Lake Naivasha

After our hike at Hell's Gate, we headed to Lake Naivasha for lunch and a boat ride on the lake. Lunch was okay, but we had to do a little negotiating over the price once we were through. There weren't any vegetarian options on the menu and three of us did not want any meat, so we ordered off the menu to get veggies and rice. They tried to charge the same amount of money as all the meat dishes, which was ridiculous. We were able to bring them down a bit, but we still felt like we paid too much.

A hadada ibis foraging for food near our table where we ate lunch.

After lunch, we headed into the office to arrange for our boat ride. They tried to charge us 2000 shillings each, which again, was totally ridiculous. Mary and Silia had paid 2500 shillings total the previous week. They had had to negotiate fairly hard for this price, but we felt like that is what we should pay too. They were completely unwilling to negotiate with us, so we went out to Anthony and asked him to take us to another place. Once again, Anthony came through for us. He too was shocked by the price they were trying to get us to pay, so he went in and did some negotiating on our behalf. He was only able to get them down to 4000 shillings total - he was given some story about how our friends had taken a smaller boat since it was just the two of them. I'm not sure I completely believe that, but we decided to accept their new offer and headed back into the office to pay. We then headed to retrieve life jackets on our way down to the water. There were a ton of birds right where the boats were docked.

Great white pelicans

Great white pelicans with a couple of yellow-billed storks

African spoonbill and grey heron

Sacred ibis

The lake was really pretty and there were so many different bird species making it a home

Jenna and Aimee. There are a bunch of great white pelicans out in front of the boat.

A view of Mount Longonot from the lake

An African fish eagle right after snatching a fish from the lake. I wish I could say that I just happened to capture this natural predator-prey interaction, but I can't. Our boat driver whistled at the bird to get its attention and then threw a dead fish out into the water. It's still a cool picture though.

Pied kingfisher

Red-knobbed coot
White-necked cormorant taking off from the water

Another white-necked cormorant

In addition to the birds, we also encountered a lot of hippos. It was really cool to get as close to them as we did, but I'm glad I have a telephoto lens on my camera because they are mean and I wouldn't want to get any closer.

Mom and baby (there was a public beach not far in the background)

Our boat driver took us to Crescent Island, so that we could get out and walk around with the animals. Crescent Island was once an island, but here is a huge flower industry surrounding Lake Naivasha and it has depleted the water level to such an extent that it is now a peninsula. I imagine the flower industry is also flooding the lake with pesticides as well and will eventually destroy the lake entirely. It is sad. We went for our walk on the newly formed peninsula part of Crescent Island as opposed to the "island" itself. It costs money to get onto the island - it is where "Out of Africa" was filmed. We were primarily interested in seeing animals, not a movie set, so we opted for the free part.

We ran into a couple more birds here.

Crowned lapwing

Egyptian goose

It was really cool walking around with the animals. There weren't any predators to be worried about (at least not that we were told about).

Waterbuck

Aimee, Jenna, and John our guide crossing a bit of water

Wildebest, giraffe, and Grant's gazelle. There is also a zebra behind the trees.

More of the same, plus a few impala

Chad, me, and Aimee with a couple of giraffe

This might be my favorite giraffe picture so far

Chad, me, and Aimee with wildebeast and zebra

Chad, me, Aimee, and Jenna with some zebra

After our little walk, we were met by our boat. We headed back to where we had started to drop off John and then headed to meet back up with Anthony. The sun was shining through the clouds in such a way that you could see the sun beams. It was pretty cool.

Hell's Gate and Lake Naivasha made for a really fun day. It was so nice seeing my EIS classmates during the week and I am so happy Chad and Aimee were able to stay for a bit of the weekend. I'm so glad Jenna was able to join us as well.

Hell's Gate National Park

On Saturday, I traveled with my Niarobi friend Jenna and my EIS classmate friends Chad and Amy to Hell's Gate National Park and Lake Naivasha. It was so nice having Chad and Aimee in town for a few days. Our classmate Andrew was also in Nairobi during the week, but his flight left for Nigeria on Saturday morning, so he wasn't able to join us for our weekend exploring. We were all sad he couldn't come with us.

Our drive to Hell's Gate took us past the overlook for the Great Rift Valley. This was my third time through this viewpoint, and my view was the clearest on the way through on my tip to the Masai Mara, so I didn't take any photos of the view this time. We did encounter a school trip though. We found the motto of the school to be rather amusing. Why set your expectations high?

For the first time though, we stopped at the little Catholic Church that had been built along the side of the road for the construction workers when the road was being built.

I loved that they made the stained glass windows out of broken bottles.

We arrived at Hell's Gate National Park and paid our entry fees and then headed in. It turns out the school group we had encountered at the Rift was also going to Hell's Gate.

There are some great rock formations in Hell's Gate. It is a common destination for people living in Nairobi and tourists who are into to rock climbing.

We saw some wildlife on our way through the park.

Our main reason for coming here was to hike in the gorge. The gorge isn't actually in the park, but right on the edge and the only way to get to it is to drive through the park. It's called the gorge hike, but it is really more of a slot canyon. It was a really fun hike. There is a lot fo rock scrambling involved and it is a really beautiful place. Our driver, Anthony guided us on our hike. He was really great.

Chad, Aimee, Jenna, and Anthony in various stages of going down a technical bit.

Jenna and Anthony

Aimee at the dead end of one of the canyons

Anthony helping Aimee

Aimee walking through the mist of a few little waterfalls

The end of our hike through the canyon. We headed up and back to the car from here.

We encountered a couple of pretty flowers and cool insects on our way.

Views of the canyon from our ascent back to the rim

Chad, Jenna, Aimee, and me at the end of our hike.