We started off early in the morning to drop one of the research group's Land Cruisers at the garage for its tune-up. And as goes with the size of the town where we are located, the nearest Toyota service center is in Kisumu which is two hours away! But luckily it was on our way to Ngoro and Nakuru, and turned out to be a pretty cool little town. We arrived at the garage with plenty of time to spare before they opened, so we milled around until the first couple people came into work and were able to check us in. Once we were checked in we got dropped off at a little coffee shop called "The Laughing Buddha." Well... It turns out that in Kisumu its not unusual for a coffee shop not to open til 10:30am... It was 8:35am... Since we had all been up since 5:30am and ran out the house without breakfast(and also my jacket, hat and sunglasses), we all decided to bust out the guidebook and find another place to go. At that point, with hunger steadily taking over, I agreed that the local vegetarian place would work fine. And it was. Note to self: when visiting Kenya and ordering tea, you need to be very specific if you don't want milk in your tea... I guess it’s a remnant of British colonization or perhaps just my own ignorance, but having never tea that way, it’s a little strange. Anyways, I was specific, but still ended up drinking my tea with milk (I was told that having milk in tea used to be a sort of status thing, more for the upper class who could afford it, so that at many smaller towns/stores, it would always be assumed that I wanted the milk).
After a decent breakfast of chipati(Kenyan flatbread), Fabrice and I took off to check out the Port. We kind of figured that since Kisumu was not only a port town on Lake Victoria but also an end terminal for a rail line that runs all the way from the coast city of Mombassa and on through Nairobi, that it would be a busy place... Nope. There was only one ship being actively loaded(with soap and cooking oil), a couple small Kenya Revenue Authority ships and three ships that probably hadn't moved in a couple months. The reason, as our little 'guide' told us, is because currently the taxation rates and fees on goods shipped via the port are so high, that it makes it more economical to drive the goods ALL the way around the lake. It was a little sad to see the rail lines overgrown with scrub brush. But with the recent ratification of terms of the East African Community (an agreement to facilitate/ease the movement of people and products between Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania) and the improvements/expansions to the Kisumu Airport, they are preparing the area for a renaissance of sorts. Fabrice was also able to get the opinions on the best locations around Kisumu's part of Lake Victoria to catch Nile Perch(possibly next weekend's adventure).
From there we decided to explore the town a little and since we had just heard from the rest of our group that the car wouldn't be ready til 2pm at the earliest, we had plenty of time. On a Friday morning, Kisumu is a pretty hopping town. Complete opposite of the port. There were tons of vendors on the streets, selling everything from avocados and sunglasses(which I picked-up a pair since I left mine at the project house) to bootleg DVDs from Dubai and solar-powered radios. I was able to haggle down the price of the sunglasses from 500 schillings (about $6USD) to 400 schillings($4.80). And for that price they served their purpose well, but I doubt they make the trip back to the US...
We browsed the shops and vendors til right about 1pm or so and decided to duck into one of the side 'mall' areas for a bite to eat. And we absolutely hit the jackpot. We took the stairs down to the courtyard and were headed to one place at the far end, when Fabrice spotted a little something different. Of course the first reason he spotted it was due of it's French name, "Mon Ami." But inside it had all the wood paneling and Premiere League swag befitting a proper pub in foggey ole London town (or maybe more aptly in Liverpool since the guy that owned it was a HUGE fan). They were showing replays of World Cup matches on the TV and had a menu that was a mix of English-pub food and Indian food. The butterfish and chips were great(either that or I had eaten so much ugali and greens over that last three weeks that it seemed like it!).
The car ended up being done around 2pm, so we caught a toot-toot (a weird 3-wheeled motorized cart that’s used as a taxi) back to the garage, met up with the rest of the team and headed off.
We (myself, the other summer student and Fabrice) dropped one person from the research group off at a nice plantation on the outer area of tea-farming country and another off in Nakuru so she could catch the 4-hour shuttle to Nairobi. We finally made it to the 'hotel' that Fabrice had 'sort of' booked online but had forgotten the name of it (after searching and searching and almost giving up and heading back towards town). It again turned out to be a semi-jackpot (in this case, jackpot means only that the room had a toilet that flushes...). Actually, it was a pretty nice little place. There was a pool (that we didn't use), a sauna (that we never got a look at) and a reasonably priced bar/restaurant where we were able to check out the Ghana-Uruguay match. By the beginning of the match the entire staff from the hotel was in the room with us watching the match (the hotel is also a 'conference center' so it has a lot of rooms and it seemed to have a lot of people on staff, but we seemed to be the only people there so I guess they had nothing better to do than hang out). The place erupted when Ghana took the lead and was on cloud nine until Forlan pulled Uruguay equal. I couldn't believe the ending... I felt so bad for Gyan. I could literally see the pressure that was on him from the whole of Africa and when he missed the disappointment in the air was so tangible. But unfortunately thats how soccer (football) is sometimes... The better team doesn't always win.
Saturday, July 3rd- Finally got a chance to sleep in a little! Up at 730ish for breakfast. Which I thought was just gonna be some juice and buttered toast, but turned out that they had a couple burners set-up and were doing omelets and also had bacon, sausage, sweet potatoes and cereal. Quite the impressive little spread and totally unexpected.
First stop was Menenghai Crater. From the guidebook, it was said to be a viewpoint from the edge of what was an ancient volcano. I guess no matter what they had written or how eloquently they wrote the section, it wouldn't come close to being able to do the place justice. From the edge, which falls out towards Nakuru town and then further on to the Lake and National Park, we were afforded a ~300-degree view from 2200 meters for which the absolute vastness can NOT be described. I have seen a couple amazing vistas in a couple different regions of the world and this easily stands as the most awe-inspiring. I will let the pictures speak for themselves. Except I will mention that the one guy at the little souvenir shack tried to tell us that the crater was 'over 200 years old.' Pause... Us- '200 years? You mean 200 million years?' That guy- 'Ah, yeah, over 200.'
Then we took off from there to head into Lake Nakuru National Park. We didn't even make it in through the gates before we had a Verveet Monkey climbing around on top of the car, staring in at the corn cob on the dashboard. After grabbing a soda outside the gates and shooing the monkey off the car, we paid our admission. It was $60US, which is very expensive(since the admission to the crater was $1.15!), and despite my/our best efforts to convince the attendant that we were all temporary residents but that the organization that were working with wouldn't mail us the cards and we had to go to Nairobi to get them... she wouldn't budge. We took a clockwise route around the lake and quickly saw tons more Vervett Monkeys, antelope of several types, zebras and HUGE water buffalo. These were mostly at a decent distance since the trail in that direction initially runs a little farther from the water and the grasslands… But it didn’t stay like that for long. Soon enough we were driving on a trail across the grasslands, so close to those water buffalo which already seemed so enormous from a distance that we could totally realize their gargantuan proportions!! I mean, there were times when there were no more than 5-10 yards between our Land Cruiser and the impalas, waterbucks, antelope, water buffalo and zebras. But as the saying goes, there can be too much of a good thing. As we were making our way across a trail in the grassland, we spotted a troop of Olive Baboons hanging out and relaxing in the grass. We slowed to take a couple pictures and the big male patriarch of the troop decided to come check us out a little closer… A little closer doesn’t really capture the sheer terror of this ~140lbs creature jumping onto the hood of the car, especially once he saw that same corn cob that had previously attracted the little monkey… Fabrice was worried that the thing would try to pull off the windshield wipers, so we tried in earnest to get it off to no avail (it just sat there trying to figure out how to get to the corn and yawning, which exposed its HUGE canine teeth….). Finally, after Fabrice popped the car in neutral and revved the engine, the baboon decided it had had enough of us and that we had drifted far enough away from his troop that he ambled off. We drove through the grasslands for a good while, and then took a path into the forest area in hopes of seeing a leopard hanging in a tree. Well… we weren’t that lucky BUT we did manage to see several giraffe nibbling on Acacia trees on the edge of one clearing. Then we got REALLY, REALLY lucky. The giant grey rock some 40 yards away in the clearing was in fact a White Rhinoceros… I could have drove out of the park right then and left a VERY satisfied onlooker.
Since it was getting late, we decided to start to make our way to the campsite where we would be camping in the park. I guess I don’t really know what I was expecting when I arrived, but it certainly wasn’t the totally empty campsite with a water faucet and restroom facilities that consisted of a hole in ground, that we ultimately found. Well, actually that was pretty much exactly what I was expecting and I must admit I was fairly happy with that. Oh… did I say totally empty?? By that I mean that there were 40-50 baboons walking around, climbing trees and walking towards us… A quick look on the map showed that there was another campsite sort of near us and a backpackers’ campsite back in the north of the park near the entrance… We took off towards the nearer of the two other campsites, hoping to find some strength in numbers with some other human beings… But none was to be found. So I decided to call the warden’s office to see what they said and to see if they eventually sent any sort of Kenya Wildlife Service(KWS) officer around the area… The woman that answered the phone didn’t seem to have any idea what we were talking about when we said that there were baboons all over the place… Anyways, none of us felt comfortable with the prospect of camping in prime baboon territory, so we elected to hightail it to the backpackers’ campsite near the entrance, in hopes of making it there with enough light to comfortably set our tents and spark a fire.
We ended up making it in plenty of time and even saw a couple Rhinos on the way(and a wayward troop of baboons a couple hundred meters from the camp!!). The campsite had a bunch of people from different camping tour groups and overlanding groups. We were the only non-corporate campers there! One of the KWS officers there haggled with us over the price of some wood for a fire and after a little negotiation, we managed to spark a pretty decent little bonfire! We boiled some water, cooked some noodles and slathered on the spaghetti sauce (and bugspray too!! The skeeters were terrible!!). Luckily the blanket that I had wrapped myself in, not unlike the pictures you see of the Masai guys, did the trick to keep me warm and keep the mosquitoes off of me! We polished dinner off with a dessert of bananas with pieces of chocolate shoved in, wrapped in tin foil and heated in the fire… Perfection.
One of the things I never imagined I would do in my life is spend a night in a tent in the middle of a National Park in Kenya. And if I had I don’t know if I would have seen myself not sleeping for the first hour because of the noisy (possible drunk) overlanders or for the second clutching a knife and a flashlight because of the howls of the baboons!! Either way it was AMAZING.
So… its time to head home (its Monday evening now that I am writing this) I will finish the story when I get online tomorrow!!
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