Lake Nakuru

Our first trip on our own, with no locals to guide us, is to Lake Nakuru game park. We’re a little nervous about being out on our own but feel we can handle it none the less. I have been trying to have a roof rack built for our big-ass SUV, the Nissan Terrano (the one we wish we hadn’t bought) before Grandma Ida and Poppa Bob arrived, but due to lots of different complications it hasn’t materialized. So, we are all going (Bob, Ida, Kayla, two kids in car seats, Pamellah and me) in this car all together PLUS all our ‘stuff’….we’ll never make it!!! But wait, our neighbor Shwan is offering to get us a loaner car from his car dealer friend. Cool! The night before we leave it arrives, the mechanic we all love and trust has checked it out; you really really don’t want to break down on a Kenyan highway in the middle of nowhere, it seems all is well. It’s an even bigger SUV (Toyota) than mine and the next morning we all pile in, sort of comfortably, for the 4 hour ride. Kids are only slightly whiny but all is going according to plan.

This loaner car handles the shitty roads rather well, very peppy too. We’re out about 2 hours from Kisumu, on some of the worst sections of road when the car just starts cutting off, and coming back on…and cutting off and coming back on. We pull over and with that sinking feeling you get when you thought you won the lottery but really didn’t after all I call Naresh our mechanic. “You checked it out, right? Do you think I should go on then?” I ask him. “Oh sure, sure, just go easy” he says. “Go ‘easy’?” I say, is he nuts (yes), on these roads!? Anyway after some debate and a family vote we decide to turn back and just take both our own cars. Later we found the problem was only that the battery had come loose from it’s holder because all the heavy bumping around and was shorting out the electrical system. So our 4 hour drive became 7 hours. It was Kayla’s first time driving on these ‘roads’ and I could tell she was apprehensive but she did great and now she’s an old pro at dodgin’ and weavin’.

The scenery is beautiful too or so I’m told, I can’t really see much as I can only flash my eyes on the roadsides for an instant while trying to keep us from colliding with some bike person or huge bus going by inches from us. As we approached the camp it started getting dark and the kids were way over sitting in a car, lots of screamin’ and cryin going on, and from the kids too. All this is NOT a good thing when you’re really not sure where the hell you are and there are NO lights around you and you’re not sure you should even get out of your car to even check a tire if you need to because of who knows what sort of wild life are around. Anyway we stopped several times to call the travel agent or ask a person walking for directions. Turned around, went that way, turned around again, went this way. It’s now pitch black out and we are LOST! Finally we came on some guy with a flash light who was sent to direct us to camp YEAH!. He got in the car with me (Kayla and the kids where in the RAV) and just as he did his eyes grew wide and he aim his flashlight out the window to show me the reflection of two eyes belonging to a leopard in a bush just out side the car. “LOOK” he said excited. It’s rare to see leopards. No one else saw it. No one else believes I saw it either!! DANG!

The reward for putting up with a grueling journey like this is to experience some of the most awesome and unique natural beauty. Lake Nakuru is a shallow lake rimmed from edge to edge by thousands of flamingo birds that call this home. The park can’t rival The Masai Mara when it come to the amount of wild life but it still has it’s moments. LOTS of baboons and LOTS of buffalo and Giraffe. Fantastic landscapes. The camp/hotel was wonderful, food was great and now that we know where it is we’ll be back. Please visit this link for photos.