Big Brother’s African Brother #6: Lake Naivasha to Lake Nakuru, Kenya – Lake Nakuru, Kenya

Lake Naivasha to Lake Nakuru, Kenya

Day 4: 1 August 2002 9:00 pm

The group are still sleeping in their tents at 7:00 am but need to be packed and ready to leave at 8:00 am. Mission impossible?

We seem to have the tent from hell and it never rolls up neatly to fit into
the locker. Of course, with true German precision, Heinz and Tara’s tent
just magically packs away in three minutes flat. How do Germans get to be so
efficient – it must be in their genes.

We headed further north to the fourth largest town in Kenya, Nakuru (80,000 pop),
surrounded by rich farmland. The economy here depends largely on the
agricultural produce from this fertile area.

At last, we had an hour (yes, a whole hour) to ourselves to explore the town
which we really enjoyed. It was bustling with local people dressed in long
sleeved tops and suit jackets – they must have been boiling hot – but the
locals told us that this is their winter! The queue at Barclays ATM was
huge and it was all locals. Down one street, people were having their
sewing done. Makeshift tables had been set up with ancient Singer sewing
machines humming away.

I now realised that I had not brought enough pairs of trousers with me. We
purchased an excellent pair of convertible trousers for Ksh 800 (haggled
down from Ksh 2000). I now have three pairs – trousers are absolutely essential
evening wear due to mozzies and the cold. The weather conditions seem to
change at the drop of a hat. One minute it’s raining, the next brilliant
sunshine and then freezing cold – it’s like being back in Blighty.

Next stop was Lake Nakuru National Park that covers 180 sq km. It is a
category ‘A’ park, which is the most expensive ($27 per person for 24
hours). The idea of grading the parks is to encourage visitors to go to the
least popular and relieve the pressure on the more well known parks.

Lake Nakuru is famous for the millions of flamingo that feed in the shallow
soda lake. Two years ago, the flamingo fled to Lake Bogoria when the lake
became too shallow, but now they’re back.

At the entrance of the park, the vervet monkeys (the most common monkeys to
be found in the savannah grasslands) were observing us as we had our lunch,
waiting to pounce on any stray food. They crawled over the truck, staring
through windows, trying to gain access.

The afternoon was spent on safari in our truck. We saw zebra, Rothschild’s
giraffe, gazelle, impala, lions, African buffalo and white rhino. The rhino
family group consisted of a male, female and baby with cattle egret hitching
a ride. The lion was taking a nap when he spotted the group and casually
wandered across the grassland to where they were feeding.

The landscape is just how you would imagine it to be – the vast plains of
sallow yellow and green grassland dotted with acacia trees. We camped in
the park at Makalia Falls. We were just hanging out our washing when a
family of baboons charged down from the hillside and the largest baboon
tried to attack Amy, even though she had not provoked him.

We were then told not to leave anything outside the tent and to ensure that
all the zips were done up. Under no circumstances was food to be left in
the tent. The baboons made us feel uneasy – the best advice is not to make
eye contact as this would be interpreted as aggression.

The camp site had no gate or fences, so if we needed to go to the loo in the
night, we were told to stick our bums out of the tent and not to attempt to
reach the long drop dunny. You really know that you are in Africa when
popping out to the loo is considered a dangerous activity.

Heinz and Tara are real wildlife photographer buffs. The lens on their
camera would put the paparazzi to shame. Tara managed to get through 48
shots in one afternoon. Binoculars are also essential. Roberta and Beth
did not bring any and could not appreciate the safari in the same way as
everyone else – we ended up lending a pair of ours to them.

I didn’t even bother with the long drop dunny as it was so disgusting (Beth
had to stick tissue paper up her nose before even opening the door). We
just popped round the back of the tent – I was secretly hoping that it might
keep the baboons away – a form of marking our territory.

Another funny thing was that we saw Joanna Lumley filming for the BBC in the
National Park – I bet she didn’t have any problems with long drop dunnies.

Positives: First time I have seen lion, rhino and flamingos in their natural
habitat.

Negatives: We really enjoyed our free time in Nakuru on our own. Not a
great indication that we are compatible with group travel.

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