Lake Naivasha

Our last night of the Kenya tour was in duplex bungalows at Lake Naivasha Resort. This felt quite posh — it had lovely gardens and attentive uniformed staff — but the bed sagged appallingly and the hot water never ran hot.

At dinner we met up again with Peter and Ben, who we'd met at Subukia.

Saturday March 19th

When we got up in the morning it was raining. But we couldn't wait too long for the rain to ease, since we needed to get to Nairobi in time for the shuttle to Arusha, so we headed off around 8. A short walk brought us down to the lake shore where our boat was waiting.

We got to see hippos quite close up and lots of birds: pelicans, cormorants, Egyptian geese, giant kingfisher, azure kingfisher, and a sea eagle. There were also waterbuck and buffalo in the distance.

Ben and Peter came out on a second boat at some point. Our boatman stopped to buy a fish, and then successfully "summoned" a fish eagle by whistling at it and throwing the fish over the side.

Then it was a couple of hours driving back to Nairobi, retracing our steps and then negotiating the city traffic. We were dropped at the Silver Springs Hotel, which is also the terminus for the Impala shuttle to Arusha. We said goodbye to Kassim, Duncan and Demetrios, then had lunch in the hotel (the only meal for two weeks that wasn't included in the tour) before setting off on what felt like a new journey.

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