Nakuru National Park

 Our table waiter Simon, who is also a Maasai.

 One rider two goats.

  Sheppards.

This is called the superb starling, no wonder why.

 Euphorbia candelabra tree.

 Waterbuck.

 Baboons.

The rarer Rothschild, or white stockinged, giraffe.

White rhinoceros.

Tuesday, October 3^rd.

Sadly today, I lost a good friend Don Gray, too soon, too suddenly.

Today before we left the beautiful Fig Tree Lodge I posed for a photo with our waiter Simon. He was a great guy and I had a lot of fun with him during our meals. We left at 7 am and retraced our drive of Monday. We drove for an hour our of the Maasai Mara Game Reserve past a wide variety of animals, most of which we had already seen. We saw a kori bustard, which is the heaviest flying bird. Just before we exited we came across a water hole with zebra, topi, impala and a yellow billed stork all down for a morning drink.

We stopped at the entrance gate for a convenience break and then drove for another three hours over the same bumpy, dusty road we drove the other day. Morris told me that although they are working on the road it is taking a long time, and in the meantime the road is getting worse. There are a lot of vans leaving the park and others entering so there is a lot of dust. There was a hearty round of applause when we hit the paved road.

We stopped for lunch at the Ubuntu Women's Project. This is a project sponsored by Whole Foods, and GAdventures among others. It started as a way to support women who had children with special needs whose husbands had left the family, leaving the family with no income. The women were trained in sewing and crafts and now make bags, bracelets, and other things for companies around the world, including Whole Foods. First I had a chicken curry lunch cooked by some of these mothers before going next door to the factory to see the facility and the products. We were introduced to one of the mom's who told us her story. We all bought a couple of things to support the women. I bought two more bracelets.

We drove almost back to Nairobi before we turned north and headed towards Nakuru National Park. The third largest city in Kenya is situated just a few kilometres from the park, which is completely fenced in to keep the animals in and the people out. We drove past dozens of Maasi sheppards with their herds of cattle or flocks of goat or sheep.

After checking in at the gate we went on a two hour game drive to our lodge. Immediately we came across a troop of baboons with lots of young ones. Then we saw waterbuck, zebras, a herd of about ten giraffe, a number of different types of birds and then finally Joseph and Morris found what they were looking for, white rhinoceros. There were two families of three up a hill and quite far from the road. The word got out and about twenty vans showed us, but unlike the Maasai Mara the vans could not leave the road and drive around the rhinos and bother then. We all sat there and watched because rhinos have become one of the iconic animals that are threatened by poachers and extinction. We were able to get some photos but as we watched one of the families started grazing down the hill. It took about a half hour but the came down to about fifty yards from all of us. It was amazing. The male had a huge horn and the calf was about a quarter size of the adults. Then they seemed to notice or hear us and turned around and walked away.

We drove the last couple of kilometres to our new accommodation, the Lake Nakuru Lodge. It is beautiful and we have excellent rooms on a rise overlooking the park and the lake. We arrived just before sunset and Alan, Blaize and I headed to the bar for a beer, to watch it. The lodge is equipped with a great pool, bar and restaurant. We had dinner at 7:30 and while we were eating an excellent choir of singers entertained us with a collection of African songs.

Then it was time for typing and bed.