Rift valley lakes

After our outing to cross the equator, last Chinese Sizzlers, final Schnapps, sad goodbyes from Marc and Lorna and patched up Mad one, it was quite an effort to get going again and to carry on alone with our mad travel.

We took it easy and started with Lake Nakuru only minutes away from the town Nakuru.

What a pleasure this park was with its masses of flamingoes and lots of white rhino and even more buffalo - But -- there is a severe drought and water shortage is very visible!

A news clip reported that the boreholes are dry and thousands of animals will die. We left all the milling tourists behind and found the remote dry waterfall campsite, which we had to ourselves with a troop of baboons. The leader wanted to intrude and showed us his enormous fangs, but when we respectfully drew the border line of a safety zone, he accepted and let his troop assemble around us and they started a relaxed grooming session with youngsters amusing us with their antics. Then the troop leader approached slowly to within five meters of where we were sitting at our campsite and flopped down on his stomach and knees and closed his eyes for power naps. For about fourty minutes we did have this honour. Then they all started to go for a late afternoon grazing session and settled in the huge fever and fig trees next to us for the night. Mr. Troop leader stayed in full view on his perch and kept watch over his troop and us on this full moon night, barking at the invisible odd leopard – an experience never to be missed!

Lake Bogoria with even more flamingoes and hot springs was a feast to the eyes.

Here we chose the remote fig tree campsite. A clear mountain stream runs through the campsite to enter the saline waters of the lake. Very few flamingoes could drink here as herds of cattle and their herders came in a continuous stream to drink here. This National Reserve is managed by the community. As soon as it got dark every single flamingo vanished to our dismay. But as soon as the full moon rose there was a huge migration of every single flamingo of Lake Bogoria to bathe in and drink from these sweet waters. As soon there was a movement on the shoreline they were spooked and the whole lot took to the air only to return after 30 minutes- quite a commotion every time. As can be imagined we did not get much sleep that night! But who cares on an occasion as this.

The next lake in line, Lake Baringo is a sweet water lake and boasts one of the best birding spots in Kenya. Our visit coincided with the local car rally meeting and turned out to be a wee bit noisy. After one “tusker” (the local brew) – one lifer, we made a disappearing act towards Nairobi to obtain our Ethiopian VISAS and to collect the heavy duty springs for Konstantin.