Nakuru

This past weekend we went on our first real safari, to Lake Nakuru National Park. It’s a soda lake in the central Rift Valley that attracts flamingos, pelicans, and storks. It also had a variety of landscapes, with rocky cliffs, yellow acacia forests, and open savannah plains. And a huge variety of wildlife living in it! Without listing every animal we saw, the highlights were rhinos, giraffes, water buffalos, zebras, impalas, gazelles, baboons, and warthogs… no really, this wasn’t the entire list! The only animals in the park that we didn’t see were lions and leopards. Hopefully we’ll see the cats sometime later…

We went on game drives Saturday evening, Sunday early morning, and Sunday late morning. Seeing the animals starting their day just before the sunrise was absolutely beautiful. And there were SO many animals in the park--every now and then I had to remind myself that this was real life (within the confines of a national park). Its just so different seeing these animals in their actual setting instead of in a zoo exhibit.

We took hundreds of pictures. Yikes! We promise not to make anybody look at all of them—we’ll just show off some of the favorites!