Kenya - Lake Naivasha

Ok, I'm also back with some more Kenya!

On Monday, we woke up bright and early to make it down to the stage (bus stop) where were hopped a Matatu (or I should say a series of Matatu's) to take us from Kisumu to Lake Naivasha. It was a long, hot, dusty trip. No air conditioners in any van and on the longest trip we got stuck in the back. Very very dusty in the back. Here we are at the first stage, waiting for our matatu. I reaaallly needed to sit down and eat in this picture. I was starting to get nausious from being too hot on an empty stomach, and I'm not sure if Amy was feeling so much better.

One of the most unpleasant parts about traveling by Matatu is not the tight squeeze into the van, or the lack of air conditioning, but the people trying to sell you stuff at every stage by sticking their products in front of your face in the window. Very annoying, but it can sometimes be to your advantage when you are starving and want watermelon.

Our trip consisted of 1 tuk tuk ride and 3 matatu rides. The first matatu ride was the longest to Nakuru. There was a lot of road construction, so it consisted of a lot of gravel diversion roads. It was very dusty, but very pretty as we rode through the Rift Valley. The second lag was from Nakuru to Naivasha.Our end goal was Top Camp on the southern side of Lake Naivasha. Unfortunetly, once we got there we had to lug our luggage up the top of the hill.

But, once we got to the top we were rewarded with the most beautiful view. And this picture is only half way up (or down) the hill to the lake! Amazing to wake up to this for a couple days!

Our cabin's name was Kitete. It had a fully equiped kitchen, complete with a mini fridge! Ali doesn't have a fridge at her place, so this was a luxery for her. We loaded up on groceries at a roadside stand closeby and Ali made us eggs in a basket (eggs in toast) for breakfast. Mmmm... good. Showers at Top Camp were heated by boiler which was in turn heated by a wood fire. Our water pressure was crap, but at least it was warm running water! We were able to do our laundry in the bathtub during the day.

We spent the morning of our only full day at Lake Naivasha on the lake looking for hippos! And find them we did. We got so very close to the hippos. It even scared our guide because we were so close. Ali was able to negotiate a good price for it (it's important to negotiate for everything in Kenya, and it will ususally work, especially when they speak the language). We spent an hour out on the lake.

See how close we got! This wasn't even zoomed in a whole lot. And to think, Hippos are the most dangerous animal in Kenya. They hurt more humans than any of the big cats you typically think of while on safari.

We spent the afternoon heat either napping or reading. This was my view from the cabin next door which was unoccupied while we were there.

We ate all our big meals at the resturant associated with the 'sister' camp on the lake, Fisherman's. The first night we got there, we quickly ate (we were starving) before heading back up to the cabin. While we were there, the hippos came out of the lake to graze on the lakeside. Fisherman's keeps a electric wire live at night to keep the hippos away from the campgrounds, but still enough room for the guests to enjoy the hippos.

The second night, a group of other people invited us to join their table. Our group slowly grew. 2 girls from Australia with 1 girl from Engalnd, 2 guys from England, 1 guy from Argentina, 1 guy from India, and the owner (who was also originally from England). This means there were 5 continents represented, and we were physically in the 6ht. So cool! They kept buying rounds of shots and we hung out together for quite awhile at night. Ali went with a bunch of them to try to get into Hell's Gate National Park to swim in a geothermal pool. No luck getting in though.

All in all, we had a great time at Lake Naivasha!