Lake Baringo

It’s taken me a while to post this.  This trip was about a week and a half ago:

After returning from the Kakamega Forest, we took a day at home and then headed off to Lake Baringo for three days.  We figured we should get a big dose of travel while the kids are out of school.  Instead of renting a car, we took local mass transportation, matatus.  The trip from Iten to Baringo is a like a spectacular enormous sized roller coaster.  The Rift Valley has split into two branches; first we dropped 1000m into the Kerio Valley, the western branch.  Then we climbed 1000m to the city of Kabarnet in the Tugen Hills.  Famous (and infamous) people from Kabarnet include former marathon world record holder Paul Tergat and former President Daniel Arap Moi.  From Kabarnet we drop 1000m into the eastern (and main) branch of the Rift Valley.  About this point the roller coaster ride was too much for Apollo, so we pulled over for him to throw up on the side of the road.  He takes after his dad, who did this many times (once in the backseat of my dad’s boss’s new sportscar.)

There are many large lakes throughout the Rift Valley.  Because water drains into the lakes and then evaporates, most of the lakes are saline.  Baringo is an exception to this and supports a wide variety of aquatic and avian life.

There are many Kenyans around Baringo eager to sell boat rides, bird walks etc.  Prices vary widely, but are typically hugely inflated for foreigners.  There is an entry gate for the town on the lake, Kampa ya Samaki, where about 20 entrepreneurs were sitting in the shade waiting for vehicles to stop.  When I got out of  the car to pay the entry fee, several people stopped to offer their services.

We stayed in a banda at Robert’s Camp.  The first thing Uhuru and Apollo exclaimed was “Look!  Mzungu kids!”  There was a Dutch family and an English family staying there.  Except for the Finns, these were the only white kids they’d seen since we arrived in Kenya.  Roberts Camp was very nice, with a luxurious banda and lots of wildlife.  It felt a bit like a white refuge from the rest of Kenya, with gates so the salesmen can’t come in.  But it is nothing like the ultra-luxurious Samatian Island Lodge which at several hundred dollars per night is the kind of place Prince William might stay in Kenya.

The Dutch kids padded a little raft out about 20 feet to a raft and then back to shore.  A crocodile surfaced right where they'd passed.  I guess the signs are not to be ignored.

The crocodile just offshore at the campground.

The wildlife right inside the camp was amazing.  Birds, monkeys, crocodiles, lizards, hippos, bats!  I wish we’d had a bird book!  Here are a few pictures of wildlife.  Perhaps some of our biologist friends could help us identify!

This guy was sunning in the campground.  He is about 1m long from nose to tail tip.

When this bird took off it left a huge feather which the kids collected.

Crocodile eyes.

I wonder where this one was tagged.  Europe?

One thing I enjoy about Kenya is the simplicity.  Uhuru and Apollo are pretty into the Kindle and iPod respectively.  But we left those behind in Iten.  Uhuru found a tangle of fishing line and they played with it for hours.

Of course, there were several kittens in the campground who came around when it was time to eat.  The kids got very attached to them as well.

Each morning we woke early to watch hippos in the campsite (we saw them in the water, not on land.)  The second morning we took a boat ride.  Our guide, Ken, pointed out many species of birds.  We met some fishermen who sold us two fish.  When we got about 400 meters from the nest of a pair of enormous fish eagles, Ken whistled and threw a fish in the water.  The first eagle soared over and grabbed the fish.  Ken threw the second fish and the other eagle repeated the performance.  Ken took us into a grassy part of the lake where we saw a family of hippos.  Hippos live in families and are guarded by the mother.  The males are solitary.  I was snapping pictures when the mother hippo suddenly submerged and a menacing wake appeared above her as she headed towards our boat.  Ken was alert; before I could process the danger he had driven us away.  Although we saw many crocodiles in the water from shore, we saw one out of the water from the boat.

Protective mother hippo on the left.

It was quite warm in Baringo.  We spent the afternoons at the pool at the Barringo Club.  The first afternoon a thunderstorm blew in.  We took shelter inside for long enough to see a little of the royal wedding.  The skies cleared, and we went back in the water.

Waterfighting!

After some time in the pool on the last day, we headed for home.  It felt quite cool in Iten as it is 5000 feet higher than Lake Baringo.  On the way from the matatu stand to home a neighbor stopped us and told us he had missed us and asked where we’d been.  When we got back to the house all the neighbors welcomed us back.