7.30 am start, the hotel is beautiful, its raining outside, as forecast.

Last night a classical guitarist was playing in the foyer, very stylish, nothing better than a bit of finger picking on gut strings to tap the feet to. Dinner was good but the Wormeater has a little moan, he ducked away to use the loo and came back to find the remains of his main course gone. It was the Dancers fault, I think, he’s putting on too much weight (at 60kg wringing wet) and she let them take the half empty plate. Then he orders a dessert, again not happy because it was “watery like porridge”, jeez, some people you can’t please. He’s in danger of another alias eg Whinger – but I’m waiting to see how he performs today. As they say ” past performance is a good indicator of future behaviour”, so we’ll see.

Kenya Facts

Religion – 86% Christian, 11% Islam. Lots of Christian schools , and first names like Blessed, Praise, and disciples names, and Mary.

Sport – main sport is soccer, followed by athletics, boxing, rugby and volleyball. Betting on sport is huge – 80-90% bet on sport.

Population – 56 million

We climb coming out of Nairobi heading north, tea plantations, market gardens abound and down to our left is the Great Rift Valley.

Height above sea level – Nairobi is about 1800m above sea level. The highland we cross over is 3,000 metres, Lake Navaisha in the valley is back at 1800-2000 metres.

The dirt road into Lake Nakuru Sopa Guest House is rough and dusty. Before we reach the reserve we see some  Rothschild Giraffe, they are endangered. We enter the park and they are everywhere, buffalo, a plethora of birds (including flamingo) on the lake, and a family of lions resting under trees after a kill. A good start and we haven’t even started our safari yet.

Sopa Lodge is high above the lake, spectacular views over the lake and the valley. The Navigator gets a bit twitchy when advised its Swahili night tonight, dress and scarf, she thinks it’s a religious thing and gets a bit huffy, she calms when she finds out it’s cultural, not religious. Be funny if she has to say a prayer or something, they’ll really get the “Navigator Stink Eye”

She calms further with lunch and eats a dessert that fills her “tasters” plate right to the edge.. The Dancer has misplaced an expensive Canon camera battery, bugger!

A few hours rest in our rooms which look over Lake Nakuru, a golf cart down a steep hill and a 100 shilling ($1) tip helps the staff to help us.

An afternoon safari at 4.00 and we see a rhino, lots of giraffe, buffalo and zebra. We also see a young hyena lying beside the road with an injured leg, poor bugger can’t walk. Ken said the park will have it taken to the park vet.

On dusk we arrive back. The Navigator is now in the mood for Swahili Night, whatever that looks like.

Ciao from Lake Nakuru in Kenya

Pauolo