Lakes Baringo and Bogoria

After a week in Nairobi, I was more than ready to head out of the city.  Nairobi is a city of over 3 million people.  It's incredibly congested with serious traffic and air pollution problems.  It's a modern city with 24 hour grocery stores, cinemas, etc.  It's also a city of wealth and a city of poverty.  Many expatriates make their homes in some of the leafy suburbs.  However, it is also home to many slum areas.

Kibera is the most (in)famous of all of the slums.  It is the second largest slum to Soweto in South Africa.  It is home to an estimated population of up to 1.2 million people.  It is less than 1% of the total area of Nairobi yet accounts for over 25% of it's population.  To put it into perspective, consider that an average of 4 or 5 people live in an area that is 10 feet by 10 feet.

If I paint a bad picture of Nairobi, it's because it is not really one of my favorite places.  It is simply too congested, too polluted, and to noisy for my tastes.  Also, I don't like discrepancy in living situations is for the people in Nairobi.  As an mzungu, there would be only certain areas where I could 'safely' live.  These are in the wealthier areas where services are abundant and comparable to a modern city in the US.  I can go to YaYa Shopping Center and have my latte, shop in an upscale department store, get my haircut, and shop at a butcher that carries 'exotic' meat such as duck or filet mignon.  I don't dispute the fact that some people will be wealthier than others, but I sometimes look around me while in Nairobi and consider whether or not my fellow 'mzungus' comprehend the magnitude of wealth discrepancy.

Anyway, back to Lakes Baringo and Bogoria.  Rather than driving straight back to Bungoma, I decided that I would spend my birthday doing a little side expedition.  I had been wanting to go to Lake Nakuru National Park to see the flamingos, but knew that the low water levels have effected the numbers resting there.  Lake Bogoria is only about an hour and a half north of Nakuru and has an equal number of resident flamingos.  It also comes with an entrance fee of about $10 versus the $60 at Lake Nakuru.  Lake Baringo, which lies just north of Bogoria, has a large number of hippos and over 450 species of birds.

The lakes sit down on the floor of the Rift Valley.  Because of the geographical setting, it tends to be much hotter and more humid than other areas of Kenya.  Also, Lake Baringo is unique in that it is a fresh water lake whereas most of the lakes in the Rift Valley are salt water.  I chose to stay at a camp and cottage site called Robert's Camp.  It proved to be a great choice for relaxation.  I was in a cottage that sat about 150 yards from the lake's edge.  It was a two story cottage with a second floor porch that would prove useful for hippo viewing.

The area around the lakes are inhabited by three separate tribes.  The majority are probably the Njemps sub-group of the Maasai.  They are also known as the Ilchamus, but are commonly referred to as Njemps because the early British settlers had trouble pronouncing Ilchamus.  There are also some Turkana and Pokots.  These tribes are all pastoralists and so there tends to be a fair amount of livestock rustling among them.  The Njemps differ from other Maasai in the sense that they also will fish for food.

Lake Baringo was beautiful and the hippos and birds plentiful.  However, because of the severe drought, the hippos are having difficulties getting enough grasses for nourishment.  The owners of the camp have been feeding hay to the hippos through a program with the World Wildlife Fund.  In fact, the week before I had arrived, a small baby hippo was found dead of malnourishment.  The first night there, the owners were drizzling molasses (from a 5 gallon container) over the straw in order to provide additional nourishment.

The benefit of the hippo feeding was that it guaranteed that the hippos would come up on land late in the afternoon and provide wonderful photo opportunities.  The downside of this was that the hippos would come up on land in the late afternoon and then stay in the area for the night.  Hippos are large and mean animals.  They are not to be toyed with.  The first night there, two hippos came right up next to the downstairs patio of my cottage.  I was able to watch them from the comfort of being 10 feet directly above them.  Their scent is quite strong.  The nighttime askaris (watchmen) had to shine flashlights on them from a distance which slowly forced them to move away from the cottage.

On the second day, I drove down to Lake Bogoria.  Aside from the flamingos, there are a number of geysers.  The birds, up close, do not look all that pink.  However, from a distance, the pink highlights in their feathers really shows off.  I also realized that only when they are in flight do you see the really bright pink that is on their wings.  There were literally thousands upon thousands of them in the water.

The geysers were not high shooting ones the way Old Faithful is.  However, they were constantly spewing water rather than doing it in bursts as I think of a geyser.  Other geysers were simply pools of water that looked like a giant pot on the stove.  The heat coming off of them was quite intense.

The area really helped me to see more of the beauty of nature that I think we too often take for granted.  It also showed the effects of mismanagement of natural resources combined with the normal weather cycle and global warming.  Kenya is undergoing such a sever drought that has been exasperated by deforestation of watersheds for cooking.  This saga is being repeated across the world, most notably in the Amazon.  The problem is that the critical point has really hit home in Kenya.  The cattle I did see in the area were absolutely emaciated.  One old man was down to two cattle remaining and they looked as if they were on their last legs.  In a culture where livestock represents ALL of your wealth, this is quite sad.

It is the beginning of October and the short rains should be falling.  The meteorologists have predicted that El Nino will help this year, but it hasn't begun in the Rift Valley.  I'm back in Bungoma where the rains have started up.  I just pray that the same happens soon in the rest of the country.