Lake Nakuru National Park Excursion

Will we save our beautiful pink Lake?. Part 1

It’s been a whimsical weekend; I wake up on a glorious Saturday. I’ve the weekend off from a hectic schedule beating deadlines in the office. I feel I need a change of environment from the hectic pace that’s Nairobi city. What to do with myself?

I’ve been intending to tour Lake Nakuru National Park for a while now but my schedule has been too tight. Why not today for a day trip to the beautiful pink Lake? I hate traveling alone so I call my buddy Mwangi. Three missed calls later my boy pick up. He’s game.

Its 9.00 A.M. we drive off for Nairobi aiming to pick a digital camara to take wildlife photos while we are in Nakuru. Branching off onto Thika Road we slow down as traffic thickens. Typical of Nairobi; on a Saturday morning? Mwangi decides to branch off and join Juja road confident of beating traffic, two hours later, after a fitful slumber, I awaken to find we’ve crawled about a kilometer towards Nairobi, this road is even worse. One of this fine days Nairobi is going to halt into a grid lock, I remark. It already has, he retorts.

An hour later, we drop by my office to pick the camera. It’s already closed and my workmate have left for the day. We set off for Nakuru after lunch disappointed we won’t snap some photos but I assure Mwangi my Nokia will not let us down. One look at his face tell me he is not convinced but what to do?

We drive off for Nakuru in high spirits. This cannot be a day trip, we declare, from experience we know we cannot get to Nakuru, have any meaningful game drives and drive back to Nairobi. We have to spend the night in Nakuru. Mwangi is pleased. This means a blissful drive to view point, where one can see the awesome sheer drop that is the Great Rift Valley, a beautiful view of Mount Longonot and Lake Naivasha as you approach Naivasha town.

A pleasant surprise awaits us. The Nairobi – Nakuru from Lord Delamere’s Ranch after Naivasha Town has been commissioned. Its goodbye to pot holes. We cannot hide our glee. We only encounter a single 30 kilometer stretch diversion to Nakuru Town where road repairs are under way. Never the less, at least we are making some progress repairing our shattered infrastructure. Why can’t the road from Narok to Maasai Mara be constructed to resemble what we just left, Mwangi quips, or the Namanga…. I do not let him finish. Any mention of the Amboseli road from Namanga drives me crazy. I am not ready to listen to the woes that have befallen the access road to my beloved home to Africa’s greatest concentration of elephants; the Amboseli National Park. We get to Nakuru town at dusk. After securing our favorite accommodation we plan our moves for tomorrow when we drive to the world’s greatest concentration of flamingoes, the pink lake…