Lake Naivasha

Today we ate at the hotel and Poly picked us up at 9:00. We meant for an early start but by the time he showed us his church and his office and he brought us somewhere to use the internet (but not wifi) and picked up Agnes, it was 11:00 before we left. It was a quick one hour drive on a very good road. Part of this land used to belong to Joy Adamson of Born Free fame. A lot of it belonged to the famous Lord Delamere.

We stopped to eat at a place called Holiday Inn. We don't know if it was really a Holiday Inn or just using the name (which is common), but it was quite nice. The waiter was able to arrange a boat to take us a short ways across the Lake Naivasha to Crescent Island. Right near us in the water we kept seeing hippos popping their heads in and out of the water. While we were nearing the island, there were 2 fish eagles in a tree. Our boat driver whistled and they flew over. He has trained them to come for fish. Crescent Island is the protruding rim of a collapsed volcanic crater, and is filled with wild animals just roaming around. After our boat driver dropped us off, another guide took us on a foot safari through all the herds of zebra, waterbuck, wildebeest, and impala, and we also saw giraffes for the first time today. Part of the movie Out of Africa was filmed on Crescent Island, and all the lions and tigers were removed for the filming and never brought back. Our guide told us that this is the only place in Kenya where you don't have to be in a car to see the animals. We got quite close to them and then they would see us getting too close and wander away. It was quite an experience for Agnes, she had never been in a boat before, and at first she was very afraid of the animals. At one point we were turned back by someone warning us that there was a buffalo bull nearby. The worst part was leaving the rubber boots in the car and REALLY wishing we had them when we were walking through all the gnu poo and impala ickies.

Afterwards we tried driving around Lake Naivasha but this turned out to be a really bad idea. The road got progressively worse until it turned into an unpassable ditch. We had to turn back after 45 minutes. We intend to write the authors of Lonely Planet and suggest that this is something they should probably mention.

Agnes again prepared supper for us, and we were able to meet their sons Zebedee and James, their daughter Mercy is not home from school yet. All 3 attend different secondary schools. We spent the evening with the family. Since the children are away at school on their birthdays, they celebrate when they come home for school break. Agnes had made 3 separate cakes. Tonight James got to have his cake. He cut one piece out, then cut that one into bite sized pieces and fed each person around the table a bite.