Safari Tales

            I can say that I have been camping in Africa! All four of the Titchie (elementary) dorms went on a campout one weekend. We drove about an hour and a half away from campus, down into the Great Rift Valley. The campsite that we stayed at was a dusty place surrounded by Acacia trees. I felt very African at this time because of the surroundings. We set up camp and then had dinner, which consisted of roasted hotdogs wrapped in bread dough, carrot sticks, and chips. We also roasted marshmallows for s’mores and sang songs around the fire. When we went to bed it was a bit chilly, but we were fine with our layers and warm sleeping bags. During the night, some people heard hyenas running through the campsite, but I didn’t hear anything.

            The next day, we went on a safari walk to the nearby Crater Lake. We walked around the edge of the Crater, which used to be a volcano. About half of the crater is made up of the lake; the other half is vegetation. We went down the other side of the Crater and walked around the dry, brown land looking for animals. We were fortunate to see lots of interesting ones—zebras, giraffe, dik-dik, warthogs, impala, waterbucks, and even a fox! It was amazing! After our walk, we went back to the campsite, ate lunch, packed up and left.

            On our way back to RVA, we stopped at another lake. From the road, the lake looked as though the water coming up to the shore was all pink. It was covered with thousands of flamingos! We were blown away! It was amazing to see them all and to see them fly out in mass over the water. It was like a domino affect. One row of flamingos would start flying out and then another and another. There was also a dull roar of honking coming from the enormous group—they were so loud when they are all together that you could not even hear the boat that was on the water start up its engine.

            I was not able to get great pictures from the campout. The following pictures are actually from a different little excursion I took with some ladies to a place called Crescent Island. It’s actually a peninsula, but you take a little motorboat across part of Lake Naivasha and see hippos in the water. Then you dock at the peninsula and walk around with a guide. If you are stealthy, you can get pretty close to some of the animals! Actually, I think the animals are just used to people walking around because this particular area is one of the most densely populated areas of animals in Kenya. Therefore, it gets quite a bit of tourist attention and they have even filmed movies there.