Travel to the Great Rift Valley

 

Shortly after the Ngare Ndare Forest trip, we had a 5-day weekend and traveled to the Great Rift Valley with two colleagues for 3 days.

On the way we stopped at Thomson Falls in Nyahururu. The falls is 75 meters, almost as high as a football field is long. 

This is not the rift valley but a valley carved by the Ewaso Ny'iro river below the falls. The elevation on top is about 7500 feet.

After the falls, we stopped at a small butchery and hotel for Kenyan tea, similar to a chai tea, and chapati. Hotel here means restaurant, not accommodations. Most of the butcher shops have small restaurants attached. The sides of beef or goat hang in the window. You can purchase whatever cut or amount you want.

Further into our voyage, we stopped to ask for directions to the road that leads to...

Mt. Longonot, outside of Naivasha, another stratovolcano. Now we are in the Great Rift Valley.

The entrance to Mt Longonot National Park

Chris has wrestled with the Kenyan park system website at every National Park we have visited. Sometimes it works, often it doesn't. Foreign tourists have to go through this portal to pay. On this day, we lucked out and had no problems.

The hike up is little more than 3km but very steep in places. Along part of the trail we saw elands, giraffes, and common zebras grazing in the distance. An armed guide accompanied us.

The top is the rim of a crater with a dense forest inside. Unfortunately, we didn't have enough time to walk the rim trail. At one point, a trail cuts off and goes down into the crater to a small, primitive campground.

Looking the other direction

The guide led us on a different trail down from the rim and we were very close to several giraffe and a group of elands grazing. The animals stared at us, as we stared at them, and then continued grazing as we continued walking. It was very cool except that my phone died so I don't have any pictures.

After dinner, showers, a much needed sleep, and breakfast in Naivasha, we set out for Crater Lake. 

The trail we followed was loaded with obsidian, small and large chunks. This walk we did without an armed guide. Along the trail we saw a couple warthogs but they were quite a distance away.

The rim was an easy, short climb, nothing like Mt. Longonot. This crater is smaller and has a lake and a lodge inside. We walked along the rim trail and then down to the lakeshore before heading back to the lodge.

Enjoying the company and the view!

The big industry in Naivasha is flowers and from the rim we could see a number of farms and their humongous greenhouses, bigger than Walmart stores. The farms cut flowers early in the morning and fly them to Europe where they are sold in markets in the afternoon. Naivasha is populated with workers who spend 10-12 hours/day tending the flowers and are paid about $1/day. Workers come from all over Kenya and east Africa for the jobs. Farms send buses to Naivasha to pick up the workers and then take them back to town at night. Some farms have rooms for workers. 

One of the tent/cabins at the Crater Lake Lodge. We saw one German couple while we were there.

A Kenyan Wildlife Service ranger standing next to a covered wagon that made the journey from South Africa to Kenya sometime in the early 1900's.

After exploring Crater Lake, we started a very long drive north to Lake Bogoria. Chris took a short turn in the driver's seat to drive in the left lane with the driver sitting on the right side of the car.

The roads are crazy and scary! With many slow trucks, including flower trucks, cars and faster trucks are passing all the time. They don't follow the same passing "etiquette" as we do in the US. It felt like there was a close call every 5 minutes, usually not involving us.

Lake Bogoria is an alkaline lake with flamingos, hot springs, and geysers, in addition to many of the other animals found in east Africa. With all the trucks and slow traffic, we arrived an hour before it closed. The rangers were determined to make us pay the full price to enter, $50 each for the two Americans and $10 each for the two Kenyans. We decided it wasn't worth it and left.

"Animals have the right of way."

School kids were walking home on the road we weren't allowed to continue on without paying the entrance fee. Chris showed off his rock juggling skills. We are far enough north that the landscape is drier and trees are smaller. We drove back south to the trucks and spent the night in Nakuru.

Our last day in the rift valley started at Lake Nakuru National Park, a 10-15 minute drive from our accommodations. The town is on the edge of the park, or the park is on the edge of the town. The Kenyan web portal for paying the entrance fees was down so after many attempts and some negotiating, we paid a man who owns a souvenir store just outside the entrance who agreed to pay the park once the system was back online. It was still offline when we left the park 4 hours later!

Common zebra and African buffalo with Nakuru buildings in the distance. An electric fence surrounds the 73 square mile park.

Lake Nakuru is an alkaline lake with lots of birds! I believe these are Great Cormorants.

Buffalo grazing near the lakeshore

A troop of baboons crossed the road in front of us. The babies ride on mom's back or hanging underneath her, belly-to-belly.

A curious buffalo

Look! It's a horse in striped pajamas!

A warthog family with 4-5 young.

A yellow-billed stork and flamingos

After more flamingos,

And more flamingos,

... it was time to head home.

A quick roadside stop for some of the LARGEST breadfruit I've ever seen.

And back on the road toward Nyeri and Mt. Kenya Academy. We arrived home safely about 7pm.