Cooking class, game drive and village walk
After the Nairobi welcome meeting at 6 pm the previous night our group of 10 set off at 7.30 am in the huge Intrepid overlanding truck.
With Henry, our Intrepid guide we were heading for Lake Nakuru National Park which is a 3 hour drive from Nairobi.
We were delayed leaving Nairobi as some of the city centre roads were shut due to the Nairobi marathon but after an hour or so we were on our way.
Other than the Nairobi hotel at the beginning of the trip and the (optional) same hotel at the end, this is an overlanding camping safari, similar to the one my daughter Zoe and I did from Johannesburg to Victoria Falls in 2017.
On the way and not too far outside of Nairobi we stopped at a viewpoint to look at the Great Rift Valley.
The Great Rift Valley is a continuous series of valleys and depressions which stretches for 6000 km from Mozambique to Syria.
The next stop was at the Buffalo Mall where we purchased drinks, ice (for the coolbox) and snacks.
We arrived at the campsite in a small village near to Lake Nakuru where we disembarked the truck and after a few minutes set off with Jen, our local village guide.
Thankfully the earlier delay didn’t prevent us from taking part in a group cooking class.
Jen and her helpers showed us how some of the dishes are prepared. For example the above dish contains potato, maize and spinach. Polenta was the other dish.
A fabulous traditional freshly prepared Kenyan lunch followed as we all sat on a bench in the mud hut to eat it.
We enjoyed lentil stew, mixed vegetables, delicious chapatis, chicken and of course the potato, maise and spinach mixture.
We walked from the village back to the campsite where the plan was to put up our tents. However, as the earlier delay had put us behind schedule we didn’t have time as we had to get to the National Park for our afternoon game drive.
The game drive took place in Lake Nakuru National Park and once inside (in our huge Intrepid truck) we set off in search of wildlife.
Rothschild giraffes, the same giraffe species I had seen in Nairobi.
Baboons, I’m not a massive monkey fan but the babies were cute as they played and teased each other.
The highlight for me was coming across a pride of lions, one of the big 5. In Africa the big 5 is considered to be: lion, leopard, elephant, rhinoceros and buffalo.
One of the lionesses was on heat so we saw a bit of rumpy pumpy going on. (No wonder the male lion above is looking rather chuffed with himself!)
I was pleased to take this photo of a lilac breasted roller, a beautiful colourful bird and the national bird of Kenya. I had been fortunate to have seen one of these in Botswana and took a better photo back then.
This hyena was slinking around and decided to sit in the road behind the truck.
The hyena had been keeping watch on a nearby pack of gazelles and before long it shot off in pursuit.
We stopped off at a waterfall as we neared the end of our game drive.
It was dark at 6.50 pm when we arrived back at the campsite and all of our tents had been put up for us.
Our Intrepid chef Judy had prepared a wonderful dinner so after putting our stuff in our tents we met in the dining area inside the building for the second amazing Kenyan feast of the day.
We had a local entertainer tonight and unfortunately I can’t remember his name! A bit of balancing followed by some fire eating.
The following morning after a piece of toast topped with banana and a coffee we were met again by Jen ready for our village walk.
Jen took us to her home and explained her way of life and also the huge effort she puts in on behalf of the village community.
Jen explained that the beans we had for lunch yesterday were picked from this vegetable patch.
In the garden is an impressive bio fuel system where animal waste is treated and turned into oil where it is routed through to the kitchen with no waste.
Next Jen lead us to a craft market where we were greeted with a traditional welcome song and a little dance. There was no real pressure to buy anything other than on my part a slight feeling of obligation.
As we walked through the village more and more kids started to join us. One of them was the grandson of last night’s fire eater!
At around 11 am we returned to the campsite where Judy had made us a tasty spaghetti bolognaise for brunch.
Our tents had been packed away for us and just after midday we were back on the road and off to Lake Naivasha.
Camping
We stayed in brown domed tents and as I had paid the single supplement I had my own tent with plenty of room inside. The first night was fairly noisy which began with *dogs barking in the distance. They stopped at around 1 am, then someone began snoring (you always get one on a campsite). Then a cockerel started off at about 4 am but it wasn’t all bad… a couple of times I heard lions roaring in the distance and waking up to a range of exotic bird song was rather pleasant.
*Henry explained that the dogs usually bark if they sense a hyena nearby.
Truck
The maximum group size for the truck is 22 so as we were a group of 10 we had plenty of space to spread out. Each double seat had 2 UK plug sockets and 2 USB charging points which was excellent for charging devices while on the move.
Clean drinking water was always available and was dispensed from a supersize water container.
There was no air conditioning as the truck had large drop down windows which were perfect for game drives.
At the back was 22 large storage lockers. We had been advised to bring a padlock for these and they were large enough to take all of my luggage, yep, my two backpacks which contained all of my clothes and gear for the trip including my sleeping bag, liner and travel pillow.
Summary
The highlight for me was seeing the lions in their natural habitat. This was a first as I didn’t see any lions on my previous safari trip to Botswana.
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