On Saturday I learned how things would look like in some parts of the world if that was the case.
We went to Nakuru Lake National Park and drove around the park for better part of the Saturday and Sunday took over Lake Bogoria and Baringo.
Saturday
Getting up again very early was not so pleasant, but afterwards I can say:"it was definitely worth it".
The nature around the area of Lake Nakuru was beautiful, huge area with animals living free. Seeing the park from morning dust till late afternoon (with full sunshine) revealed the different shades of the park and different modes of the animals.
We saw a whole long list of animals ...zebras, rhinos, giraffes, antelopes, buffaloes, pelicans, flamingos, monkeys ....etc. etc. There are no words to express the experience; seeing the animals free and in close distance. The crown of all was a leopard in hunting activities. There are only 5 leopards in the Lake Nakuru National park and we spotted during a day light one of them!
This leopard though has some work to do on his attacking skills. The leopard got "attacked" by its prey, first the antelopes and then the baboons were surrounding it to a bush, in order to protect their babies.
More information on the Lake Nakuru National park:
http://www.kws.org/parks/parks_reserves/LNNP.html
On the way back we went to see the Menengai Crater. It it said to be one of the biggest in the world with average diameter of 8 km. In the bottom of the crater, the valley, one can see the wave wise formed ground, which is purely black in color. There is still steam coming out of the crater, which means that the volcano activities are dormant, but not extinct. Menengai means in Maasai language - "bottomless pit" or "place of corpses".
As in this area people have as the "higher power" a mixture of pagan beliefs, superstition and religion. Local people believe that the steam coming out from the crater are the spirits from the old battles between two ruling Maasai clans in the area.
The Maasai are the warrior tribe from the Kenyan tribes. I have learned to recognize the Maasai people, as they are clearly taller than rest of the population. They have the reputation of being fearless warriors, thanks to which Maasai tribe avoided pretty much any slave caravans.
Maasai tribe generally believs in Engai, which is the spirit of a volcano (originally from Tanzanian side, Ol Doinyo L'Engai by Lake Natron). It has two characteristics - Black God and Red God.
Apart from being totally amazed by the crater and new life that has started to grow on top of the lava ground, I was moved by the villagers (kids in particular) paying so much attention to us driving through.
From past travelling abroad, especially in Asia, have thought that it is healthy at times to be the minority. Here I belong definitely to the minority, the one who is easy to spot everywhere and the one who (with her blond hair) does not belong to the group. To some locals my and my team members appearance brings joy and to others amazement, to some even frustration (especially if we are just passing by, not stopping). It is difficult to stay cool when a group of kids is joyfully shouting "Hello!" at the side of the road, and their clothes are totally worn through and they have no shoes on.
Again....so looking forward to our community days. We get to spend one day at the kids orphanage and one day at the mentally handicapped kids care-home. And third day with the technology students, giving the the information on the latest trends and how to prepare oneself for the job market (CV, presentation skills, etc.)
Sunday
Repetitive actions become a habit....and it applies in my case even to getting up at crack of dawn.
Early Sunday morning, everyone shivering (as it was bit chilly) while waiting for our matatus being ready for the whole day trip.
First heading towards lake Baringo.
The negotiations on the boat rental price put everyone's mood down...Sugandha (our Chief Negotiator) got us a price of 3000 KES per boat, when they were originally asking for 2000 KES / head! ;o)
One hour with the boat around the huge lake.Lake Baringo, like lake Bogoria, is combination of river water and hot springs. The area has rich variety of different bird species. Hippos and crocodiles feel like home at the lake as well.
We saw the local fishermen fishing with their own fishing boats, which is made of saplings. This building style is traditional of the njemps tribe, who live at lake Baringo. Though they relate to Maasai and Samburu tribes, at least from language perspective, their main activity is fishing. Njemps are fewer than 20 000 left.
To us their boats looked more like the air filled pool mattresses, which are not too solid and letting water in where one is sitting. But the fishermen were paddling with those very fast and solid.
Sunday was hot, so the drive around the lake would have been refreshing, would we not have been dressed like the hippos with our life-jackets.
But the views made us forget the heat momentarily as we were gasping at the amount of birds flying around and all the other animal representatives, which we could spot during the boat ride.
From lake Baringo we drove back towards Nakuru and stopped at lake Bogoria on the way. Lake Bogoria is fed by river waters and about 200 hot springs.
Some locals were testing the heat of the hot springs, which were bubbling on the beach, they boiled some eggs ;o)
The water is very hot and salty, which attracts the flamingos. Flamingos migrate at this time to lake Bogoria...and we were greeted by wonderful sight of pink "line" going around the lake. First when driving closer, one could identify the pink coming from huge amount of flamingos. To me it seemed like the flamingos were walking in queues along the beach line, one line clockwise and another line counter clockwise, as if they were checking each others out like in speed dating ;o) Sometimes they were disturbed by us, the desperate tourists, who wanted to capture their beauty to pictures.
Having experienced all that in 2 days...we were all overwhelmed by the beauty of the Kenyan flora and fauna. The wonders of Mother Nature are infinite in Kenya.
The world would be a beautiful place without human intervention.
(will upload rest of the photos, when I get a stable internet connection...that seems to be bit of a problem at the hotel)#ibmscs Kenya 3
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