Part 2. Expedition to Lake Nakuru

Ice cream galore….

3 days into Kenya and were already off on our second expedition to Lake Nakuru. Located within the rift valley floor it’s the one of the few national parks that’s completely fenced and famous for it’s various bird species and large rhino population. During our risk management session with Tara this expedition was going to be a little different then the Serengeti. She said because of the weather and because it’s known to get so cold at night we were not going to be sleeping in tents. This got numerous groans from people. I however, did not know if I cared or not, it would be nice to sleep in a bed but I had no personal preference for camping this time around, all I cared about was getting to go on a lot of game drives. Then she explained we were leaving at 6:30 which, means breakfast at 5:30 and cook crew at 4:30. This made me freak out a little because of course I was cook crew that morning. If I haven’t explained what cook crew was basically we have 5 rotating groups of 6 people that have to be in the kitchen at 6:30 to cook breakfast (on a normal day) and then clean the dishes after dinner. Yeah dad, I’m scrubbing dirty dishes. We’ve been doing this in Tanzania and Kenya. Anyway back on track. So that morning I’m up at 4:30 grumpily cooking breakfast, packing my lunch and we’re on the road. During the trip I herd rumors that we were stopping for ice cream and sure enough we stopped at this massive grocery store called Tusky’s it’s like walmart times 100. So I grab a box of cookies and a pint of ice cream and we were on our way. I loved the car I was assigned to as we ate ice cream, made friendship bracelets and rocked out to music all through Nairobi. Nairobi is actually a really developed city with tall building and there’s always always traffic. After finally making it through the city we hit another stop for an hours rest. Walking around Tara points out where to buy milkshakes. Round 2 of ice cream complete as I lounged on the grass slurping my shake. We pile back into the car to finish our trip to the campsite, which is more of fenced in area within the park, it’s like a mini KBC. I haven’t slept the entire car ride, probably because I was on such a sugar rush and that 10 ½ hour drive was really getting to me. We pull up to the site I unpack my stuff and was passed out by 9:45. Not without doing the dishes before bed. 

Rhinos, Rhinos EVERYWHRE!

             It was our 1^st full day in Lake Nakuru and what do we do all morning? Lectures. Yes, lectures from 9 till 3:30 in the classroom all day. It was such a tease because right outside the fence I could see zebras, and buffalo roaming the fields and here we were sitting in a classroom listening to the history about Lake Nakuru and it was hot. But by 4:30 we were loaded into the cars for our 1^st game drive, sorry wildlife drive, the professor don’t refer to it as game drives in Kenya because it’s associated with illegal hunting. Anyway as we headed out let me just clarify that this park is pretty small, 200 sq km so for a while we weren’t seeing any animals and then we hit the lake. Immediately I saw Rhinos. Rhinos everywhere! We spot this baby and mama and stop to take pictures. But then the mama starts to walk away from the road so what do we do? We follow it. We follow it so much soon it’s only 3ft besides our car. And then the rhinos start to run away, and we follow them some more. Then after a while we stop the car and watch the baby run around in circles for a while, like when a puppy gets so much energy it runs around the house in circles. That’s what this baby rhino was doing. Eventually they got to far to see and Daniel (our driver) turns around and says, does anyone see the road? Yes, in our excitement we followed the rhinos off the main road. Oops. So we make our own trail back to the road and continue our game drive. By 6:30 it was getting dark and time to head back but our highlights of the drive was seeing a stripped hyena, this bird trying to eat a rat, and Rothschild giraffe the tallest giraffe in the world. Which we were actually pretty close to, and Tara said that usually they are much further away and you only see 1 or 2. Nope, we saw about 10 during that game drive and some were only 5ft from our car. Exciting stuff and sure enough again I was in bed by 8:30 and asleep by 9.

Huyu Kenyan jua na joto…

            This Kenyan sun is hot. By the second day I was really starting to see the difference between this expedition and the Serengeti, besides the heat. We were up and packed into the cars by 9. This time we were heading outside the park for a few hours of traveling lectures. It was really interesting to see the town outside the park knowing that people live so close to the wildlife, although they are mostly fenced in. By the afternoon we were back and eating lunch preparing for our 2^nd wildlife drive. Our first stop was at lion hill which was a lookout point of Lake Nakuru. We got out of the cars and walked around for a little while taking pictures of the beautiful scenery. Me and Ashley below.

We drove to the edge of the park and followed the fence around for a little while and stopped to watch some lions and saw about 5 baby cubs, with their mamas they were adorable. As we were driving home we stopped to talk to this other driver. He told us in Swahili that there was a leopard further down the road. I’m also starting to pick up driver lingo. When drivers tell each other that there is a leopard or lion nearby they don’t use the Swahili word Chui or Simba, most tourists know what that means and get wicked excited. Instead they say kichwa wapi (where’s the head, code for lion). So Daniel told us to sit down as he sped towards the forest looking for the leopard. Sure enough we found it, but it was pretty far away. When I say “far” it probably wasn’t that far to other people, but we were so spoiled in the Serengeti seeing that one leopard with Christian 10 ft away, I ended up getting a little side tracked and starting taking pictures of a Verreaux’s eagle-owl instead. By 6:45 we were back at camp eating dinner and of course I fell asleep right after. Typical. 

Unlimited amounts of dessert…

            It was our final day in Lake Nakuru. I guess I never clarified about the amount of wildlife in Lake Nakuru. Although our sleeping quarters were fenced in from the larger animals this didn’t stop baboons from jumping the fence and coming into our campsite. Anyway so I’m in the room getting dressed for our morning field exercise when all of a sudden the door creeps opens. No one’s there, but then a hand reaches in and grabs our garbage by the door and runs. Yep a baboon just stole our trash-can. Someone yells to Daniel what happened and he’s out there with a stick chasing the baboon who jumps on the roof of our kitchen screeching at him. I’ve just come to the conclusion that baboons are crazy. Our garbage is all over the place so we pick it up and finally load into the jeeps to start our field exercise. This time were studying the behavior of rhinos and zebras. It was actually a lot of fun, sometimes hot but I liked watching rhinos. They remind me of dinosaurs with their big horns. I still haven’t seen a black rhino yet. So after the exercise was over we drove back to camp to pack our stuff for the lodge and buffet. I was so antsy I already had my stuff packed that morning and just sat in the car waiting for the other cars to arrive. All week Tara and Jenna have been raving about this buffet and how much better it was then the Serengeti with unlimited desserts. So after waiting for what felt like forever we took the 10 minute drive to the lodge, our whole car screaming chocolate, chocolate the whole way (or maybe that was just me). So what was the 1^st thing I do when I run into the buffet? Head straight for the dessert bar of course. I’m stuffing a strawberry pudding in my mouth as I grab chocolate moose cakes, cream puffs and more piling my plate high. Then Jenna shows me this amazing Toffee pudding cake which I immediately drop all my previous desserts to have about 6 bowls worth with whipped cream and chocolate syrup!! Seriously these tourists must think that we’ve haven’t eaten in 6 months the way we were acting. I’m sure we were quite a sight. After my 2 course dessert meal I have some real food, pastas, chicken and yeah some salad. But that was only to make room for the more dessert I was about to eat. Sure enough by the end of my 6-course meal made mainly of desserts I felt like I was going to explode. I washed it down with some Tums and headed off to the pool. After some relaxing and playing ping-pong in the sun we were off on our final game drive. We didn’t really see anything that we’ve haven’t seen before but it was still an enjoyable last day. The next day we packed up our stuff and headed back to KBC.