Rift

We survived the matatu ride up the Nairobi escarpment, dropping into the dramatic Rift Valley, part of a huge fault that stretches from Oman to Mozambique. It's this fault that created Kilimanjaro, the Serengeti, the Ngorongoro Crater, and the Red Sea. In our limited experience, the town of Nakuru is a terrible place crawling with touts, scam artists, pickpockets, and prostitutes. There is also a nice coffee shop. Incongruously, just next door is Lake Nakuru National Park, a big salt lake packed at this time of year with flamingoes and surrounded by all sorts of dramatic wildlife. Despite a "guide" who couldn't drive a stick and couldn't tell an African Spoonbill from a yellow-billed stork, or even a lion from a leopard, we had a great safari drive through the park. We saw rhinos up close, both white and black, and even watched two female white rhinos fighting off a big male to protect a calf. White rhinos were extinct in East Africa, but have been reintroduced to Nakuru from South Africa. We were lucky enough to get a great view of a leopard and saw lots of buffalo a Rothschild giraffe, driven nearly to extinction when Idi Amin had his troops use them for target practice. The best part of our visit to Nakuru was the chance to stay at a cozy little banda inside the park. Usually reserved for school groups, the compound was deserted. As we cooked dinner, lions mated loudly in the darkness just beyond the fence. The fence was surrounded by big trees, and the lions of Nakuru happen to be a rare tree-climbing subspecies. The door was kept bolted and bathroom trips were more exciting than usual. It kind of reminded me of camping on a bear trail next to a salmon creek in September in Alaska. We spent the next morning exploring the park some more, with a slightly more competent guide, then heading on to Lake Naivasha. Our home here was another cozy cabin, high on a hill above the lake and surrounded by flowering cacti. It was quiet and beautiful and made a great base for exploring Hell's Gate National Park. They let people bike here and mountain biking among zebras, gazelles, warthogs, and buffalo is pretty cool. Unless, as in K's case, you are stuck in deep sand on a hill when an afternoon thunderstorm rolls in. She went back to town for coffee and cheesecake while I rode across the park in the rain, wary of angry looking buffalo. At the other end is a beautiful network of slot canyons that provided hours of fun, wet scrambling sin guia. There were cool birds, pumice rocks floating down the wash, and hot springs trickling out of the canyon walls. In the evenings we wandered down the very dark road to a tiny village where women were grilling corn on a fire and every shop seemed to include a butchery (Butchery + Hotel, Butchery+Bar, Butchery+ Bookstore), each with huge sides of meat hanging in the window. We found a great place called the Acacia Cafe, a very local affair where we feasted on heaping plates of beans, potato stew, lentils, and chapatis, garnished with a huge ripe avocado. Flourescent lights glared and Kenyan Idol blared on the TV, but the food was delicious and the bill was two dollars. Back in Nairobi for a day, we kissed giraffes at a reserve in the suburbs and ate the most delicious Ethiopian food at Habesa. In the morning we made the long trek back to Tanzania, back to work.