Day 3
The mosquitos got me! Well at least I think they’re mosquito bites. Itchy as hell and driving me batty, oh well, no malaria or dengue fever yet so that’s a good sign.
We were all up early for a cup of tea at 6am then off for our early morning drive at 6:30am. I was fairly certain nothing would beat yesterday so was just looking forward to seeing all the animals again. Well, knock me over with a feather we did see something just as good. A mama lion with her cubs!! They wandered down to a stream for a drink. The babies must have been no older than about 4-6 months, still really little. We didn’t stay there long as we weren’t really meant to be off the set path, oops. Still managed to get a couple of good pics and video.
We were off with a purpose to where about 3 or 4 other safari vans were…looking up in a tree…leopard! This is the one animal I really really wanted to see. After seeing everything else I figured we would be just too lucky to see a leopard as well as they are notoriously hard to find but there he was, completely nonplussed to have all these people staring up at him and taking pictures. We drove around to get a good angle and see his face. I could have stayed there looking at him all day. What a fantastic, majestic looking cat. Square jaw, circular black rosettes on his tawny coloured coat, lean body, long tail. Just incredible. I loved every second of watching him. This safari just shot up to a 10 out of 10. Happy Marcella.
So with that we headed back to camp seeing herds of elephants and a few shy giraffe along the way. This must be what heaven is like.
We had breakfast (pancakes again. Yes!), packed up and headed off for Lake Nakuru for the last leg of our tour. We had lunch at a different spot today where they had a gift shop. These women were far more reasonable and I managed to get two items that I wanted for only 900 ksh (about $10), yay. We said goodbye to Tushar and Jadeep and hello to Emily from England and a couple from India who were joining us for the last part of the safari. Emily works for Oxfam and had been in Nairobi for work then added the safari on the end. We chatted all the way to the hotel we were staying at and the three of us (Emily, Katie and I) shared a room. It was a relaxing evening of dinner and reading then early to bed.
Lala Salama
Day 4
Up for breakfast at 7am so had an early shower and washed my hair…ah, that’s right, I remember what it’s like to have clean hair. Everywhere we go there is so much dust and dirt that even if you wash your hair in the morning it is filthy again in the afternoon.
7:30am and we were off to Lake Nakuru National Park. It was lush and leafy, very different to Masai Mara. This is a bird-watcher’s paradise. We drove along the lake and saw loads of pelicans…mine, mine, mine…quite a few pink flamingos and many other birds I couldn’t name. We went further into the park and came across a whole lot of baboons on the side of the road. Opany stopped and said we could get out if we wanted. We thought he was joking until he got out, walked around the opened the door for us. Ok then, let’s get out and stand with the baboons. As with many other animals, they weren’t bothered by our presence. We took loads of photos, jumped back in the van and drove up to Baboon Point Cliff (I think that’s what it was called anyway). The view was truly gorgeous, just spectacular. We then went to see a beautiful waterfall, wandered down to where it fell and walked back to the van accompanied by loads of baboons. So strange to turn around and see a male baboon just casually strolling past followed by a female with her baby clinging to her underbelly. Very amusingly we saw one baboon running along with a younger baboon sitting on its back riding it like a horse. So funny!
Opany took us to where he had seen rhino in the past but they were very far away, too far for us to see properly with the naked eye. I tried to zoom in but still, the two of them looked like big white rocks. Later we were on the other side and I managed to get a photo where at least they look a little like rhinos. Despite not seeing them up close it still counts. Big 5 – tick!
Driving through a savannah-type area we came across a large pride of female lions. There must have been about 12 of them and best of all, there was one female with four cubs and far closer this time. They were about the same age as the ones we saw yesterday. As a group they all slowly made their way to the other side of the road/track as there were some buffalo on their side. Opany said they didn’t want to be too close, possibly because of the cubs so they all moved. A couple at a time they wandered past the van into the long grass on the other side. The cubs travelled in a line, one after the other behind mum. Too cute. They all headed towards a tree with lots of shade and in that tree was another female lion lying across a branch on her tummy, two legs on either side. I guess it isn’t just leopards that climb trees :-)
We drove out of the park and on to Lake Naivasha as we had all opted to go for a one-hour boat safari. We stopped for lunch at a hotel first, said goodbye to Kadoka, then to the lake. It was beautiful, a wonderful way to end the 4 days. It was so peaceful. We were in a long motorized boat expertly driven by our guide, Joe. Again we saw loads of birds but best of all we saw hippos. They stayed in the water (too shy to flaunt themselves I guess) but came up for air regularly. There were so many of them! One of them came up and gave a huge big yawn. Of course I focused the camera all wrong and missed it but still, looked pretty cool. Back on shore we collected our things, said goodbye to the others on our tour, gave Opany a big hug and tip, and got into the car sent by the safari office. We convinced the guys to take us to our respective homes for a little extra payment; little did we know how long it would take. The traffic in Nairobi was beyond belief, bumper-to-bumper. The guys tried to get around it but just came across other jams no matter which way they went. It was supposed to take about two hours from Naivasha to Nairobi, that’s fine but a 40-minute ride to Mlolongo took another two hours! Oh well, I had fantastic memories to go through in my mind to pass the time.
These past 4 days have been simply incredible, an experience of a lifetime. Thank you Kenya for making my dream come true.
