Lake Naivasha

We woke up at 6:30 (no sleeping in on this holiday!) and after a breakfast of pancakes and sausages drove to an animal reserve outside Hell's Gate National Park for a walking safari. The park was full of zebras and giraffes, and we also saw a few colobus monkeys as we hiked down to a lake. We didn't look at the monkeys too long though - we were getting eaten alive by the mosquitoes hiding out in the woods!

After lunch at the camp, we boarded a few small boats for a tour of Lake Naivasha, which is famous for its hippo population. We saw a few hippos (but didn't stay too long - they could get mad at us and then kill us), cormorants, a waterbuffalo actually in the water, storks, and watched them feed fish to an African Fish Eagle - the guide put a piece of papyrus into a dead fish to make sure it floated, then tossed it into the water for the eagle to snatch.

We had seen a sign at the end of our campground warning about hippos coming out of the water at night, so, being the curious tourists that we were, we went down to check it out at 6 pm - no hippos. We went back at 7 pm - still no hippos. Apparently they don't actually come out until around 2 am and we weren't getting up in the middle of the night to try spot a hippo!That night, our cook had prepared a delicious, traditional Kenyan meal for us - ugali, greens, lentils, etc. - all very yummy!