Day 6 - Nakuru

We got some time to sleep-in today, but most of us were up quite early anyway. I was first to make it to the nearby waterfall, which made me an easy target for all the shop owners. So I had to go to the shop of the person who was entitled to the first tourist of the day, but the day before on our way to the hippo pool I had also talked to some ladies and said I would maybe come by their shop later. But when it comes to your name and your promises, these ladies have a pretty good memory. Long story short, I got another present…

After breakfast we continued our trip to a view point over the Rift Valley and we had a brief stop near a tea plantation where we got a short introduction to the tea-making-process. Shortly after we arrived in Nakuru, a relatively large city where our guide, cook and driver went to get some groceries and we had a quick stroll over the local market, before we got to sample some local food in a restaurant. This is where we were first introduced to ugali, the local starch-based meal basis, that tasted of absolutely nothing. Luckily the fried tilapia was much tastier.

By the time we were waiting for the truck to come pick us up, we had again attracted a large crowd of ‘salesmen’ and I had gotten a bit tired of them. When this one guy said “Hello” and I said “No thank you”, he let me know that it was quite impolite of me. I agreed and apologized and we got to talking, he especially became interested and (appeared to have) lost all interest of selling me things when he heard that I was a doctor working at the university, so we talked about that for a while, Then we discussed our personal situation, he had 11 brother and sisters and was married with 2 kids, I had no husband or boyfriend and then we the truck arrived we reached the point in the conversation where I answered on of his question by saying I am not that interested in having kids. The guy looked like he saw water burning, he could not understand that at all and unfortunately for him, I did not get any time to explain it.

Next on our list was Lake Nakuru NP. These wetlands usually attract large numbers of flamingo’s, but now most birds had left, as the area was flooded already before the start of the rain season. Due to the flood, the main entrance gate was inaccessible, as were many of the roads in the park. Due to the proximity of the park to Nakuru city, this is one of the few national parks with a fence around it, so the flood did increase the concentration of the other game on land. So in addition to a few remaining flamingo’s we also saw quite a few other animals, including a leopard, although it was quite far away and well concealed.

The proximity of the park to the city also resulted in many school busses visiting the park. For these kids I think the white people in the truck were the biggest attraction. While we were waiting for our driver and tour guide to take care of the paper work at the entrance gate a school bus completely packed with kids arrived as well. The kids were very interested in all the baboons that were walking around. These baboons were the reason we were repeatedly told to close all windows in the truck while we were waiting, some of the kids however were throwing food from the bus at the baboons, until the biggest male baboon jumped all the way up into the window. All the kids screaming like crazy, us white people felt sorry for the kids but were not really willing to risk a fight with a baboon that big, so luckily some soldier rushed in and scared off the baboon before serious accidents happened.

Our campsite that night was surrounded by a fence, although the zebra’s that were roaming freely inside the premises did not increase my confidence in the whole construction. Lucky for us, that night we heard a lion roar quite close by, but I could tell it was not close enough to be within the premises of the campsite, which was just the right amount of closeness for me.