Expedition to Lake Nakuru: Days 1 and 2!

Hi there!!!

I can’t believe how quickly time has passed and how I have not been able to write a blog in almost two weeks!  This blog is going to be extremely long and I might even break it into parts so that you don’t get too bored :)

DAY 1:  So it all begins with our expedition to Lake Nakuru National Park!  The total length of the expedition was 6 days, including two days that were almost completely traveled. Lake Nakuru is located on the other side of Nairobi and in the vehicles that we have here, the drive takes around 10 hours from start to finish.  To be able to get to the park early enough to check in and settle down before dark, we had to leave our camp by 5:30 am!!!  That meant that breakfast crew had to begin cooking at 4:30! Thank goodness it wasn’t me that morning.  After getting everything packed up, we filled the water cans for the cars and started on our way.  I had a great car filled with all girls accept our driver, who was our Swahili teacher, Daniel.  The girls in my car were all people that I enjoy the company of, which was important since I would be with them for the next ten hours straight.  The first part of the trip is a blur to be because the entire car fell asleep the second we started rolling.  I stayed up 5 minutes longer than everyone else, and happened to see the most amazing sunrise over the Chuylu Hills in the distance.  It looked like the sunrise out of a movie, just like everything else here.  After driving for around an hour and a half, we stopped at a local curio shop to use the bathroom and stretch our legs a little bit.  It was a quick stop, and when we got back in the car, we fell right back asleep since it was only 7 am still!  It was so nice to be able to just sleep and listen to music, something that I have not really had the chance to do since I have been here due to our busy schedule, especially all the assignments due right before we left for expedition.  Our next stop that I woke up for was Tusky’s super market near Nairobi, which was the supermarket that we went to on our first day in Kenya.  We all got a lot of snacks and other necessities for the expedition to get us through, as well as the rest of the drive.  The next part of the drive was the most insane part due to the crazy traffic that follows no rules near the city!  The road is a two lane road, yet at times there are 5 cars across with motorcycles thrown in the middle and cars driving down the median.  At times, I would catch myself holding my breath because we made so many close calls with cars flying by us in the other direction.  Not only this, but our cars have speed governors on them that prevent us from going over 80 kph, so passing can get really stressful when we can’t go a little faster to cut the gap  It was such a stressful part of the drive, but I have so much confidence in the drivers that I wasn’t very worried.  

The route that we took to get to Lake Nakuru goes right through the middle of Nairobi, so it was an insane contrast from the area that we have been living in that is in the middle of nowhere.  The city is pretty good size, with a huge central park area with a small amusement park, tall buildings, and lots of modern buildings and people all dressed up.  It could have been a US city if I wouldn’t have known better.  I was so excited to drive through here because we didn’t get to see the city at all when we flew in and I was curious as to how it looked and how different it was compared to other parts of the country.  One of the weirdest parts, however, was that all of their billboards had mzungu (aka white people) on them to advertise products.  It was also strange to see the contrast of all the modern buildings with the more traditional and almost rundown buildings that were built in the past.  It was hard to tell what kind of area we were in when going by the types of buildings found there.

After getting out of the city a bit we climbed and climbed in our cars to the top of a cliff and mountain to an overview of the Rift Valley.  There is a random assortment of Curio Shops there, but the view is really the only reason to stop.  It is absolutely breathtaking!  You can see so far into the distance, including the random mountains in the area, lakes, and other land uses as far as the eye can see.  There is no way that a picture could ever capture that view and I wish I could explain it to you.  After living in such a flat dry dusty area, having the hills and cliffs and different climate and land was just amazing.  We took pictures and walked through a few of the shops, but had to keep moving to get to the park on time.  The drive from there to our next stop was very hilly and scenic and so relaxing and a nice change of pace from our normal environment.  We had one final stop before getting to the park that was like a roadside stop for visitors traveling to the parks.  It had a fruit stand, purses and bags, a hotdog and hamburger stand, and finally, a coffee shop!!!  This was the first good and ICE COLD coffee that I have drank since I was in America and I literally enjoyed every sip that I took of it.  I got an iced cappuccino and I never wanted it to end hahaha!  We hung out at this stand for around an hour and sat in the grass, ate fruit, and drank our coffee.  When we finally got back in the cars, the excitement of almost being to the park took over, and I could not do anything but look ahead to see what was awaiting us.

Nakuru town is the fourth largest city in Kenya, so it was quite a hustle and bustle as we drove through the city to the park.  There were people everywhere in the street and out, lots of bright painted buildings, and tons of shops with meat hanging in the window.  We got through town as quickly as possible and finally reached the main gate of the park, where we had to wait to be allowed in.  Where we sat was right on the fence of the park and the monkeys immediately started hassling us.  The monkeys in the area are not frightened of humans at all, so as soon as we arrived, we saw a monkey get into another tourists car and steal food before retreating out the window.  We had to lock the doors because they can open the handles, and hide all food because they can see and smell it and will do anything to get to it.

Lake Nakuru National Park has several important features that make it so valuable and different, but one of the main features is that it is one of the only parks in the country that is completely fenced and keeps any animals from moving in and out of the park.  This leads to high levels of animals in the park, so even from outside of the fence, we could see waterbuck and impala right next to the fence!  When we finally got the approval we needed to enter the park, we loaded back in the cars.  The first sign that I saw in the park said “Parks are for people and forever.”  I thought this was the best saying ever and was a great introduction to the next couple days that awaited us.  We pulled into a fenced camp site with several permanent buildings also in the enclosure.  The buildings contained the kitchen, permanent residences of researchers and other people that work in the park, and the bathroom, which consisted of a whole in the ground.  There was also a television room that had power and was where our lectures would be held.  The facilities were more than I expected, only because I thought we would be camping in the middle of nowhere.  It was a perfect balance of having the resources you need with living in the middle of the National Park!  We had to unpack all of our stuff, which filled up a huge van, so with the help of an assembly line, we unpacked our things, the food and kitchen supplies, and tents for us to set up.  Setting up the tents was quite an accomplishment.  We had to set up our huge canvas tent that holds about 6 or 7 people.  We had random stakes and pieces of material and netting and rope to hold it together.  We managed to tie tents together to hold them up and tying random ropes to stakes and hoping the tent wouldn’t fall in the middle of the night.  We had our sleeping pads and sleeping bags, and I had four other girls in my tent with me.  We had the perfect amount of space and I was sleeping right by the door, which I had hoped for.  When all of the tents were set up, we had some free time before dinner, so we wandered around the fenced area.  There were significantly less bugs in this area, which made it better to sit on the ground and on trees. There were perfect trees in camp, the first I have seen without thorns that were a great height for climbing.  My friend Patrick and I climbed up, and then our intern came to join us.  From the tree, you could see the lake, as well as large herds of African Buffalo, warthogs and various gazelles.  We had an amazing talk about what we want to do in the future and the possibility of coming back to Africa.  Our intern, Jenna, is really great to talk to because she has done so much and is very down to earth.  I think the best part about our intern and SAM is that they are almost in the same boat as us.  They don’t know where they are headed next, so it’s really helpful to talk to them about future plans.  They always make me feel so limitless as far as my future goes, which is a great feeling.  Ever since I have been here, I am beginning to see everything the world has to offer and I can’t wait to grab that by the horns even more than I already have.

We finally had dinner after a long day, and then did our RAP presentation around a campfire out by the tents.  However, we were all so exhausted that we went to sleep as soon as it was over to prepare for the next day! 

DAY 2:   The next day was filled with lots of really cool classes, field lectures, and an amazing wildlife drive.  We had breakfast just like a normal morning at KBC, and then loaded up the cars with our notebooks.  Our Wildlife Ecology professor Kiringe was in charge of this lecture and he took us through parts of the park to introduce us to the different types of habitats.  We saw tons of African buffalo in huge herds, lots of crazy baboons, and impala.  And when we least expected it, we saw a rhino right by the lake!  This was the first rhino that we had seen during this entire trip and we were all so excited to get lots of pictures.  Luckily for us, Rhinos in this park are highly protected and very common, so we would have several chances down the road to get up close and personal with the black and white rhinos found in this park.  After Kiringe was done with his lecture, we drove up to a place called Baboon Cliff.  Our professors have crazy accents, so for the longest time we thought it was called baboon creek.  It’s still an inside joke of all of the students here that we are headed to the creek at the top of the huge hill.  The view of the park from Baboon cliff was gorgeous.  It looked over the entire lake and a majority of the park and was the first time that we had a chance to really see the park and the habitats and animals that were found there.  The animals down below looked like tiny specks, even in large herds.  We took lots of pictures and saw a bunch of other tourists before having to head back to our camp for lunch and out next lecture.  When we were nearing camp, all of a sudden the car in front of us slammed on its breaks and was pointing and looking intensively to the trees near the lake.  Suddenly, as we were scoping the area, we spotted a leopard running up one of the trees!! It was so gorgeous with a beautiful coat that blended into the environment and made it hard to see.  Its eyes pierced right through me and I was literally as still as I could be.  It was one of the most gorgeous animals that I have ever seen, and being able to see it in its natural environment among the green leaves with the lake in the background was stunning.  It almost brought tears to my eyes because I was so shocked and amazed all at the same time.

After eating an amazing lunch by our incredible cook Arthur (who is probably one of my favorite members of the staff), we had the opportunity to have a guest lecturer from the Kenya Wildlife service talking about the challenges facing the park and what is being done to correct them.  The speaker was very soft spoken, and when the power went out and she didn’t have the PowerPoint to depend on, it was hard to get a lot out of what she was saying.  It was really cool, though to compare the management of this park compared to Amboseli due to the island biogeography that occurs in that area. Whole new management techniques must be enacted because of the fence and the pressure that it puts on the environment.  We also had a lecture by our Wildlife Management professor, Shem, in the afternoon.  This lecture was as informative as we learned more about the park, the habitats found there, the management being done, and the research that has taken place there.  We learned about populations of animals and how they have changed overtime and why this has happened.  Shem has done all of his research in Lake Nakuru, both for undergrad and graduate school, so he has such an insight to the park and also funny stories dealing with the wildlife and his interactions with the Kenya Wildlife Service.  It was so neat to listen to him talk and be able to see the passion that he had put into the park and how much he cares about it.  He even told us that he had secret data that the Kenya Wildlife Service has been looking for for years and years, yet he will not give it to them because they have no real need for it like he does.  We all were laughing when we heard this shy quiet professors telling us he was hiding secret data from the government.

The rest of the day was dedicated to a game drive that we got to go all around the park and see all of the animals up close.  I had a great group again for this first game drive and we got the best car with a lot more room, which we call the mothership.  However, the game drive started off terribly!  We literally saw the same few species over and over for the entire first hour.  We saw gazelle, impala, zebra, and waterbuck, which were all things we have seen extensively.  It’s still so cool to see, but when the park is hyped for large predators, Rothschild Giraffes, rhinos, and flamingos, these species are not as exciting anymore.  Just as we were about to give up on seeing anything cool that day, our luck changed.  The first thing we saw was a herd of giraffes!  They were far in the distance, but this species of giraffe is larger than all of the others, so it still looked massive among the habitat.  I hoped that we could see them more up close later in the week.  After that, we came in contact with one of the Kenya Wildlife Service agents.  In all National Parks, off-road driving is prohibited to maintain the habitats and ecosystems for the animals.  We somehow managed to get access to a closed road to get a better view of the lake and the species found there.  The first thing we saw was four white rhinos, right next to the road!!! They were no more than 10-15 feet away from the side of the car and we got to watch their interactions and behaviors from a front row seat.  I have never seen a rhino that close before, so I was just in awe looking at their crazy features, from their long faces to their horns to the size of their body and the weight that it holds.  They are literally one of the weirdest animals that I have ever seen, and I am so happy that we had the opportunity to be this close to them so that I could see all of these details. 

The other species that was resting right behind those four rhinos on the lake shore was a HUGE flock of Flamingos, the feature that the National Park is so well known for.  These flamingos travel in and out of the park on a daily basis, so it’s really exciting that they were there right when we were able to get really close to them.  They form a giant pink blob on the edge of the water and are so loud with a noise that you would never expect to come out of them.  It sounds like some sort of larger animal grunting as opposed to a bird call.  It was hard to make out individual flamingos and see their behaviors, but seeing them take over the lake and have a color that is not seen often was really great.  No other group had the opportunity to see these flamingos as up close as we did, so I felt so blessed.

As we were moving away from the water’s edge, we were all so excited to have seen these two animals so closely.  We couldn’t wait to get back to camp and tell everyone what we had seen.  As we started to drive back, however, we saw another tourist car stopped by the side of the road, and to our surprise, they were looking at two adult female lions lying in the grass under a tree right off the road!!!  Could this wildlife drive get any better???  We got to sit and watch the lions for a while, watching them roll over, yawn, get up and stretch, and lie on their backs with all limbs straight up in the air.  We kept praying that they would get up and start hunting, but we didn’t have such luck.  Still, this was the closest we have seen any lions and I was so happy this was the last part of our day and our game drive.  One of the funniest things that happened during this observation was my car tricking other cars into looking at the wrong side of the side.  For the most part, we did this to other SFS vehicles and students, but we also did it to some tourists.  We would point and look in the complete opposite direction and trick them into doing the same.  We all were so in to it and fooled almost every car that went by.  It was so funny and we were all dying of laughter.

We had to head back before dark to our fencing due to park rules, and had our regular dinner and RAP around the big fire pit.  It was a whole different kind of RAP in the park because we had no computers or other technology, so the student of the day had to be really creative.  After RAP, a small group of us decided to play some card games inside the dining area, like rummy, before heading to sleep.  It was an amazing day and we definitely needed sleep before more days with more excitement.

I am going to stop with my blog at that point right now to go and get some sleep after the long day that we had here.  I hope you enjoy reading about expedition and I will update you soon on the rest of the days of expedition and what we have been doing since we got back!

Thanks again so much for reading and I hope things are treating all of you well!

Love,

Mollie Ann