with its ever receding glacier shimmering in the light of the rising sun.  As we prepared for our long day of game driving we were even more pleased with our decision to rise early because the clouds had already begun to obscure the peaks of the giant. Upon entering the park on day two we are met with a little humour.  As we approached the gate, Marlene was attempting to put in her eye contacts, Mike being the comedian he is, decided to have a little fun.  As the locals approached our van to attempt to sell us some crafts, Mike opened his window and said something in the local language.  Suddenly all the women came over to Marlene's side of the van and began to stare intensely. Some of the women stood there for several minutes with looks of awe and disgust.  Meanwhile Mike is just killing himself laughing in the front seat, he turns to us and says "I told these ladies to look at the foreigner, she's putting in her eyes!".  Nothing like a little early morning humour.  As we enter the park we are greeted by large herds of zebra followed by many gazelle and giraffe.  We were beginning to realize that all this hype of animals in Africa was reality...I mean we expected to see animals but we didn't realize they would appear in such great numbers and in every corner of the park. 



Hippos and Elephants with foothills of Killi



Stalking Cheetah



We had started out on a different path today toward the swamp lands of the park in hopes of viewing some hippos but about 1 hour into the drive our driver Mike's ears perked up about a transmission over the CB radio.  We quickly turned around and started heading back to where we had seen the lions yesterday.  Before we reached the lions Mike spots it...its a cheetah!  We watched the Cheetah from a fairly close distance as it attempted to cross the road to reach the cool shaded area on the other side. As it proceeds to make its way toward the trees it decides to have a little fun with the nearby zebra...the zebra take off in a cloud of dust even though the small cat is no threat to them. 



our guide estimated this elephant was about 1 month old



Hyenas trying to get in on the lions kill from last night

Just a few meters from here is where the lions are now guarding their zebra kill from the hyenas who have shown up in numbers today.  Some of the hyenas are attempting to get the lions to chase them in hopes that while the lions are distracted the other hyenas can steal some of the zebra meat. But the lions are obviously too smart for this and don't play into the games.  This one small stretch of road is Africa at its finest. On one side of the road we have 3 female lions and a male lion guarding their food from dozens of hyenas while zebra, gazelle, wildebeest, and giraffe all attempt to cross the road in order to get to the watering hole which lays directly behind the occupied lions.  A few hundred feet beyond that there are elephants, more giraffe, and ostrich all grazing in the plains...we could have easily spent all morning there watching all these animals! 

Killi quickly disappearing behind the clouds

In this part of the park, all the animals return to the forested hills around Kilimanjaro at night, and then head back towards the watering holes in the day time...the road is strategically placed between these two biospheres.  It was just surreal to see all of this happen at once, all within about 1 sq. km.  We eventually proceed to the swampy areas so that Marlene could see her favourite animals, the hippo.  Once in the swamps, we quickly came across a few hippos, but they are hard to spot as they are submerged, however as we continued along the road we eventually came across a pair of them that were out of the water, they sure are massive!  These animals are not particularly comfortable on land and quickly retreat to the safety of the reeds when they see us coming.  In these swamp lands there are also a significant amount of white and pink flamingos which are happily feeding in the receding waters of the park...there are also pelicans, ducks, and storks amongst the flamingos. So much wildlife everywhere you look.

view of the welands

Flamingoes

Today we brought a packed lunch which we enjoyed atop of a large look out point where we had an excellent view of both the wetlands and the plains...and of course the mountains around killi.  It is explained to us that without the glacial runoff and rainwater from Kilimanjaro and the surrounding area which travels to Amboseli via underground rivers, this park would be a desert. All runoff from the mountains flows this way and thus sustains life in the park.  The rest of the afternoon was spent viewing hippos and elephants in the surrounding marshes.  We returned to our campsite for some R&R at around 3pm.  We had a long drive ahead of us...tomorrow we head to the Kenyan highlands.

Bright and Early to see Killi!

Welcome to Africa!! - Through the Arid Plains to our first SAFARI GAME DRIVE!!



Hello to all near and far and welcome to the very first entry of my (our, as Marlene reads this over my shoulder) travel blog to Africa.      



Ladies Going for High Tea at Buckingham



Standing Guard



Our first stop on this trip found us arriving at London's Heathrow airport, slightly blurry eyed and grumpy from a lack of sleep on our over night flight.  Our first order of business was to try to find something to eat, and we quickly settled on trying to find the hole in the wall Cafe we found ourselves at 3 years ago which served AMAZING baked Jacket potatoes.  For those who don't know, these are giant potatoes stuffed with anything from cheese and beans (Marlene's choice) to curry chicken (my choice).  We were positive that we were in the correct area of the city but were simply unable to find said restaurant so we opted for similar cafe (they are a dime a dozen).  Once our potatoes were actually cooked (it took 2 attempts and they still weren't cooked!) we made quick work of them and we were off to a quick walking tour of the city Marlene style.  We made a quick pass by Buckingham palace where we were treated to a display of very proper English men and women set to have "high tea" in the palace...I found their hats to be quite amusing...blame it on lack of sleep.  After a few quick photos we were on to our real destination, Green Park.  Oh that's right, we were THOSE people who made a temporary bed on the grass under a large tree and slept the afternoon away!  Well maybe not the entire afternoon, but we had a good lie down and caught up on some much needed zzzzz.  We then had a meandering walk through the park and continued onward to catch a glimpse of Big Ben, Scotland Yard, Westminster Abbey, Parliament buildings etc etc. It was a quick visit but alas, we had a plane to Nairobi to catch...plus the underground train ride took a little longer then expected.




After our nap in Green Park

 

Our welcome Ostrich...the first animal you see if your good luck animal

 Immediately upon boarding our overnight Virgin Air flight we both knew it was going to be a much better experience...everything just seemed to be vibrant and the atmosphere on board was much more appealing then that of the Air India Flight...not to say that I got much sleep, but I at least got a few hours before landing in Nairobi.  Upon arrival we truly did feel like celebrities as our tour leader held a placard bearing our names, and we had 3 more gentlemen to welcome us to beautiful Kenya.  The first being our driver/guide Mike, the second, our excellent cook Guidian, and the third, none other then Mr. Mbuthia!! Mr Mbuthia is the father of my ex roomate Anne, whom, for those of you who attended our wedding, had the second reading at our ceremony.  Anyway, he was there to accept a package consisting of Arm and Hammer tooth paste brought to him straight from Canada at his request...don't ask LOL.  Anyhow, our initial impressions of Kenyan people were exactly as we expected...happy, friendly, and welcoming.  We already knew we were in good hands.                                                                          



The View from the Van



Marlene making the most of her first game drive



 So, immediately upon arrival and a quick monetary exchange later, we were off to our very first game drive in Amboseli National Park.  It took about 5 hours to drive to the park putting us at the park at approximately 3PM.  Along the way we had already discovered many things #1 the roads are atrocious, being from Sudbury, I've always heard of pot holes you could lose your front end in but I had never actually seen one..until now!  You know its bad when in order to avoid potholes you consistently drive on the wrong side of the road (which is the right side for us North Americans) and will take to the shoulders and ditches because they are...ahem...a smoother ride. #2 Kenya still believes in strong local farming and the results are delicious, fresh, ripe fruit.  Our cook stopped several times along the way to pick up fresh ingredients for our meals to come.  #3 The shop keepers will try any tactic including barter, trade, guilt, and occasionally intimidation in order to sell us things we clearly did not want.  I can't count the number of times I heard "why you not want to promote my business" or "my name is George buy something to remember me by" and when all else fails "ok you want to trade your hat for something?  How 'bout a pen so I can give to my children" on and on...we were entertained by the consistency of these lines, its like every shop keeper took some course on how to sell stuff to tourists...that being said, we did manage to pick up some really beautiful items to bring back and there is certainly a lot of talented artists to be found.





momma and baby Gazelle

   On our way through the arid plains toward Amboseli  Park several large volcanoes began to appear on the horizon and we eagerly anticipated our first sighting of Kilimanjaro..which we have since discovered is quite elusive and mostly hidden by clouds except at sunrise..guess what we were going to do the next morning!!  The area surrounding Amboseli is resided by the Masai people. A very strong and traditional people who refuse to give in to western ideals.  These are the people (woman) who walk 20km to fetch both water and firewood to maintain their subsistence.  It was quite striking to see their bright red clothes against the paleness of the arid plains.  Not to mention gaining a bit of experience at the sight of these people going about their daily business.



Finally into the park!!  Amboseli is located off the main highway down 25km of dirt road, and this is the type of dirt road that has received ZERO maintenance probably since it was built...so 25km equates to about 1hour of incredibly rough terrain.  The very first creature to greet us (and this wasn't the actual park just yet) was the Ostrich...not exactly the most exotic or exciting of animals, but as we were about to find out, the best was definitely yet to come.



Giraffes in Amboseli

Our first order of business was to get to camp and to have lunch, then it was off to the game drive!  Our accommodations for two nights were quite simple, but there were toilets and hot water, and we also got up graded to a banda (heavy canvas tents with full beds in them) so we had nothing to complain about.  After a quick meal of pasta and tea we set out into the hot African sun for our first evening game drive in Amboseli.  Almost immediately upon arrival into the park we were greeted with zebra, giraffe, antelope, gazelle, elephant, and even lions!  We were extremely lucky to have found lions so early on...luck seemed to be the one recurring theme throughout the entire journey.  There was a mother lion and her two young daughters standing around a zebra they had just killed.  We watched in amazement for several minutes as the lions guarded their kill and also began to shred it up, devouring large chunks of meet.  As incredible as this was to us, we had not even seen 1/10th of the park yet, so we continued on our safari and saw many more animals and birds, but nothing as exciting as the lions.  As the sun begins to set in that stunning African brilliance we returned to the sight of the lions. They are still resting from the long day...something we both needed to do.

Sunset over Amboseli savanah