On my first day in Kenya, I picked up a magazine in the car I was hitchhiking with, and was immediately blown away when I saw a photo of hundreds of thousands of flamingos gracefully crowding a lake pink.
- I want to see that. – I told the driver.
- It’s lake Nakuru, only 3 hours driving from Nairobi. But it costs a fortune to pay for the park fee and for a car to go in the park.
“Nakuru,” I told myself, “I’m coming.”
So, after 3 weeks in Nairobi, I was more excited for my first safari. “I don’t care about the big five, I just want to see the flamingos,” I told Asher. He traveled in this region few years ago.
- Don’t go to Nakuru. It’s expensive. Go to Naivasha. They have plenty of animals there. It’s free and you can do everything on your own. Well, it’s not really free, but I’m sure you will find a way to trespass.
- Are there flamingos?
- Yes. When I was there, lake Naivasha was pink.
Naivasha is half way between Nairobi and Nakuru. It took me roughly 2 hours to hitchhike there. The first person I hitchhiked with was kind enough to stop at the viewpoint halfway up the hill so that I could indulge myself in the extremely gorgeous panorama of endless savannah that runs between guarding mountains to meet the clouds at the horizon. The second person was overwhelmed by the fact that I could communicate in Swahili that he almost forced me to marry him.
Fredrick picked me up from downtown where all the banks are. Fredrick is not a couchsurfer, but brother of a couchsurfer. I sent a couch request to 2 couchsurfers in Naivasha. One girl replied saying that I could stay with her 2 nights for $15 (screw it, it’s not the couchsurfing spirit), the other, Wyclife, was in Nairobi. We met for a chit chat, and he put me in touch with his brother Fredrick. Fredrick works for a flower garden, and his wife is a teacher. They live in a rented room in a desert-like village around 15 minutes walking from town. It’s not too different from a student village in Vietnam where you walk through an imitation of gate and see a bunch of small rooms sharing a bathroom and toilet, with a pumping well in the courtyard decorated with tenants’ laundry. A curtain divided the 6m2 room into 2 parts, the inside has a bed where Fredrick and his wife sleep, the outside part is the living room-cum-dining room-cum-guest bedroom. It was pretty neat and convenient for a room of its size.
Accommodation secured, Operation Flamingo started. I wasn’t so sure of where to go, but I knew that I had to head to the lake, about 20km away from town. Many cars passing by but nobody picked me up, pretty strange for a country like Kenya. After almost an hour, a car, heavily secured with iron bars, pulled over. It was a health workers’ car, I have no idea why they were such security freaks. They interrogated me for like 10 minutes on the side of the road before finally squeezing me in the back.
- The lake is huge. Which camp do you want to go to?
- Any. I just want to see the flamingos.
- I don‘t know about the flamingos. But if you want to see the animals, we will take you to a place where you can see the animals without paying for the park fee. African way.
They turned left on a small bumping track into the jungle. The track was marked by tall flowered cactus with intimidating long thorns on two sides. Local people called that plant Jerusalem, I have no idea why. Once in a while, we saw a skinny African man walking with a bundle of wood on his head.
- It’s dangerous to walk here. Animals can attack you anytime. But we Africans don’t care.
They were right, there were a lot of animals: giraffes, zebras, wildebeests, etc. At first, I was intimidated by those giant giraffes, but those health workers told me to come up close as giraffes are peaceful animals.
On the contrary, the harmless-looking zebra can be quite aggressive. I most got a back-kick trying to pet one of them. My companions were really amused to see somebody so excited to see zebras. “We have seen plenty of them,” said they. “They are just wild donkeys.” The Swahili word for zebra is “punda milia” which literally means “striped donkey”.
Spotting hundreds of wildebeests leisurely grazing in a meadow not too far away, I ran like wild towards them, ignoring those health workers’ warning about the bush on the ground. Only when I stopped that I realized my legs were now dense clusters of sinister-looking thorns, each looked like a spike ball used by villains in Chinese martial art movies. They hold strongly to my flesh, refusing to be removed. It hurt like hell.
As they proceeded to go to work, the health workers left me nearby a small lake. It seemed to be a popular picnic spot for the local. A family was sleeping under a big tree. A couple was riding camel. Some men approached me trying to sell me a boat tour around the lake to see hippos. “Ha, liars. What kind of hippos can be seen in daylight like this?” I thought to myself but didn’t tell them. I politely refused, then found a rock in the shade next to the lake to have my brunch. Bread and peanut butter tastes a lot better in this setting. Full and content, I resumed my mission, still unsure of where to go. I walked back to the main road. As I was passing by all those animals, I visualized in my head what I would do if a lion or a snake jumped in front of me right now. Suddenly I heard some noise in a bush, some big animals were tramping heavily towards me. What could it be? My heart beaten fast, my legs froze, my mouth gasped. A herd of wild hogs appeared. One by one, they crossed the road in front of my nose. I tried my best not to make any noise to provoke them. Wild hogs attacking humans is not unheard of.
Before any disastrous accident could happen to a stupid defenseless lone wanderer in the wood, I was picked up by Solomon and Shobbana. Shobbana is a freelance photographer from India. Last year, she went to Kenya for a photoshoot at Kibera, Africa’s largest slum. There, she met Solomon. One year later, they got married and she moved to Kenya. Now she was 8 months pregnant, and just recently gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. Think about it, it’s quite scary. You go to a strange country with the intention to stay for only few weeks, then you meet a complete stranger, somehow fall in love with him, get married and stay there for good. What if it happens to me tomorrow?
When they picked me up, little did they know that they would become my full protectors. Impressed by my story, they bought me tickets to visit Elsamere (named after the famous lioness Elsa), the old house of the late legendary naturalist Joy Adamson and her husband, George Adamson. It’s a beautiful colonial house with an amazing sun-lit courtyard, surrounded by a garden so big that it looks almost like a jungle. A small graveled path leads from the house to the lake. “Visitors are warned not to walk around here at night, as they might be attacked by hippos,” the housekeeper told us. We watched a surprisingly good 40 minute documentary about the life of Joy Adamson, then treated ourselves with a dozen different kinds of cakes served during high tea. I ate so much cake that I felt like I wouldn’t want to eat anything sweet again for the rest of my life.
On our way to the crater lake, I spotted a pink stretch flickering behind tall green trees and big dark animals, probably buffalos.
- FLAMINGOS! – I shouted.
Solomon turned around to find a way to the lake shore. Hundreds of thousands of flamingos, just like what I saw in the photo. But I soon realized that it’s impossible to take a photo that will do the view justice with my camera. Flamingos are very shy birds. As soon as somebody comes close to them, they all fly away. I ended up chasing them from one end to another trying to take a good photo of them, until the guilty feeling took over and I decided to leave these poor animals in peace. The scene was extraordinary. Imagine thousands of pink wings flapping at the same time, and then double the spectacle with the reflection on the lake surface. I was overwhelmed. I could stay there for hours looking at them, but Solomon and Shobbana urged me to leave before it got dark.
Having seen the flamingos, I wished for nothing more. But the kind couple took me to see the crater lake. Later they told me that I broke a number of rules at the crater lake resort, like running so fast down to the lake before the guard could tell me that I wasn’t allowed to. They then treated me to a wonderful dinner at Rayfish Camp, dropped me in town and only left when they saw that I was safe under Fredrick’s protection.
I don’t remember how I managed to pump some water from the well to cleanse myself, as my body refused to work after one long day on the road and in the bush. All I remember was that I went to bed with a smile on my face. Mission completed. I saw the flamingos.
Tags: Africa, Animal, Backpacker, Flamingo, Giraffe, Hitch-hiking, Kenya, Naivasha, Nakuru, National Park, travel, Travel and Write, Travel Diary, Trespassing, Wildebeest, Zebra
