Lake Nakuru (Part I)

March 29
Today we left for our second camping expedition of the semester. This time we went to Lake Nakuru National Park. On the way over we stopped at various sites to have quick lectures about the change in land use practices and land tenure from southern Kenya to central Kenya. Basically, everything that has happened in central Kenya is about to, or already happening, in southern Kenya. Unfortunately, southern Kenya cannot support agriculture as the dominant land use practice and subdivision of the group ranches is speeding up land degradation in the area because it was really only suitable for traditional pastoralism that was originally practiced by the Maasai.

Lake Nakuru National Park is famous for its large concentration of the flamingoes. When we got to Nakuru town, the main road leading to the front gate of the park was lined with streetlamps that were shaped like flamingoes. Nakuru is also famous for having the first rhino sanctuary in Kenya. Nakuru has successfully bred both black and white rhinos. FUN FACT: White rhinos are not originally from Kenya. They are from South Africa and were re-located to Kenya and other countries, like Tanzania. Kenya decided to put the white rhino population under its protection also since whatever threats (i.e. poaching and/or bushmeat) facing white rhinos will eventually affect black rhinos. Extinction of either would be a terrible loss. It should also be noted that I have never seen so many buffalo in my life…and those things are SCARY!

Apparently it is cheaper to stay in a hostel than it to campout in Nakuru NP, so we booked the hostel in Lake Nakuru and now I am a proud member of the Wildlife Clubs of Kenya! Woohoo! My picture is TERRIBLE! If you’ve had a chance to check out the pics of the students on the SFS Kenya website then you’ve already seen my fabulous ID…GROSS! WE moved into our rooms pretty quickly after our arrival. In the middle of the room were three bunk beds in a row. My friends Isobel and Liz joined me on the top and we made a tunnel out of our mosquito nets which made the three single beds into one huge bed! Our friends Val and Anna also joined us up there for a couple of nights. Don’t you just love acting like your in middle school again?!!!!!

March 30
Since we got in so late yesterday, we didn’t get a chance to go on a game drive and really enjoy the park. So at 6 am this morning we all piled into the cars and had an unexpected early morning drive. It was so much fun and SO COLD, but I did see my first RHINO!!!!!! WE also saw lots of pelicans, flamingoes, and maribu storks. Maribu storks are by far one of the ugliest breeds of bird that I have ever seen…the poor things. When we were driving back to camp I spotted a leopard tortoise:)

The rest of the day we had various lectures from a scientist who works for Kenya Wildlife Service. It was really interesting to learn the history of Lake Nakuru and Lake Naivasha. This area is known for its heavy floriculture industry and it was really sad to hear about all the bad things (pollution, lower water levels, increasing human-wildlife conflict) that have come about as a result of this establishment. FUN STORY (more because of how the lecturer told it): Nakuru NP does not have an elephant population because it is fenced in and would be unable to support probably no more than 10 elephants. However, it does lie right beside a migratory corridor utilized by elephants seasonally. Last year, an elephant decided to take a stroll through the slums of Nakuru and caused a quite a commotion. The whole time this story is being told to us I’m looking around and students’ mouths are hanging open but our lecturer is laughing hysterically at the thought of a huge elephant walking through the slums in Nakuru. After the inclass portion of our lecture we went to a couple of sites in the park and were given more insight about the park. Did you know that a major cause of death for birds of Nakuru NP is flying into power lines? Sad.

That afternoon we went on another game drive and saw a BLACK RHINO! We also saw buffalo, white rhinos, flamingoes, black-backed jackals, black and white colobus monkeys, and yellow baboons engaging in a little fornication in the middle of the road (if a Beatles song has popped into your head at this time…don’t worry you’re not alone).

March 31
Today we went to Naivasha town and sat in on a lecture about the problems facing Lake Naivasha. Lake Navaisha is a part of a lake system and is the freshest of all the lakes. It is home to many different species of birds and now different fish. Lake Naivasha was actually stocked with a variety of fish at the urging of Theodore Roosevelt and has now become a hotspot for fishing (this has brought about lots of problems that I we talk about at a later date). Afterwards, our lecturer brought us to the lake…well what was once the lake. Where we were standing had been under water during the previous year. It was weird standing in the middle of a field of papyrus plants listening to various shoat herds “bah” and “bah” and “bah”. We couldn’t even see the water from where we were standing. It was really sad.

After Lake Naivasha we went to Hellsgate National Park where we started off with a really neat tour of the Kengen Geothermal Plant and ended with an invigorating hike through Hells Gate Gorge. Hellsgate National Park was actually built around the geothermal plant. The plant managers claim that it hasn’t had a major impact on the wildlife in the area, but I beg to differ because it is super noisy and if I were an animal I wouldn’t like it.

The hike through the gorge was lots of fun. Apparently scenes from Tomb Raider and Out of Africa were filmed there. I haven’t seen Tomb Raider so I don’t really know if that’s true, but I couldn’t recall a gorge seen from Out of Africa…I’ll have to watch it when I get back to the states (YAY!!!!! Robert Redford in da house…that was for you dad!!!!!) Anyway…it was lots of fun and super adventurous. We even got to jump from a few small cliffs. The only “dangerous” part of it was the slippery rocks from the rain and the super hot water you had to try not to jump into as you jumped down. When we got done with our hike it was really late. We had to rush so we wouldn’t get locked in Hellsgate and get locked out of Nakuru. It was really late when we got to the Nakuru and was sort of scary driving through the park at night because there were lots of buffalo right on the side and if they get mad they could totally knock us over.