There are just so many safaris and national park within Kenya, we were only able to visit a few during our short trip. After departing from Amboseli, we drove (well, our amazing driver and guide Franics drove, not us) over 8 hours to reach our second safari destination – Lake Nakuru.
Technically, the drive from Amboseli to Lake Nakuru should be around 6+ hours plus rest inbetween. However, we were stopped 3 times on the road by corrupted police asking for money, thus causing a lot of delays on the way. By the time we reached our hotel, it was already 2pm. Initially we were going to have a brief stop at the Great Rift Valley, which we couldn’t due to the delayed we had.
Nevertheless, we were able to check in to the hotel before our game drive at 3pm. Lake Nakuru is situated at the Great Rift Valley, and thanks to this special type of blue green algae in the lake water, it is renowned to be the home of the huge flocks of flamingos and other water birds. However, due to the rising water level in year 2014, it caused most of the flamingos population to flee, and also left the park surrounded by drowned trees.
Lake Nakuru is also a great park for wildlife spotting of the many water loving animals, such as hippos and waterbucks. Another highlight of the park must be the black and white rhinos.
We were only able to spot the white rhinos here this time round, well, I guess better luck next time! Fun fact: To tell the differences between the black and white rhinos, all you need to focus on is their mouth. White rhinos have a flat mouth for eating grass, and black rhinos have a pointy mouth for picking fruits and leaves from the tree branches.
A must visit spot of the park would be the Baboon Cliff, just like its name, it’s supposedly a spot where all the baboon gathers. Though the day we visited, we did not see a single one there, though we were greeted with a very pretty orange and blue agama lizard, and this fluffy guinea pig like cutie! (If anyone knows the name of it, please tell me)
Something interesting happened during our game drive with the baboons. As most of you know, all the safari cars have open roof top, and we usually leave it open during the game drive, so we can stand up and look around whenever we want. So on the way back to the hotel from the game drive, we saw many baboons on the road, which is quite a normal sight in these national parks. Little did we know, these were a different type of baboon (they all look the same!!). Francis our tour guide was telling us to stay alert of them, and before he even finished his sentence, one jumped into the back seat of the car, and within a blink of a second, took our bag of apples and jumped back out. We were so horrid all I could do was cover my head and scream…
Later we were advised by our Francis that this type of incident happen quite often here, and there are guests who lost their cameras, phones etc, as the baboons are attracted to anything that’s shiny/reflective. We were quite lucky that only our bag of apples were gone, otherwise, it would have been a painful experience.
Other wildlife spotted here during our game drive includes the road crossing giraffe, impalas, zebras, real life Poomba, and the cute jakals.
If you ever visit Kenya, be sure not to miss the chance to visit the amazing Lake Nakuru National Park!
Kaleidoscope Living 