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.