Lake Naivasha Villas

... photo sitting in front of it and it then took off. It was amazing getting so close to the giraffe’s on foot – in total we counted 12 of them, including a couple of very young ones.

All too soon we had to leave the reserve and head for the crater lake. It was so great to be able to walk like that among the animals and we would have loved to have spent more time. The view of the crater lake was not much but still interesting. We walked down to it and there were ...

... this story about how he was being followed by the US government when he was in the country. The guy was a little loopy and dressed in camo pants with a dark olive green sweater. He had one of those European mullets you see football players have and looked Hispanic to me. Once he told the story, I was kind of locked into the conversation for awhile. It was interesting but 6am came quick and it wasn’t fun waking up after only 5 hours of sleep.

... holding empty sacks bent around the church compound. Each individual wore multiple layers of clothing and most carried infants on their backs. A light rain started to fall, but no one moved from their position in line. All remained steady, silent and patient. One woman, acting as the spokesperson of the group, insisted on being the last to receive food.

"I don’t fill my bag, until everyone else has. I don’t ...

... We arrived at around 12.30pm and after Big Pete had popped up the roof on our Scooby Doo style van (meant we could stand up and look out top – very clever), we went straight into our game drive which was quite surreal. Within 10 minutes we could see white rhino, giraffes (Rothschilds in case you were wondering?!), gibbons, zebra but then, THE reason for coming here – the flamingos. They say there is over 1 million birds on the freshwater lake and it has to ...

... distance away we had to make a quick escape!

We left the bikes and headed down into the gorge on foot. This is where the park gets its name from due to the red rock and hot springs which create steam. It was a bit tricky to climb down and there were some sections were we had to jump or hold on and hope for the best! We finally reached the bottom and then it was a relatively easy walk back up, including a beautiful viewpoint ...

... giraffes. They are so graceful, and look like they are running in slow motion. We even saw some baby giraffes. I couldn't believe how close we were to them, and our first "animal experience" in Africa was definitely jaw dropping. We heard you get sick of seeing zebras and giraffes on big safaris, but we are still excited to see them! My other animal encounter of the day - the Vervet Monkey, was not so pleasant. They basically ...

... down "Jackson" so that is his real name now. I took my cameras, and a bottle of water and off we went. We hiked down to the base of the valley to where a small creek ran. We followed the rocky creek bed as it wound down its course. We had to jump across gaps and down some fairly steep drops. There was some easy climbing required as we went. We came to a fork in the valley. Jackson led me off on the left fork for a short distance. He told that a scene ...

... j'ai posé le 4*4 sur un caillou et cela n'a pas été facile de réglé cela, mais avec l'aide de quelques locaux et sous l'oeil amusé de Laura, je me suis débrouillé pour décoincer la situation, mais non sans mal et sans sueur ! Le lendemain, je partais pour une longue randonnée à cheval, sur un ancien cheval de polo, que ne connaissait pas les allures pas et trot ! Il faut dire que quand il y va, c'est vraiment ce qu'on appelle triple galop, du ...

... greenhouses growing roses and other blooms, and huge compounds that house the field workers and their families. We also passed by a stronghold of the former president, Moi, in which he has constructed a University and several other smaller schools. On the road the whole way there were numerous police check-points, and we were stopped at least four times. Don had it from Joe Mamlin that these police checkpoints were a complete scam, and the number of "problems" the ...