Kenya trip report - 3rd segment, Mt. Kenya and Lake Nakuru
 

Day 4 – Mt. Kenya – Mt. Kenya Safari Club
Drove 5 ½ hour from Samburu to MKSC, left at 7:40am, arrived at 1:10pm. Roads really bad – physically exhausting.
Saw a couple of Somalia ostrich on our way to Mt. Kenya in Buffalo Springs. One of them even did a dance
Stay in Mt. Kenya Safari Club, great hotel, rooms 104 and 105, connecting room with a living room in between. Very spacious. Renovation in progress
Hot water bottle in bed with turn down service
Free internet service in the gift shop next to the restaurant.
Buffet breakfast and lunch with omelet station and pork, lamb station. Menu dinner, all first class. Better selection and quality than the Intrepid. Best tasting vegetables, they grow them in the conservatory.
The Animal Orphanage there was the best, Nikki fed the baby wildebeest, Mountain Bongo, and Eland, rode on a 120 year old turtle named Speedy. Saw pygmy hippos, and saw feeding of two White Rhino. The place is technically a zoo, but it is the best zoo that I have ever encountered.
The hotel is sitting on the equator, there is a demonstration of the water flow at 3:30pm at the equator line. We didn’t see the demo at the lodge, as we wanted to go to the Orphanage when everyone else was at the demo.
Day 5 – Lake Nakuru – Sarova Lion Hill Lodge
Drove 5 ½ hours from MKSC to Lake Nakuru Lion Hill Lodge, left at 8am arrived at 1:30pm. In depth view of how people really live here from seeing local villages. Stopped at Thompson Falls – dirty water, aggressive vendors.
Stopped at equator – saw water demo. They put a stick in the bowl, when the water drained north of the equator, the stick moved clockwise, the counter-clockwise when in the south, standing still while directly on top of the equator. Quite fascinating.

We have Ziwa Suite I and II, great setup, living room in between two large bedrooms.
Mosquitoes swarm all over the place, asked front desk to send someone to spray the rooms.
All meals buffet style, adequate but not in the same class as the two previous hotels.
Saw two black rhinos right before the turn off to the lodge in the bushes, did not take pictures because they were hidden and over 50 feet away (and Rick is an idiot)
Afternoon game drive - Saw tons of buffalos, flamingos, baboons, Thomson Gazelles, and 5 White Rhinos.
Muddy and uneven road, saw a couple of vehicles stuck in the mud. Dusty, good to have bandanna.
We saw all the Big 5 animals in the wild on day 5 of our trip, we couldn’t have been more pleased.

Day 6 – Lake Nakuru – Sarova Lion Hill Lodge
Morning game drive, left at 8am back around 12:15pm. Saw Rothschild giraffes, one of them was no more than 15 feet from the van. Saw four lions sleeping on a tree, kind of hidden, not sure if the pictures will come out. Beautiful valley floor, you can stand in on spot with just turning of your head you can see thousands of flamingoes, zebras, buffalos, gazelles, rhinos, warthogs, and other birds.
Saw a hyena walking by himself, that was a treat, didn’t think we would see one as they mostly come out at night.
We’ve decided that even with the mosquitoes this place is worth a visit, so beautiful.
Came back from the morning game drive and found a big baboon in our living room. He had something white in his mouth. Chased him out, locked the sliding glass door, called the front desk, and waited in one of the bedrooms. While we were waiting, we heard noises in the next room, opened the door, there was a baboon in there again. This baboon actually learned to shake the lock loose and opened the door. When the maintenance guys showed up, Rick asked them to cut two pieces of wood to wedge down the two sides of the sliding door.
Rick and I went on the afternoon game drive, Nikki decided to stay in. The only reason Rick and I went was because we wanted to have a last chance to see the black rhinos again. WE DID, just when we declared it a failure venture, George spotted 3 black rhinos in the bush in a distance away. We followed the rhinos and actually got some decent photos. Rick was so relieved, he is off the hook.
The reason for the search for the black rhinos was because they are almost extinct, only 400 or so left in the wild. They look almost exactly like the white rhinos, except only about 1,400 pounds (half the size of the white rhinos) and have narrow mouth. The white rhinos eat grass (grazers) and black rhinos eat bush leaves (browsers). You will find white rhinos in the open field grazing but black rhinos hides in the bushes.
Long day tomorrow, leaving for Masai Mara and on the road at 7am.

Pat

Okay, I had no idea that there was an animal orphanage at Mt. Kenya Safari Club. It just became a lot more attractive to me. Just one more reason to go back. LOL!

Juliet

Juliet,

Mt. Kenya Safari Club is a most wonderful place, the food there was the best we had on this trip and the services are impeccable. We were only supposed to go there for lunch and visit the orphanage, and spend the night in Mountain Serena (tree lodge). But our Serena reservation got canceled for some reason and our tour operator put us in MKSC instead. It worked out well for us.

Pat

Aside from the baboons in your room, how did you like Sarova Lion Hill Lodge?

Which park did you prefer?
Samburu or Nakuru?

Wayne,
Lion Hill Lodge is fine but we probably will try a different lodge the next time. The food was mediocre, especially compare to MKSC where we were the day before. The rooms we had were very nice, but we heard other travelers complained about the their rooms being run down, but the same people complained about their rooms in MKSC too. The baboon episode added a certain dramatic effect to our stories about the safari, once the rooms were secured, we had a good chuckle about it.

Simba,
Samburu and Nakuru are so different. Samburu is dry while Nakuru is lush. We saw Gerenuk, Grevys zebra, Reticulated giraffes and Simolia ostrich in Samburu, saw flamingos, black and white rhinos in Nakuru, they are all unique to the parks among the places we've been. Wouldn't want to miss either. If you have to pick only one, then I guess Samburu is it because it is a bigger park and have more variety of animals.

Pat

Sad to hear the food was not great.
I remember stopping there for a lunch buffet and it being amazing.

Of course we were also starving after a long awful drive.

A baboon in the living room! Did you ever find out what was in his mouth?

Glad you saw your black rhinos again.

It was one of Nikki's socks that the baboon took, what is he going to do with one sock? Silly.

Yes, it was good to see the black rhino, it was quite exciting. Although we did have to use the telephoto lens to see the mouth as they were quite a distance away.

Pat