Two IU SUV's and two drivers drove us to Lake Baringo on Saturday morning. (First we visited the patient from Thursday's big surgery. So far, so good. We'll check on him again late this (Sunday) afternoon.) To drive took a few hours. These lakes are in the bottom of the Rift Valley. The total elevation change goes from well over 6,000 feet down to 3,200 feet, so the area is much more hot and arid.
When we arrived, we took a boat to the largest island in Lake Baringo. The islands are volcanic. We were spending the night at the "Island Camp", which other than the local villages, is the only thing on the island. The camp consists of tents under their own roofs, with floors, with attached bathrooms. These were similar to those at Masai Mara, but... shall we say... more basic. Lake Baringo is a large freshwater lake and is known for being home to over 200 species of birds (and hippos and crocodiles!) We settled into our tents, had some lunch, and hung out by the pool for a couple hours. It was so hot, the pool was a welcome site! We then went on a guided birdwatching tour. We made our way through the neighboring village on the tour. The most interesting bird that was large enough to get a good picture of was a stork.
Saturday evening we relaxed at the outdoor bar and then had a barbecue dinner outside. One notable thing about all of Kenya, but especially out in the country, is that you can see many more stars than at home. There is much less "light pollution" so they really stand out. We had a rough sleeping night in our tent. It cooled off outside, but not quite enough to make our tent comfortable. The air during the day was always filled with bird songs of all types. At night the birds were quiet and the wind picked up, so the sounds we heard were rustling leaves in the trees and waves gently tapping the rocks at the shore. It was just too hot to get much sleep. I (Kyle) was dozing off and on while Susan was having more trouble sleeping at all. She claimed to hear strange noises outside the tent. I was too tired to care and brushed it off. She sat up in bed to listen for a while, sure that she was hearing something. Morning came and we met up with our group to take a boat tour around the island at 7:00 am. Another neighbor tent heard the same noises. Turns out it was a hippo that was eating some grass or brush or whatever between our tents and the shore (which isn't much distance at all!) Hippos eat at night and then spend the hot days in the water. We enjoy getting close to mother nature, but not that close at night in our sleep!
Our boat tour was very interesting. We saw many different species of birds, the larger ones being types of egrets, cranes, and a type of eagle. The "Fish Eagle" is one that swoops down and plucks a fish out of the water and takes it back to it's tree. Our guide helped facilitate the process by bringing some fish to toss into the water. It was an amazing site. We have quite a few pictures of this activity. We also saw some hippos, but only the tops of their heads sticking out of the water. We did see one crocodile. It was fairly small - maybe 6 feet or so. It scurried off the rocks and into the water before I could get a good picture of it.
After our tour, we had breakfast and boated back to the mainland and then drove to Lake Bogoria, which was less than an hour away. Lake Bogoria is a salt lake and is home to thousands of flamingos. Along the way we saw some Impalas and ostriches, too, but at the lake, just thousands of flamingos.
Both of these lakes are fed by rivers in the rainy seasons (not now) but are also fed by gurgling hot springs. Lake Bogoria has some geysers that shoot up 10 feet or so.
We are now back in Eldoret in the mid-afternoon on Sunday, so it's early morning back home and the day is just starting...
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