Baringo Bay Field Trip

Whew, I have to stop fiddling with all the boxes of stuff and tell you about our trip to Baringo Bay. It was the annual school camping trip except we couldn’t camp because our stuff still hadn’t arrived. We stayed in a hotel adjacent to the camp grounds though. The more of the landscape in Kenya I see the more amazed I am. So much variation in such a small area. So prehistoric looking to me, it seems only natural that archeologist would find so much here.

The drive was incredible. Going from hot Kisumu up to cool climates where you see hillsides of tea growing like vineyards in California wine country, down huge escarpments to desert terrain, back up huge escarpments (all in second gear) to lush greenery and finally to some of the most amazing desolate landscape I have ever seen. Sorry to say I haven’t been able to upload images to the gallery since the internet here is mucked up.

The kids had a great time. Although you don’t swim in Lake Baringo because of the crocodiles and hippos [the hotel had a nice pool] you could take boat rides which we did to visit the crocks and hippos and birds. Kenya, and especially this area, is famous for it’s diverse bird population. I’ve never been much of a birder but you just can’t help being interested here. Some of these birds are spectacular. There was storytelling around campfires at night and in the mornings we woke to find hippo foot prints right at the entrance to our room. (gulp!) And as we would walk the path to the dinning room usually we’d see camel grazing on the lawn. Huge termite mounds everywhere [see photo], we went on many nature walks [one of the dad’s is an entomologist so we learned a lot] even climbing to the top of one of the escarpments, what a view!! There is hot springs to visit, which we didn’t see but can go to when you come to visit ;-)