Big Brother’s African Brother #7: Lake Nakuru, Kenya

Lake Nakuru, Kenya

Day 5: 2 August 2002 9:30 pm

The group survive a night without being eaten by lions but have an early wake up call which involves packing up the tents in the pitch black.

Up at 5:30 am to start our morning safari but this meant packing up the tent
in the dark. I was worried that the baboons would be lying in wait, but
they were asleep like any other sane animal would be at that time in the
morning.

This time we drove to the edge of the soda lake populated by the flamingos.
A sea of pink greets you as the flamingos gracefully plod along the
shallows. Our tour leader said it was at our own risk if we disembarked as
a buffalo was feeding near the shore. Tom’s philosophy was that it
doesn’t matter how slow you are as long as someone else is slower than you.

We saw a pride of lions with two cubs, another white rhino (but it was being
harassed by a convoy of white vans going off road) and two leopards, one of
which had an impala hung over the top of a tree. Leopards hoist their kills
up trees to stop lion and hyaenas stealing their food.

The white vans were private Kenyan tour groups, many of which had no
scruples about abandoning the tracks and chasing the animals.

It is very rare to see leopards in this park, especially with a kill, so we
spent long periods of time observing the lions, leopards etc. However,
Tom and I found this quite boring after a while and just wanted the truck
to drive on. Doubts started creeping in again – did we choose the right
trip? Shouldn’t we be enthralled for every second? Thankfully, a few other
people had bored expressions, so it’s not just us. Don’t get me wrong, it
was fantastic to see leopard in the wild, I just don’t want to stare at the
same leopard for 50 minutes straight.

The highlight of the day was stopping at Baboon Cliff where we had a
stunning view of the lake and surrounding grassland. It was so beautiful -
I could have stayed here for two hours chilling, but only got 45 minutes.
Luckily, there were no baboons around, but Harriet (a talented vet student)
told us a story about a lady that put her video camera bag down on the rocks
only to find a baboon had stolen it. The baboon rooted through the bag
looking for food and found the camera instead. Upon examining it and being
disgusted that it was not food, the baboon threw it over the cliff. The
moral of this story is that you should keep your bags with you at all times.

We did not have time for a group lunch, so we stopped in Nakuru again where
we bought delicious vegetarian samosas and choccie doughnuts. Tom was
distinctly annoyed that we did not get lunch – more evidence for his food
conspiracy.

The Kembu camp site where we were going for the night was set in beautiful
gardens and had hot showers. We really were spoilt. We just had enough
time to erect the tent, have a shower and wash our clothes before night
fall. There is so little free time on this trip, but I guess this is to be
expected and you can’t have things both ways.

I had truck duty that involved cleaning the eskys, tidying the interior and
sweeping the floor. Truck life is all about conformity and some peer
pressure, which is why I don’t feel comfortable with it yet.

Positives: Incredibly lucky to see a leopard with a kill – it is the first
time our tour leader has seen a leopard in 18 months.

Negatives: Not sure if I’m ready to conform to the group yet and I’m not
giving in to the peer pressure.

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