We are now on our way to Lake Nakuru and of course, we're all still like kids full of excitement trying to figure out what new animals we'll see today! Well, this is not Lake Nakuru, but the view along the way from Samburu to Lake Nakuru is beautiful! =)
This is our second time crossing the equator in Kenya. First, we crossed it on the drive from Nairobi to Mt Kenya, then on the drive from Samburu to Lake Nakuru. On our second crossing, we stopped by an equator marker and of course had the obligatory demonstration of the coriolis effect... Well, you know, they said if you flush the toilet in the northern hemisphere, the water drains in a clockwise fashion and the opposite in the southern hemisphere. Since we were right at the equator, the guy had 2 buckets, one 20 ft north of the equator line, and the other one 20 ft south of the equator line. I brought my gps with me there, and yes, it did not say 0.0.0, but, it was close though! =D
Since it's a long drive from Samburu to Nakuru, we stopped by Thomson's falls for a few photos. I love water falls! Oh yeah, we noticed there's a lot of things named Thomson there in Kenya... Our guide said most things were named after the person who "discovered" them. Turns out this Thomson guy discovered a lot of things there. Hehehe!
We're finally there! Let me tell you that the roads are no piece of cake, it seems like some areas are like washboards! Hehehe!
Here's a view of Lake Nakuru! It was actually raining when we got to our lunch stop! Real rain! Can you see the black line of dots just before the tree? We found out that those are cape buffaloes!
Can you see the lionesses in the grass? Unfortunately the grass was too tall at the time, but you can still see their heads above the grass. Those lionesses were stalking some zebras! We were hoping to see some action! One of the lionesses was getting closer to the zebras... Unfortunately again, the wind changed and the zebras smelled the lionesses! You can see the zebra's ears pointed up once the wind changed! They smelled the lionesses, and unfortunately for the lionesses, dinner is canceled! =D
Beyond the zebras, we saw a bunch of cape buffaloes!
This is the first time I have seen flamingoes fly! All the flamingoes I have seen in zoos and what nots are all just standing there! This was very exciting for all of us too, because our guide let us get out of the van and walk a little bit closer to the flamingoes!
This is what I normally see in zoos, flamingoes just standing! =D
As we were trying to walk closer to the flamingoes, our guide suddenly told us to halt, and move back slowly... What do you know, we did not notice there were cape buffaloes nearby! We were joking that it was fine, as long as your not the last one to be running away... hehehe! So we were all asking each other how fast can they run! =D
Well, here's another photo of a cape buffalo. Can you see his fuzzy ears? So cute!
Oh wow! Now we can put a tick mark next to another big 5 animal, the rhinoceros!!! These are white rhinos, and no, they were not called white because of their color, they were called "white rhino" because something got lost in translation, when the dutch guy described the animal as having "wide" lips ("widj" in dutch I think). Well, something like that. So, that's how you distinguish a white rhino from a black rhino. White rhino has the wide lips, since they eat the grass on the ground. The black rhino has a prehensile lip (a curve) since they eat the young leaves on branches. See, we learn something new everyday! =)
Well, I'm just showing this because this was the first time we saw cape buffaloes actually in the water. Hee-hee!
Can you see the baby baboon nursing from mom? =)
The baboons here did not leave the middle of the road until our van where really very close to them!!! Look at how many there are of them!
Vervet monkeys monkeying around on a tractor. Har-har! It was funny too, because there was a car parked on the side of the road with a woman inside the car, when suddenly, a vervet monkey went inside! The woman tried to shoo it out, but it just went circling around inside the car! Finally, a guy came over and brought out some crackers and managed to get the monkey out! I should add that all the people involved there was laughing so hard! So were we. Hehehe!
Finally, we're home for the night! Our guide told us for this place, there was going to be a lot of mosquitoes because the university just released mosquitoes to kill the malaria carrying mosquitoes, and that we shouldn't be worried if we get bit since they won't be carriers. He reassured us that the mosquitoes would be gone the next day since they will die off! Very comforting right? Hahaha!
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