I woke up in the night to the coolest nature noises! There was definitely a hippo right outside of our door making all kinds of noise around 3am as well as so many other unidentifiable noises! It was pretty cool to wake up to, actually.
It is much colder here than we anticipated. I’m guessing it was around 5 degrees this
morning! We could see our breath as we
drove over to the other site for breakfast.
It’s crazy the variation in temperatures during the day. I am able to wear shorts and a t-shirt in the
afternoon, yet I am cold and wearing layers first thing! Much like Alberta – go figure!
Breakfast was awesome…I have a lovely head cold at
the moment, so Nassar brought me a teapot of ginger and lemon hot water. It was great!
There was also bacon, toast, and eggs.
Camping and eating outside definitely improves the taste of food, I have
found!
We headed out towards Lake Nakuru National Park. The park is known for its huge flamingo
population, however, this year there are very few of these birds. They feed on blue-green algae and because
there has been so much rain, the lake is much bigger than normal and there
isn’t enough algae for the flamingos. We
did see a few, however.
The game drive was about 5 hours long and we saw a
tonne of animals. I barely know where to
start with them all! We saw more Cape
Buffalo and a tonne of Impalas. We also
saw a lot of birds – although I am horrible at remembering all the names. We saw an African Spoonbill – it has a bill
that looks like a spoon and it moves its beak around in the water to catch
small fish. Pelicans, Flamingos, and
Seagulls. We saw Marabou Storks that
look a lot like vultures as well oranged-billed storks that look more like
“normal”. There were many more than
that…but well…they don’t make quite the same impression as all of the big
animals!
We watched the baboons for quite a while. They have such a personality and it was so
neat to see them groom each other and run around and play. I got some great pictures of them. We also had the chance to see a leopard
tortoise, which may be my only “leopard” sighting on the trip!
Driving through lots of fields we were on a mission
to find at least one rhino! We saw lots
of zebra and a few giraffes, both of which are awesome! Finally, in the distance, we spotted a black
rhino running away from the road! It was
great! Then, as we turned the corner we
saw a group of 3 white rhinos! Finally, as
we turned around to get a better look at the white rhinos we saw another black
rhino! It was awesome. I think I was able to get some decent
pictures of the rhinos! I know black
rhinos are high on the endangered list, and I suspect the white ones are as
well, so it was awesome to see 5 rhinos!
Then, on our way out of the park we spotted 2 more white rhinos in the
distance! So, in total we were able to
see 5 white and 2 black rhinos all in one day!
Pretty awesome! (We’ve now seen 3 of the Big Five)
Lunch was at an “emporium” type store. Mom, Kendra, and I tried a group negotiation
on some salad bowls and bread baskets but our prices were so low compared to
the vendors that it just wasn’t worth it and we walked. I’m not too worried, really.
Back at camp we had a nice happy hour and enjoyed a
downpour from our open-aired thatched roofed cabins before heading off to
dinner.
This is the first place we’ve had internet, so it was
nice to check a few e-mails and post some pictures! Tomorrow is a long drive all the way to the
Maasai Mara...and lots more animals, I hope!
Night
-Allison
No comments:
Post a Comment