Rain and Shine to Mumias

An early start, Jose arrived at around seven but we didn't leave Ken and Maz's until quarter to eight. We drove for about two hours over the Great Rift Valley, roads which had steep edges with no railing. On those roads we saw some baboons and an unreal view. We arrived at Lake Naivasha, which we went to because Jose said we couldn't go to Africa without seeing many animals, so we stopped off for a short boat ride. There was waterbuck and lots of birds at the side of the lake, as well as locals standing in the lake fishing, a very dangerous form of fishing! We got into a small boat which the boat driver said a hippo could try and flip over if it had the chance, we saw lots of birds for the first five minutes before seeing the first pool of hippos with about 30 hippos, no more than 5 metres away, the scariest part was that you could only see some hippos at a time, so any could be lurking beneath the boat... We also saw some giraffes on a peninsula, where both films: Out of Africa and Born Free were filmed, as well as more hippos and lots more birds. Then the driver called a fish eagle in to a neighbouring tree to the lake. Then he chucked a dead fish into the lake and the eagle swooped down from the tree at a rapid pace and picked up the fish from the water. Then we had a relaxing boat ride in to shore. We continued our long trip to to Mumias with still 6 hours to go. The journey was smooth with better roads than 4 years ago. We also stopped briefly at the line of the equator, took a quick photo before getting on our way. The trickiest moment was when the beautiful sunset suddenly morphed into an electric storm with torrential rains, masking the road, meaning it was almost impossible to see the road ahead, fork lightning and booming thunder. We were very thankful for Jose getting us safely to Fred and Esther’s house where a lovely meal was awaiting us. We finally arrived at no. Seventy guest house in more pouring rain.Read more