Lake Naivasha

At long last, after a day's driving, we arrived at the campsite at Lake Naivasha. It was large and inside a guarded compound on the same grounds as a lodge. We were warned here not to exit our tents at night as there are a multitude of hippos that wander through the camp, and they are deadly creatures if startled or if one simply gets in their way at the wrong moment. In fact, these creatures kill more people per year in Africa than any other.

At this site, I was able to take a horseback ride one morning before it got too hot. The horses were Arabians and really great. Too bad we hadn't started out earlier in the morning and then we could have gone all the way down to the lake on horseback. Unfortunately, no focussed pictures exist of me on the horse. (:^(

October 16, 1996

The campsite proved to be an ideal site for photographing a variety of birds, as they wandered right past our tents. This African Hoopee dug for worms in the dewey morning grass.

These birds are Sacred Ibis, at least that is what I concluded from looking at them in a bird guide we had along with us. They are definitely some type of Ibis. Here, they saunter over to a walking path.

Elsamere

On the shores of Lake Naivasha is Elsamere, the former home of Joy Adamson, a woman who raised and then released to the wild a lionness. The story was chronicled in the movie "Born Free". The lionnesses name was Elsa and apparently Adamson created an almost mythological belief about the lionness. Her home was interesting, and we were "treated" to a biographical movie about her life. The grounds are beautiful though and they had coffee, tea and cakes there (which were welcome after drinking only from metal cups for a week or so at this point)!

Outside, Colombus monkeys frolicked in the trees. While we were there, they were attempting to get some shelter from the rain. The pictures therefore look quite drab and washed out, although this one shows off the facial expressions very well.

These monekys look quite grumpy all the time. They had cause to be on this day, when there was a steady rain falling all afternoon. I had to wipe off the camera lens between shots here. These monkeys did approach us, coming down the trees slightly, but they never came all the way down to the ground.

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