This day we will rest of car for a change and we
will enjoy of some of the activities for the environment where we’re
going to be: Naivasha Lake.
The only must-do for us is the one has taking us to here:
Crescent Island, a place where we can be in a walk safari by our own,
enjoying the animals from close.
We probably will have time for some other
activities during the morning, as a boat ride through the lake or
another one from the list.
Our idea is lunching in Carnelley’s Camp before
the one hour drive to Nyahururu (75 Km from there), where we will visit
the Thomson’s Falls, just beside our hotel: The Thomson’s Falls Lodge.
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The spots marked at map are:
0- Carneley's Camp
1- Crescent Island
2- Crater Lake
3- Hell's Gate
After
At daylight the place where we are in an Eden,
surrounded
by leafy trees with the lake in front of us, full of birds. We take our
breakfast in the area where we couldn’t get dinner last night and, as
we have time this morning, I pay 3000 ksh for a one hour boat tour in
the lake. The price is by boat, not by person.
At 9:30 AM we go to the jetty to deliver our ticket and leaving to
explore the lake.
The shores recall to a mangrove, with trees coming
out
directly from the water and floating plants giving green to the
surface. Birds appear swimming or in the branches of the trees. The
main one for the first would be the pelican, and for the second group
the star is the fishing eagle but, over all of them, there are the
hippos.
We also take pictures of cormorants, marabous,
king
fishers, ibis, plovers, herons and a long etcetera where we can put
even colobus monkeys.
We spend the most of the time for this hour
exploring the
shore of the lake for finishing it with a fast return through the water
to the starting point. In this way we pass through thousands of birds
in the middle of the lake, making them leave in an unforgettable
experience.
We come back to our banda after this lovely boat ride to
getting all our baggage ready and start our route. Today is the day
with fewer kilometers, though.
Somehow, something urgent comes up when we’re told
banks close at 2 PM because it’s Saturday and are closed tomorrow. We
must exchange money before that happens.
The road around the lake takes us into Naivasha
just by the street of banks. The banks are one besides the following
with military men guarding the area to avoid “incidents”. Somehow, we
find out banks closed 10 minutes ago because they do it at 12 PM on
Saturdays. We beg at their doors until we’re explained there is one of
them, the Family Bank, which closes at 2 PM. We go there and join a
long queue where we spend a lot of our spare time for today.
Once with our cash in the pocket, we fill of fuel
in the gas station in the next door and come back to the road of the
lake to go to Crescent Island.
We don’t find the sign and
take the entrance to “Crescent Camp” as it is the most similar. There
we’re explained we must look for a sign saying “Animal sanctuary”. We
find that and, after a security bar with a funny guard who takes 200 ksh from us as car rate, drive around
the area until finding the right place to park. In our way, we’ve been
following a giraffe and offspring in the road for some seconds.
We walk up to the only buildings we can see: one
looks like a farm and the other is a house where we’re welcomed by a
woman who explains with enthusiasm to us some curiosities about Kenyan
animals. She takes the 25$ per person from us and gives us the tickets.
Since that moment, she tells, we can go around freely.
We follow the way she has pointed to us to the
hill over Crescent Island and from where we can see the island
completely which, as can be seen in the map at the beginning of this
page, is an isthmus more than an island. No animals at sight except for
a small area in the shore in front of us, where all the animals seem to
be concentrated. So we go to there.
We get close to a herd of wildebeest, zebras and gazelles but, although
they seem focused in grazing, with no mind on us, at the moment I get
any closer than a certain distance, they move slowly keeping that
distance. If I go to them quicker, they move away quicker, but always
keeping that distance.
We cannot touch them, but it is amazing being between them.
There are also waterbucks, staring to us. This is the freest version of
a safari and we use this freedom walking around for a while until we
start our return walk to the only road in the island, passing by the
swamp, where a flock of pelicans is swimming based in our movements.
That road take us, through dragon trees and acacias, to our
car, and we take it for our return trip to the exit, using more the
intuition than the memory. But before, we make just a single stop for
the giraffes we met when coming.
We say good bye to the guard when leaving and go
directly to the street of banks we’ve been before as we have already
chosen restaurant for our lunch today. We park in front of “Le Belle
Inn” and take a table inside, along the window pointing to our car.
I’m so happy when finding out there is free wifi for
customers here and I take my lunch using my tablet for everything I had
to do in internet. The food is excellent: Cocktail of Lake Naivasha
crayfish and Vinaigrette of avocado as starters and spaghetti Bolognese
and beef with fries, with coke and wine, for less than 2000 ksh.
Although we leave the restaurant late, some
minutes to 4 PM, I’ve still missed some things to do with internet.
Anyway, all we must do for today now is driving to our hotel in
Nyahururu, and we do it paying attention to our GPS for not missing the
road we must take around Gilgil.
This road is in very good condition until I mention it loudly and then
appear some works in front of us, which make cars to take a temporary
way over the ground at the sides of the road. Here they must put big
rocks all over the road they’re working on for avoiding the cars to
drive through it, as signs and warning are useless for drivers who have
learnt to go at their own. We can check this with the car in front of
us, which comes back to the road just after the warnings and bars
closing it, just for being forced to go through big stones to go to the
temporary way when get the machines working on the road.
This adds an important delay to this trip and it’s at sunset when,
close to reach our destination, we meet the signs marking the Equator
line. We stop for some pictures with them and go on to find the way to
the Thomson’s Falls or our hotel, which is the same. We do this in the
darkness of night and with the help of the GPS as there are no signs
for it although it is the main attraction of this city.
There is a wedding celebration in the Thomson’s Falls Lodge, but
as rooms are across the parking area, we have no noise from our rooms.
As it is early, we go down to the bar to take something with the live
music and taking advantage there is a happy hour until 9 PM. We are not
hungry, so we ask our half board be for a packed lunch for tomorrow,
which they accept. I also ask about the status of the road to Lake
Bogoria as some months ago was completely removed by the strong rains
in the area. They’ll answer tomorrow morning, when they can ask to the
tour guides and drivers.
The only must-do for us is the one has taking us to here:
Crescent Island, a place where we can be in a walk safari by our own,
enjoying the animals from close. 
We don’t find the sign and
take the entrance to “Crescent Camp” as it is the most similar. There
we’re explained we must look for a sign saying “Animal sanctuary”. We
find that and, after a security bar with a funny guard who takes 200 ksh from us as car rate, drive around
the area until finding the right place to park. In our way, we’ve been
following a giraffe and offspring in the road for some seconds.
