Safari Journal Day Three: Flamingos

So after reading all kinds of travel literature and guides on Kenya, I fully expected that our night in the tent on safari would be filled with animal sounds from a disturbingly close distance.

In my mind I'd been imagining how a lion would sound, waking up from a long day sleeping in the sun and off to enjoy a fresh kill that the diligent females in his pride provided him. Or leopards--I'd heard that they cough. That you could hear them marking their territory and warning other leopards to steer clear by making a sound that resonated deep in the backs of their throats. In my mind the leopard cough sounded rather like my husband with one of his allergic attacks . . .

But after all that active imagining, in the night I heard . . . nothing! I slept like a log! I think E did too. Must have been the hot water bottles . . .

The next day after the ugliest creature I have ever seen (we learned later it was a Marabou Stork) joined us for breakfast, we were on the road to Lake Nakuru.

Nakuru is supposed to be the fourth largest city in Kenya. It was also the site of some significant uprisings during the political unrest of January earlier this year. All seemed safe, sound, and pretty much returned to normal, though--except for the paucity of tourists this season. We hope the tourism will bounce back and we are happy to report that the show at Nakuru is well worth the journey.

By show, I mean the flamingos.

After searching high and low for leopards, but finding mostly baboons, our driver took us right down to the rim of the lake. The first thing that struck me as we stepped out onto the shore was the sound! Altogether in such huge numbers, the flamingos were making this honk-honk-honk-honk-honk drone that, when combined with the ebb and flow of massive waves of the birds walking in different directions, becomes quite hypnotic. And then you look more closely at the breathtaking pink birds--all milling about with their high-heeled stride in groups like cliques of adolescent girls--this way, and that way, and "we're too cool for you, go hang out with another gang"--it's fully mesmerizing.

Wearing my bright pink Gore-tex that day, I wanted to be one of them. Surrounded on all sides, I felt like I could have been. I even ran with a wave of them for a while before they took flight. It was a little like snorkeling with a school of fish, but not quite as smooth . . .

That night we perched in our lodge and looked down at the great lake rimmed in pink. Lulled into an after-dinner stupor by a local musician doing earnest renditions of 80s and early 90s hits on his acoustic guitar, we thought to ourselves that safari life was not such a bad way to travel after all.