Lake Nakuru

Day one of a two week overland adventure! We were up early to shower (yay, warm water!) and eat breakfast, then it was off to load up the truck with luggage. In the trip notes, it had recommended duffle bags (not backpacks) that were 30cm x 30cm x 66cm so that they would easily fit in the space provided ... I think I was the only one that followed that piece of advise! So after a lot of squishing of bags and reorganization, the truck was finally loaded and we headed out of Nairobi. We were on one of the older trucks, so it rattled a lot, but because we were on two benches facing into the centre aisle, it was great for conversations, even if we did have to yell at each other :P The first stop was at the New Hope Orphanage. Coming from Juba, this place seemed awesome - well equipped, clean, colourful - though I'm sure I would have had a much different impression had I come straight from home. We were shown all around the place, but what struck me was how much of the talk seemed to be about who had given money and who had volunteered and ended with him basically asking us to come volunteer and give them stuff. Stop number two was at a lookout at the edge of the Rift Valley. Along with the view, we also got to experience our first bit of "local interaction" - i.e. dealing with locals trying to sell us stuff! We got to our campsite outside Lake Nakuru just before lunch (no-one camps in the park any more because of some lions that apparently ate some rangers a few years ago). We set up out tents, had lunch, and played a round of Uno (which I won!) before going into the park for our first game drive. Lake Nakuru was beautiful and full of animals. We saw rhinos, water buffalo, warthogs, dik diks, zebras, giraffes, flamingos, impala, Thompson gazelles, rock hyraxes, a black-backed jackal, pelicans, baboons, and an eland! Our old truck worked really well for looking at the animals - we put the seat cushions up on the back on the bench against the windows and sat up good an high! It also worked really well for shifting from one side to the other, since the animals are never on both sides at the same time.

After supper, we sat around a campfire for a while before going to bed. A few people took showers, but after one girl got stung by a wasp while washing her hair, I decided to just stay dirty!