Days 5-10 – Naivasha, Nakuru & Eldoret

Jambo! As we say ”hello” in Swahili.

Our next stop was at Lake Naivasha, which is a freshwater lake in the Great Rift Valley. The campsite was quite nice, and there was also another group staying there, which was a nice change as so far we’ve always been the only people staying at campsites. After setting up the tents most of the group went on a hippo cruise at the lake, I stayed behind to catch up on transferring photos from my cameras and uploading pictures on social media. Also I didn’t want to spend 30$ to see hippos as we’ll have plenty of chances to see them for free later on.

The next day we hopped on a minibus and headed to Hell’s Gate National Park, where we went on a guided bicycle ride. It was nice to get some excercise and we saw some zebra, gazelle, eland and giraffe, but unfortunately the famous gorge (which was the inspiration for the stampede scene in Lion King) was closed due to a flash flood accident a few months ago which killed seven people. I had been looking forward to seeing the gorge so that was a bit disappointing.

We stopped for lunch at the the entrance to the gorge, which turned out to be a mistake, as we immediately caught the attention of the monkeys! They forgot all about being shy as soon as we got our food out, and did not hesitate jumping on us as they tried to grab food from our hands. I managed to eat a couple of biscuits by stuffing them quickly into my mouth before the monkey could grab it, but I thought it better not to attempt to eat a banana. One of the monkeys actually had a tiny baby clinging on to her chest and she still managed to jump high up in the air while trying to grab our lunches!

The next morning most of the group decided to relax while me and Marié went for a game walk in Crater Lake National Park. It was a really nice experience and I was really eager to do it, as there are not that many places where we are actually allowed to get out of the vehicle and go walking among the wildlife. The weather was beautiful, as it has been every day so far, and it was wonderful to just walk among the zebras, impalas and even the giraffe! The impalas also gave us a demonstration of their running skills, and they surely are impressive, one leap can be up to nine metres! Our guide, Chris, told us they are sometimes called the ”McDonald’s Deer” due to the markings on their backside looking like the letter M. They certainly are the fastest food in the safari!

Our guide had an impressive amount of knowledge of the animals and birds and was eager to share it, I learned so much! For example, the warthog always backs up into a burrow in case there is a predator hiding inside, so it can get out quickly. They are also called the ”safari express” because they always run in a line.

After the walk we drove to Lake Nakuru, which is a salt water lake with several inlets but no outlet, which has now led into it growing and growing each year, and it has already drowned the previous main entrance and the buildings around it! It has also become too deep for the flamingos, which have now moved elsewhere.

Our group was divided into two minivans, and my group got really lucky as our guide was just the best ever! He was called Kamaro, and was very knowledgeable, passionate about his job and absolutely hilarious, not to mention a total DILF 😀 We had an absolutely fantastic day driving the full circle around the lake. The day got in to a perfect start at 7am when we got sight of our first rhino!

We had very exciting moments with baboons climbing on our van, and got very lucky when we managed to find a ranger that agreed to jump into the van with us to show us where the tree-climping lions were napping, and gave us special permission to go off-road right next to the tree they were in. That was really something special! I never expected to see a lion up a tree, and now we got one male and four females all up in the same tree!

The other highlight of the day came toward the end of our drive, when we found a group of six Eastern White Rhinos calmly grazing right next to the road. It was amazing to see those huge animals from so close, and they really couldn’t have cared less that we were there. We stayed there just quietly watching them for nearly and hour, something I’ll remember for the rest of my life!

That was the perfect ending to a perfect day. We saw so many incredible things that by now the only thing that could’ve topped them would’ve been a leopard on a bicycle… The next day we had a cold but very scenic drive up to Eldoret. I hadn’t expected to see thick pine forests in Africa, seems like they have all kinds of scenery in Kenya. It was very, very gorgeous! The camp site was very nice, it had an underground bar and a pool bar and nice hot showers, and there was a sign saying Bill Gates stayed a night there once!

The next morning we crossed the border and drove to Jinja, where we are staying for three nights, but that’ll be a topic for the next post.