Morning Drive in Lake Nakuru National Park

 It felt great to wake up without an alarm clock and in such a beautiful place. I meandered to the bar, pictured above, to get some computer work done while sipping the first latte offered on the trip. The view down over the lake was amazing and with everyone else in the lodge heading out for early morning game drives I felt like I had the whole place to myself.

 
Slowly the group started finding their way up to where I was for morning coffee and a grand breakfast buffet. After breakfast we put the finishing touches on packing and eagerly got underway for a game drive around the lake. We weren't disappointed. We had a very close encounter with a beautiful maned male lion right next to the vehicle. Crowned cranes fed near the waterhole, and we were able to find some more white rhinos for David, who missed the fighting ones on the previous game drive.

   We also got a rare chance to get out of our vehicle down by the lake's edge. Lake Nakuru really gained a lot of fame when it was featured in a fly over in the movie 'Out of Africa.' Robert Redfords character flies low over what appears to be a pink lake. Really it was a grouping of over a million flamingos that gave the lake this pink color. When the lake mysteriously flooded a few years ago most of the flamingos flew off to other lakes to find their food. However, as we stood on the edge of the lake we could see quite of few flamingos have found their way back.

   We did have an armed ranger escort us on our walk to the lake. He was more than happy to interp along the way and was excited to be a part of the jumping photo below. Another example of the really nice people you meet here in Africa.