8/13/2008 Lake Nakuru, Lake Naivasha-boat ride, drive to Nairobi, drive to Amboseli, Mount Kilimanjaro, Amboseli Sopa

Buffet breakfast at our lodge.  Check out.

We are driving to Lake Naivasha which is a fresh water lake.  Very scenic drive.  I went on this trip to Africa wanting to see the so called "big 5"-lion, leopard, elephant, cape buffalo, and rhino.  And I've seen all the big 5 already!  But Ed and Karen are into birds and because of that Richard and I got to see so many birds which was just an added plus.

Yellow bark acacia tree

Lake Naivasha is known for the quantity of hippos here and we are here to take a boat ride to go out on the lake to see them.  The boat ride is 2000 ksh per person.  We all have to wear life jackets.  On the lake we see many groups of hippos.  The boats get quite close to the hippos!  There are lots of boats taking tourists like us on the lake.  While on the boat we hear a sound like a thud.  Karen thinks maybe we hit a submerged hippo??  The boat started leaking and our boat driver started bailing water out of the boat.  He soon realized this was not working so we beached the boat on an island so he could better fix the leak.  We walked around but soon we got back on our now fixed boat to continue our tour of the lake.  We also saw so many birds which made Karen and Ed especially happy.  Goliath heron, great white pelicans, fish eagle, cormorants, pied kingfisher.  I'm getting quite an education on birds of Kenya!

Hippos

Great white pelicans

This is the island where we beached our boat so the leak could be fixed

Unplanned stop!

Fish eagle

Goliath heron

Cormorants

Pied kingfisher

Returning

After this, we return to Nairobi (takes about 2 hours) to the Pollman office where we have box lunch.  It was chicken sandwich, hard boiled egg, apple, crackers, and a juice box.  It was way too much for me to eat so Richard helped a bit.  We just aren't used to eating lunch especially when it's so hot.  Then we detour to the airport so Ed and Karen can file a claim.  Their luggage was located but items were missing.  This caused us a 1 hour delay.

Back on schedule we drive to Amboseli.  It will take almost 5 hours for this drive.  Going through the Great Rift Valley.  I get a picture of Mount Kilimanjaro.  It's very dark when we arrive at 8:00 pm.  We will stay at the Amboseli Sopa for 2 nights.

First picture of Mount Kilimanjaro

I'm tired but hungry so we do go to dinner which is a buffet.  There was pasta with tomato based sauce, leg of lamb, chicken, salads, and a variety of desserts.  I had a coke and ??  because it was so dark we had a guide take us back to our room #57.