Day 2: NAIROBI - LAKE NAKURU
Sunday, October 31, 2010
The telephone rings. How? What happens? If we set the mobile alarm at 5 in the morning, how can the phone be? Yes, it is the phone telling us that it is 5.30 and that at 6 in the morning we have to be at the reception to leave for the Nakuru Lake.
The time was not well on the phone and we have fallen asleep, it's time to take a shower, fix the backpacks and go down to the reception of the Hotel Meridien. Our first day in Kenya Start with races.
We go down to the reception and we are lucky that we are not the last, at least we go down clear with the races.
They tell us that we will have breakfast at a viewpoint that is on the way toNakuru Lake, a viewpoint in the Rift Valley.
We got in the truck with the backpacks, we settled down and we started for the first time with the truck in this trip to Kenya and Tanzania.
After an hour and a peak on the way, we arrive at our first stop.
We have gone with the "windows" of the truck closed, so we have not seen too much landscape, from now on we will open everything, to enjoy the road we are traveling.
We got off the truck and found the first landscape, the Rift Valley.
We take the photos of rigor and then we begin to observe every detail: the bathrooms that are there, the little shops, the people who stop to look at us ... everything is new for us.
The meal ritual is quite simple, but no less important.
In the truck comes a driver, a cook and an assistant, but everyone helps both with the preparations of meals, such as cleaning your plate, glass ...
It is not obligatory, but in this type of trip, it is logical ... and we will do it every day as something totally natural.
Breakfast will usually be toast, cereal, butter or jam, coffee or milk and fruit.
Before eating there are 3 people with soap and water to disinfect the hands.
Before each meal or preparation of this, we have to go through the villages.
Our first breakfast in the middle of a spectacular place (we don't know yet what will await us later !!) and we put on our boots.
Then they give us some time to go to the bathroom, make some purchases in the stands and little else.
After an hour or so of stopping, we leave towards the Nakuru Lake.
In the morning, the guide explained that it is best to make a boat between the group and buy drinks and some snacks.
In the truck we carry a refrigerator just dedicated for that.
So we do not think about it and directly an administrator decides and we put the money to have the boat.
Before arriving at the Lake, we stopped in a village, to buy drinks and food for the whole group that would last until Tanzania.
We got the whole group into a super and there we had our first commercial experience.
A lot of people work in the supermarket, we are standing on the shelves with the curiosity to see each product !!
Before leaving town, we took advantage of going to the services in a bar near the supermarket.
The guide tells us that giving a tip, some super boys, will take us the whole purchase to the truck.
So we do that and we face the crossroads as "guiris", the worst thing there is ... as soon as you neglect you have a car braking at your side ...
Once we get to the truck, we have a group of boys who try to sell us everything, from Swahili guides, through bracelets, to masks ...
In the end some buy ... see that we are consumerist The first day and we are already shopping!
After a couple more hours, we arrive at the entrance of the Nakuru Lake National Park.
The journey is very enjoyable, with music in the truck, talks about the country and especially looking at the landscape.
It is what has me most enthralled and what will impress me most during the whole trip.
We stopped at the entrance of Nakuru Lake National Park so that the guide takes the permits and we begin to see the first Bedouins, for that reason before stopping, they warn us to close the tarps of the truck, because the monkeys try to get in and take what they find.
We make a small stop, get off, stretch our legs and after 15 minutes, we get underway to get into our first safari !!!
The Nakuru Lake park It is characterized by the enormous concentration of animals that are in "few" square kilometers and as soon as we start the safari we meet them ... you can imagine the screams, the amazement, the emotion ... at the sight of the first gazelles, zebras ...
Then we would remember this day as an anecdote… in the end we end up seeing zebras and gazelles at every moment !!
Nakuru Lake National Park in Kenya
The first gift we received when stopping in front of a herd of buffalo, suddenly a boy from the group, warns that one is giving birth ... amazed we began to take photos without stopping and commenting on what we are living.
After a while more of safari, excited, we stopped at a viewpoint from where we could be before a panoramic view of the whole lake with flamingos, pelicans and buffalo drinking water, spectacular views.
Nakuru Lake National Park in Kenya
Nakuru Lake National Park in Kenya
There we saw for the first time some red-headed and half-blue body larks, who would accompany us on our tour of Africa.
Nakuru Lake National Park in Kenya
After this brief stop, where most of us melt the cameras, they take us to a camping area, to make our first meal in the middle of a National park of Kenya.
Nakuru Lake National Park in Kenya
The first thing we see is that it is a camping area, but it is not fenced and there is no protection ... and we are surrounded by Bedouins! The first thing we do, remembering the guide's recommendations, is to close the truck well and leave nothing loose.
We help the cook and his assistants to prepare the food, before we have fulfilled the water ritual one by one, so we start cooking, with our hands very clean!
The meal consists of whole salad, sausage, cheese and bread.
The Kenyan safari meals they will always be like this, more than a strong meal, a snack and dinners will be more abundant.
Although it must be said that although it seems little, at lunchtime there was always food left over !!
After lunch, we have hot water for tea or coffee, so some of us take advantage of the occasion (which we will have almost every day).
After resting a little, washing the dishes, collecting the tables and chairs, we start again, we have to continue with the safari.
After a short time, we see the first rhinoceros, the first of the big five: rhino, elephant, lion, buffalo, leopard.
If the zebras caused emotion, the rhinoceros was already the maximum. It shows that it is our first day of safari, seeing us from afar.
We hope you get closer, to have a better view with the camera and binoculars and we are surprised by the beauty of the animal.
Every time we stop for an animal, they leave us for a while, to be able to see it, take pictures ... etc.
We do not stop in front of animals that we will see continuously, such as zebras, antelopes ... in these cases we only stop if there is something curious or it is a large group.
All these things are explained to us the guide of our safari, while we continue with our first safari in Kenya.
Nakuru Lake National Park in Kenya
Here I begin to look at the sky, it is something that I bring with me, as a gift, when I arrived in Spain, I had never seen such a spectacular sky !!
We arrive near the lake and have a beautiful view, so let us go down and take some photos, even get quite close to the shore of Lake Nakuru.
Nakuru Lake National Park in Kenya
When we return, we are surprised to see two rhinos much closer than the previous one. So as you can imagine, we went back to the load with the cameras!
It's rest of the safari was quieter, telling that we were going to the camping area.
A large herd of buffalo and a hyena quite far.
Nakuru Lake National Park in Kenya
To end The Nakuru Lake SafariToday we have another surprise: a group of giraffes eating among the trees and two more rhinos, but this time even closer. We thought it was amazing what we were seeing and kept thinking what was waiting for us !! That it was supposed to be "much better."
Nakuru Lake National Park in Kenya
We arrive at the camping area and the first thing we see is that it is surrounded by Bedouins.
The guide, to make us feel safer, told us that recently, some lions had come to drink next to the camping area.
So you can imagine the tranquility with which we face our first Store assembly in Kenya and later night there !!
The first thing that the guide did is to give us some shop assembly classes and then in pairs we went to look for the materials and start assembling it ...
This took us half an hour (it's the first day !!) and then we went for a walk around. Not much, because with the animals we did not dare and they recommended it to us.
So we arrived at a waterfall that was close and again to the shopping area.
There we had a latrine, so that day he took a shower with “wipes” and entered the bathroom with a wipe on his nose, to overshadow the smell.
But the place was worth it… what does a day without a shower matter if you can sleep in the middle of that environment?
After all this, it began to drizzle, so we mounted a kind of roof over the tables and set to dinner.
The schedule will be quite strict every day and dinner will rarely be later than 8.
The dinner was awesome. We have first soup (which we will have every day, in different ways) and second battered meat, with potatoes and vegetables.
After this we have fruit.
And before going to sleep, we put ourselves around the bonfire, with our coffees to comment on the day, talk about tomorrow and especially enjoy the sky of Kenya With more stars than I've ever seen!
I have forgotten to say, that the tents are 1.80cm tall and quite large, like every night we put two detachable single beds with mattresses !!
We can't complain about anything, the infrastructure is perfect!
At night we hear bedouin cries, some howls ... at first it gives some fear, but the excitement of the day can with us and after a good laugh when we saw ourselves in the sacks, we fall like children.
Tomorrow will be another day…
Day 3LAKE NAKURU - MASAI MARA
