The one with the red knees
Day 8
Diligent readers will recall from the previous blog that today is an all day game drive in Lake Nakuru National Park, and we’re collected at 7.30am to head out. It’s our first time in a mini-van for our safari, and this time we share our vehicle with Toby, Mike, Luke, Bettina and Ted, and are driven by Frances. We drive the 40 minutes from our campsite to the park and stop for a visit to the facilities. Now I wouldn’t normally include such minutiae as toilet breaks but on this occasion the ladies’ was out of toilet roll so Rich bravely ventured into the men’s to get us some. His manly scream moments later has us assuming that he’s stumbled across a spider or other creepy crawly. What he’s actually found however, was not something we could have easily predicted:
Because every bathroom needs resident goats, obviously.
Unexpected goat encounters now in the past, we head into the park proper and down to the lakeside and former park offices which are now flooded and part submerged. We learn that this was caused by tectonic plate movements in 2013 which caused all lakes in the Rift Valley to flood. Lake Nakuru itself is salt water, so any trees that came into contact with the acidic water when the lake flooded its banks died shortly afterwards.
Ghostly tree corpses haunting Lake Nakuru
Lake Nakuru National Park is much smaller than the Maasai Mara at only 188 square kilometres, and the lake itself takes up 75-80 square kilometres of the park. The guides share information about animal sightings over radio and through open windows as the vehicles pass each other.
We set off and, as has become normal for Kenyan parks, the scenery is stunningly beautiful. Over the course of the day, we see plenty of zebras, African southern impala, water buffalo (and the ox pecker bird feeding on the ticks on large animals’ backs), waterbucks, Thompson gazelle, black faced vervet monkeys, baboons, rock hyrax, lizards, lions lounging on the ground and one in a tree, eland, grant gazelle, and a silver jackal.
We’re taken up to baboon cliff viewpoint which is the highest point in the park and provides spectacular views over the lake. Many selfies and someone-elsies ensue as one would expect from the largely Millennial and Gen Y group.
Eventually we stop for lunch at Makalia Falls, a pretty badass waterfall, and we lunch amongst the butterflies with the roaring water in the background.
After lunch we’re on the hunt (metaphorically again) for the rhino for which the park is known and are fortunate to see a group of white rhino, the much more relaxed relative of the generally grumpy black rhino we saw back in the Maasai Mara.
The park also has an abundance of bird life, and we see the superb starling (genuinely its name), flamingos, pelicans, guinea fowl, cattle egret, ostriches, hornbeak stork, plover, crowned cranes, cormorants, and secretary birds.
Other than the rhino, there’s one major thing on our list for the day, the remaining member of the Ugly 5: the hyena. Others in our group saw hyena in the Maasai Mara but we didn’t, and we’re therefore elated when Frances points left and says “hyena coming straight for us”. He’s right - bounding towards our car is a spotted hyena, and he comes all the way up before crossing the road right in front of our car on his way through the park. I think he’s actually quite cute and not entirely deserving of the dubious honour of being in the Ugly 5, but then Sara and I also feel that way about baboons and warthogs so what do we know.
It’s a beautiful drive back to the park gates and all in all another great day of safari. On the way back to camp, we stop at a gift shop, ostensibly to let us use the loos but I’m pretty certain Frances is on commission for any sales the shop makes from us. Sara and I are happy to oblige as we know from Nash that this is likely to be the last opportunity for any Kenyan souvenirs as we’re effectively heading for Uganda after today. We buy a painting that reminds us of the Maasai and a magnet and are pleased with getting the initial Muzungu (white person) price down to a much more reasonable level.
Back at camp, we’re on cooking crew again and make a massive pot of two bean chilli (Kenya’s supermarkets aren’t flush with cans of Mexican beans, as it turns out) which seems to be well received.
Day 9
Yet another early start (it’s becoming so common I might now set early as the default and comment by exception when we aren’t up at silly o’clock) today to drive to Eldoret, a town in the Kenyan highlands known for producing top distance runners due to the high altitude. We arrive at our campsite mid-afternoon and are given a tour by the camp team. This place has WONDERFUL facilities: a decent sized swimming pool which is full of locals enjoying a public holiday; a beautiful bar area with a fireplace and waterfall; plus some resident geese which briefly terrorise our camping area until they’re chased out by Melissa.
Before dinner we head to the bar for a final couple of Kenyan beers with some of our group, and after dinner we return to find the fire lit and we’re able to enjoy a little time before bed with the roaring fire. A lovely, if uneventual, final day in Kenya.
Day 10
Today’s agenda is to cross the border into Uganda, and after a little over 4 hours of driving we arrive at the Kenya - Uganda border. It takes the group about an hour to get through Kenyan emigration and Ugandan immigration but we all do without issue. And after being warned repeatedly about not being allowed to take photos at government buildings or borders, we decide to ask a nice Ugandan soldier with a large gun if we can take a photo of the Uganda sign and he’s willing to allow it which makes us very happy!
Now in Uganda, we drive for another few hours and eventually land at our campsite in Jinja, Nile River Explorers Camp, where we’ll be staying for a glorious three nights. Taylor and Ryan enquire about potential upgrades and there’s a dormitory with toilets and showers which are completely vacant for the time we’re staying and we can have it for the princely sum of $5 per person per night. Ryan, Taylor, Rich, Melissa, Shelly, Miryam (who’s Swiss and is today joining the truck until Zanzibar - also joining the truck is Jan, a Dutch fellow with us all the way to Cape Town), Sara and I decide to take the dormitory and are happy to avoid setting up our tent.
It’s another cracking campsite (Nash continues to spoil us) with beautiful views over the Nile river, including from an on-site treehouse,and dinner for me and Sara is in the campsite’s restaurant. We have some truly excellent bean nachos with salsa and guacamole together with our first taste of Ugandan beer (Nile Special) before an early bed after a long day of travelling.
The view from the campsite in Jinja, Uganda
Day 11
It’s here at last, our day for white water rafting the Nile, and we’re excited to say the least! The company behind our camp has a full day package which involves breakfast, lunch, snacks and beers on conclusion, and Sara, Shelly and I have signed up from our group. We’re being picked up at 8am and head to the reception to be greeted by a number of black vervet monkeys scampering around on the roof and paving. We enjoy said scampering until our transport arrives, and we’re driven to Nile River Explorers main site in central Jinja for breakfast before our safety briefing with the wider rafting group. There are going to be two rafts worth of people, 11 tourists plus the guides and support rafts and canoes, and we all head off together in the bus down the river to the start site.
Being the prone-to-burning white people that we are, Sara and I diligently apply our sun cream to avoid pinking up on the water, and we meet the two other women joining the raft with me, Sara and Shelly. Why all women in that boat, you ask, when there are also four men plus another woman? Why, that’s obviously because one of the guides doesn’t like to take women in his raft and puts as many women as he can with his colleague Hassan.
Casual sexism now behind us, we’re into the river to be taught how to paddle, what to do if we flip the raft, and what each of the instructions we might be given at each of the rapids means and how to respond. And then we’re off! We successfully manoeuvre our way through multiple grade 4 and 5 rapids, some with high waves and one with a (small) vertical waterfall we rafted down, interspersed with some gentle rafting down the calm straits of the Nile, surrounded by the lush Ugandan landscape and sounds of the local bird life. Or rather, and more accurately, the incessant talking from the two other women in the boat who would rather discuss entirely irrelevant matters to the task in hand than enjoy, or allow anyone else to enjoy, the placid calm of the river. My blood rises to a quiet simmer over the course of the morning.
We reapply sun cream part way down the route and are pretty pleased with ourselves for doing so, sure that we definitely won’t be red later. We soon reach a point where we can river board some of the rapids, and there’s the opportunity to “surf” at one of them where two currents meet. Once exhausted from this, we paddle over to a double deck pontoon for lunch and have a few jumps off the top before heading back out on the raft for some more rapids.
“The next rapid is a grade 6”, Hassan tells us, and this is above the level we’re allowed to do (or he even wants to). The rapid, however, changes from a grade 6 to a grade 5 partway down, so we’re out of the river to walk past the most perilous section before getting back in the raft again at the side of the river. We row out into what looks like a fairly terrifying torrent of water and take on the grade 5 bit with a pretty huge wave and multiple “row - down - row - ROW HARDER - down” type instructions until we’re down the rapid and back to calm water and incessant chat from the two in our boat.
Partway down there’s another surfing opportunity, this time in the raft, and of course we want to give it a try. We mount the crest of the wave but not quite at the right angle and with a great big SPLOSH we tip the raft and all end up in the water. Not to be deterred, we try again with better luck, riding the crest of success with pride.
After the final rapid, Hassan tells us we can get into the river for a swim and pretty much before he’s finished the sentence, Sara and I have tipped ourselves in with Shelly following moments later. The three of us (the other two decide to stay in the boat to continue their unnecessary discussions) blissfully float down the river until we’re instructed to take ourselves to the shore as we’re now at the point where we’re being collected by the bus. A quick change later (on the bus with no privacy given the local farmers, women, and children standing by the bus watching) and we’re heading back to camp, cold beers in hand, but with, would you believe it given all the sun cream, sunburned knees! Boots will be hearing from me about the efficacy of their Soltan Factor 30!
Back at camp, sunned (knees too sunned) and happy, we eat a not-tasty cheeseburger and enjoy the sunset before bed.
Day 12
A day in which not much happens until the evening. We awake and decide to have a relaxing day, in part because our red knees are hurty, and in part because the views from the campsite are exceptional and we want to enjoy them (while bringing this blog more up to date!). Key things in the period before 5pm:
We have Rolex from the chapati street food stand outside the campground. Rolex isn’t a fancy-pants brand of watch but instead has evolved from “rolled eggs” and is essentially an omelette in a chapati. The Rolex with all fillings costs about $1 and is really good if not a little oily, and we also later have a peanut butter, Nutella and banana chapati each too which costs only 50c. Absolute bargain.
It’s Sunday and although we’re in a campground, we find ourselves with a (possibly impromptu, possibly scheduled) hymn session lasting 2hrs beside us while we write this blog.
The WiFi is INFURIATING and it’s basically impossible to upload the photos we want to onto the blog! Eventually admitting defeat, we post The One Where We All Have To Push …. Twice without half of the photos we want to add. Disappointing.
The main event of the day is a sunset cruise on the Nile with an open bar, and Mike, Luke, Ted, Shelly, Steve, Nash, Sara and I represent for the Absolute Africa contingent. After a false start where we head out only to return to the jetty to pick up some people who were 25mins late (!), we’re off, beers, sodas and spirits on tap, and a “dinner” to enjoy of chicken wings, nachos, guacamole and salsa, cucumber, carrots and hummus to share between us, plus baked potato with beans and no utensils for the veggies.
Along the banks of the river we see various locals, swimming and fishing, many waving to us as we pass. There’s also an abundance of kingfishers, Sara’s and my new favourite bird, and we enjoy watching them fly high before nosediving to the water to catch a fish. The sunset when it comes is beautiful and the sky glows orange just before darkness descends.
We head back to shore and, still hungry from the insufficient “dinner”, we order more of the bean nachos (not making the same mistake twice of ordering something else off the menu!). They’re once again delicious and are quickly scoffed into oblivion.
Day 13
This morning we leave Jinja and the beautiful campsite we’ve all enjoyed for the last three nights to head for Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary north of Kampala. Ziwa was set up for conservation purposes after the indigenous rhino population in Uganda was poached to extinction, and it’s the only place rhinos can be seen in the wild in Uganda now. The population of rhino in the sanctuary began with some male Kenyan rhinos and female rhinos imported from a zoo in the USA, and when a baby rhino arrived in 2009, it was therefore obviously called Obama (Kenyan father, American mother, and in the year of President Obama’s inauguration!).
We arrive at around 2pm to find our camping ground is essentially a pen in the middle of the sanctuary, and there are already some resident warthogs grazing the pen which seem reluctant to leave. There are no barriers other than the bars of our pen to separate us from potential rhino or other animals (including leopards) and we’re told in no uncertain terms that we cannot leave the pen without specific approval and only within set times.
There’s an optional activity this afternoon to go rhino trekking in the sanctuary to find some white rhino, and of course Sara and I opt in as do most of the group. We set off through the bush and are first greeted by some cows (with absolutely ENORMOUS horns) which we navigate and try not to encourage towards us (I do not want a set of those horns coming at me!).
We continue on and within 20 minutes find ourselves with four white rhino plus their 24 hour a day security detail. Every rhino in the sanctuary has full time protection against possible poaching and is manually tracked every hour of the day.
We spend an hour with the rhino, often having to back away quickly as they amble towards us and get too close for our guides’ liking. It’s both incredible and at times scary having these enormous and potentially dangerous creatures mere metres away from us with no barrier between us and nothing to protect us should they choose to charge. Fortunately nothing like that happens, and after our hour is up we head back to our pen, delighted at how close we were able to get to the magnificent animals.
Almost immediately after arriving back at camp, a (different) rhino and its security detail turns up at our pen to look at the humans, and those who didn’t opt into the rhino trekking get a free rhino viewing. The rhino has a nice wallow in some mud and then scratches his horns against the bars of our pen before strolling off again, and we’re all reminded that many other animals in the area won’t be deterred by the bars so to make sure we’re careful in the night if we leave our tents!
As dinner is made, night falls, and Sara and I see Steve standing in the field with a flashlight. We head over to see what he’s doing and he turns the light on to show us some reedbuck just outside our pen. They’ll likely come in during the night to graze on the grass around our tents apparently, but they’re not likely to cause us any danger and we probably won’t even know they’re there in any event. Steve switches off the flashlight and the incredible night sky comes into focus as we’re in the middle of nowhere with no light pollution and there’s very little light from the pen’s cooking area over the field.
Just before dinner, Nash builds the first bonfire of our journey and we eat our meal sitting in its glow and warmth, basking in our memories of the rhino.
Day 14
It’s cooking duty day and we’re up before dawn to make French toast for the group. As I take some of our stuff to the truck from our tent (it’s tents down before breakfast every day), I hear the crackle of a portable radio. Rhino security detail? Does that mean there are rhino by our pen? I look in the direction of the sound and see the silhouette of some rhino at the other side of our pen, plus two security guards leaning against the fence a short distance away. I head over to the two men and they tell me this is Rhino Group B and there are four large rhino a very short distance ahead, the youngest of which is a couple of years old. I move closer and it’s a real privilege to see them in the dark with no one else around. I head back to the tent to fetch Sara and tell Rich and Sam (the rest of our cooking group) en route so they can see the rhino too.
After breakfast, Sara and I buy a couple of souvenirs (a little carving of a rhino and another of a cartoon hippo) before we’re onto the truck en route for Kampala which we reach at lunchtime. Some shopping (and ice cream) later, we head to our campsite for the night, Red Chilli Hideaway, in the outskirts of Kampala, which is another glorious camping site with lovely facilities. We decide to upgrade again into a dorm with Rich, Bettina, Shelly and Miryam before we have to go on cooking duty again while everyone else enjoys the pool instead. Chores are the worst!
After dinner, Sara and I take the de-worming pills we bought in Kampala earlier (to combat the possible Bilharzia we may have contracted from white water rafting in the Nile - see Mum, we are taking this seriously!) and proceed to feel terribly nauseated and sleep poorly all night long because of them. Yay de-worming meds!
Oh, and also three more people joined the truck at Red Chilli - Air from Thailand, her Canadian husband Dave, and Dave’s also-Canadian friend Andrew. All three will only be with us for about a week until they leave us in Kigali at Christmas, and although we don’t get a chance to meet them properly today we’ll no doubt get to know them over the coming week.