A boat safari is basically a guided boat ride, which we took on a beautiful day on Kenya’s second largest freshwater lake. Since I am not a big “water person” and didn’t know what to expect, to my great surprise, I enjoyed the experience very much.
Day 11, early afternoon: Lake Naivasha
From Lake Nakuru to Lake Naivasha, this time it was a short ride in our safari vehicle. We could finally catch our breath a little bit in the morning, starting the drive only at 10 a.m. After arriving at our accommodation, we realized that this was going to be the strangest place at which we had stayed so far in Kenya. A country club! A place for conferences with an occasional wild animal on its grounds and with beautiful plants. A room with a flat screen television (!) and a poorly working internet. The whole place felt simply out of its African environment, even though I really liked the plants.
Lake Naivasha is not a national park but because of its location – between Lake Nakuru and Masai Mara, and only a two-hour drive from Nairobi – lots of people who are on safari visit it. The lake was charming. I liked the color of our boat and the airy feeling of the dead trees and tree structures in the water.
Initially, we cruised slowly, close to the shore observing the fish market, some pelicans, and a crash (group) of hippos, our first in the wild!
Then our boat driver started heading fast toward a small island. I noticed he was on his cell phone, which didn’t add to my sense of well-being. He also served as our local guide, pointing out various birds above and on the shore of the island. With my iPhone, it wasn’t easy to get very good photos of the distant birds, but maybe you still can enjoy the herons, the cattle egrets, the many pelicans, and the yellow-billed stork.
The boat safari was our first activity this afternoon. Later we visited Hell’s Gate National Park (more about this in my next blog post) and when we got back to our “club,” the sunset over the lake just started – something nice (besides the flowers) about this place.
