Passing through the border picking up samosas on the way, we made our way to Kitale. The camp there was filled with animals (goats, geese, rabbits) and also several UN vehicles that looked like the big stilted camel shooter vehicles from The Empire Strikes Back (Sean says they're called AT-ATs).
We had a brief stop into town to pick up some food for dinner and were delighted when basically the vegetables and fruit 'came to us'. We only had to stand on the pavement and people would run up to us with bags of things. If only shopping was this easy back home! We even needed potatoes and when no one had any, some guy ran off to the store for us. I'm sure we paid a premium for this, but it was still so cheap that frankly it didn't matter and the chap was very grateful indeed so hooray.
That night Jake cooked the most amazing pork dish I've ever tasted - he fried up some onion and garlic, then poured in 2cm of soya and 2cm of white vinegar (basically 50/50 until the meat was covered) and cooked the pork until done. It was so lovely!!! Dave and I had expertly picked out all the rocks from the rice and even that was yummy too ;)
We tried to end the evening playing more 500, but frankly were still feeling the effects of our hangover and the camp was very quiet, so we felt it best to retire for the evening. One dog pissed on our tent that night (fortunately Dave had forewarned us of this possibility and so we always made sure to keep our rain covers on).
The next day we headed up to Saiwa Swamp to visit the rare water deer called Sitatunga. After Chris destroyed their entry sign with the truck (hee hee) we set off to viewing platform 4. We managed to see a few dear grassing by what was left of the river during dry season. We even saw a fish eagle and some Columbus monkeys. Sean and I wanted to see what was down the end of the path, so told the others when we left platform 4 that we'd catch them up at platform 5. There wasn't much to see down the end of the path and it was much further than we anticipated, so by the time we got back to platform 5 the others were no where to be seen. We figured they had carried on round to the exit and looking at my photo of the map by the entrance, we would soon catch them up if we carried on rater than doubling back. However. That map turned out to be wildly NOT to scale. 7km later we realised that we had done the 'Acacia Route'. The others were waiting for us in the truck for 2.5 hours. Sorry everyone!!! Jake, bless, rushed out to great us on our return in case we had been bitten by a snake. But we were just stupid. Thanks though Jake - appreciate the concern! The only moment that made this journey of ours good was when several Columbus monkeys leapt right over our heads and one ran off down the path in front of us - was pretty awesome!
And so, rather late, we carried on to Lake Nakuru, playing 500 all the way. By now we'd figured out that Sean does best to partner with Dave and Jake with I. Dave is still convinced to this day that I was cheating as if I didn't have the joker, Jake did. Like I said Dave, the magnets worked a charm!
We arrived in the dark at our next camp site and because we couldn't see anything it looked a little spartan - like we were setting our tents up in a field. We were so wrong, this place was amazing and the showers under the stars were a fabulous experience!
The next day we headed off very early to Lake Nakuru for our first official 'game drive'. I'm not sure I knew what to expect here, but it was fabulous! Not only was the view of the lake itself stunning, but from our 'pop top land cruiser/mini bus thingy' we saw the famous flamingos, buffalo (the first of the Big 5), white rhino (the second of the Big 5), storks, baboons, zebra, Thompson's gazelle, giraffe and to save you from a million photos, here follows a nice collage instead:
Not bad for our first safari day out! And to top it all we had excitement when our jeep broke down (it ran out of petrol and going up the hill to the west gate exit basically made sure the little he was getting by on would no longer reach the tank). Jake was told adamantly to wait in the vehicle (in case of lions don't you know). But we were so close to the exit in the end it was laughable and only took 15 mins for a guy to bring some petrol to us.
We headed back to the camp site and immediately went to rid ourselves of the caking of dust that was upon us - getting a nice shower in the sunshine this time (I have to mention though that I'm taller than most women so am pretty sure that this wasn't exactly a private shower should anyone have been standing this side of the complex).
So tomorrow we head to Lake Naivasha where we'll take a nice break from putting up our tents, taking down out tents by hanging out there for 3 whole days! Can't wait!
Here are the photos:
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