Lake Nakuru: Rhinos and Flamingos

 Lake Nakuru always has a way of being a sleeper hit for safari goers. It is a rather small park, with a strip of land surrounded a large, but shallow soda lake in Kenya's Rift Valley region. It used to have millions of flamingos, but the drastic changing of levels of the lake has wiped out the flamingos food source, cyanobacteria, so now there are just a few thousand of the pink, long legged creatures left. They are joined by white pelicans, and more importantly, white rhinos calling the park home. Lions and leopards can also be found, but for us it was the rhinos that we really hoped to see here. 

  We set off after breakfast for an all day game drive in the park. Black and white colobus monkeys were our first big find. We had briefly seen them in the Aberdares but this was a really nice viewing of them up in a yellow fever tree. We entered the big open area next, with lots of flamingos and pelicans dominating the shoreline. Groups of buffalo also joined the fray near the shore, while zebras and waterbucks played around the waterholes. Then the group spotted a large grey shape.... rhino! We sped towards it only to find out it was four rhinos all in a group. One, that turned out to be the mother of the young one, had a huge horn. They all ambled off away from the water, right across the dirt road, and into the zone of another huge rhino. They had a bit of a standoff, then a charge, then they all just hung out in the same area until we left. 

  It wasn't to be our last rhino encounter either. As we were just leaving the site of an injured lioness, being coerced closer to a ranger vehicle with giants legs of meat, we stumbled across another huge white rhino in the road. Only this time there were tall bushes on either side, leaving us no room to get past. We had to back up several times and wait until the rhino decided to turn and head off in to the dense bushes. 

  We stopped off at the Sarova Lion Hill Lodge in the park for a wonderful lunch buffet and some passion fruit mojitos. They had some live music and a funny list of 'animations' that were just organized activites. The staff was very nice and it was a welcome respite from the lack of service at the Eastmark hotel in town. Although, once we were back at the Eastmark that night they staff did step it up a notch. Sean and Lindsay decided to rough it out at the Sarova Woodlands Hotel this night, which may have to be added to the itinerary for next time. 

Black and White colobus monkey

White Pelicans on the shoreline

That is a BIG animals. Our first white rhino of the trip

How many rhinos can you count?

Mom and baby rhino

Pelicans take flight and create a tornado over our heads

Flamingos at Lake Nakuru

The team looking pretty tough

Give way to that rhino!

Bottle service at the Eastmark Hotel

When your food takes forever just order Uber Eats Africa like Sean

Amy hamming it up at the waterfall in lake Nakuru

Give way to animals