Thompson Travelers

We drove six hours to a new region.  Lake Nakuru is a salt water lake in the Great Rift Valley. Wide open plains surround the lake, bordered by a beautiful forest yellow acacia trees.  

The yellow bark makes it seem like the trees are bathed in a golden sunlight all day, even when the sun isn’t shining very brightly.  This expanse of woodland grasslands, the lake, and the canopy of the acacia trees makes it a whole different environment from the previous ones we have seen.  Nakuru means Dusty Place” in the Masai language.  

The lake is full of algae which attracts thousands of flamingos to the shoreline.  When you look at the shoreline of the lake, you can see a rim of pink.  We were really excited to see these beautiful pink birds up close but there is one problem.  In order to walk up close to see them, we would be walking on the same ground where baboons, warthogs, rhinos, zebras, and Cape buffalos roaming on the same shoreline.  Anytime you’re out of the vehicles, you become in danger of being mistaken by the animals for something edible.  We would rather not make that mistake.  

What is amazing here is the number of animals here is much larger.  Remember those lone couple of Cape buffalos I got  at 1am in the morning to try to take photos of, resulting in only four hours of sleep?  Well, they are here in abundance!! You mean I could have slept in last night?!

We have seen dozen of animals in the previous places, but now we are seeing hundreds.  They are also, all standing in mixed groups.  Zebras stand together with cape buffaloes, who stand with warthogs.  Their common bond is that they are all grazing animals who feed only on the grasses.  How wonderful to see them all living side by side in perfect harmony.  

In the distance, through our binoculars, we could see a huge, white animal mixed in with all the others.  The closer we got we could finally make it the elusive white rhino!  Not only was there one, but three slowly walking together.

On our way to our next destination, we actually pass the equator, where there is a sign marking the spot.  We have all heard that water whirls in one direction on one side of the equator, and swirls in the opposite direction on the other side.  We tested it, on both sides, and on the actual equator, the water is completely still and doe not swirl in either direction.  It’s actually true…who knew, but now we know, for sure!!  

OMG…just realized…we’ve now seen all of the big five!!