4 August -- Amboseli -- Nairobi -- Lake Naivasha (by Linda)

We boarded our small plane in the Amboseli Park headed to Nairobi which is a short flight. We landed, were met by a driver, and after a few stops, were off to Lake Naivasha a two hour drive through the beautiful Rift Valley. Caroline and I slept for a lot of the trip.

We arrived at the Lake Naivasha Country Club on the southern shores of Lake Naivasha (a national park) surrounded by 55 acres of lake side gardens. Over 300 species of birds inhabit the lake shore and hotel grounds. I can’t wait to find out the history of this place – it is older and Roger and I were fantasizing that this was once a British club – I bet we are not far off. We ate lunch and made some plans for the afternoon as we are leaving here in the morning: birding and a sunset boat ride around the lake. This place is not nearly so remote as Amboseli so there are many more people around. More later.

Later: We had a very nice afternoon – the bird walk was fun and we ID’d some new birds with the assistance of our guide. There are a lot of very old yellow bark acacia trees on the grounds which remind me of the old live oaks in Florida. The trees have multiple branches that are gnarled and the bark is yellow-gray – beautiful. Following the walk, our guide took us around the shore of the lake looking at birds. The lake is large and again, we ID’d some more great African birds – giant kingfisher, malachite kingfisher, fish eagle. The sun began going down, we got cold in the wind and headed back to the dock for some tea/coffee on the giant lawn with the acacia trees.

I also got the scoop on the hotel – originally this area of the lake was used for landing water planes and there are some older looking stone buildings in that area. The original hotel was built here in the 1930’s. The original building houses reception, dining area, living room with large fireplace in the style of an old lodge. The hotel has been expanded to include many individual cottages but you get the feeling of a smaller, rustic place. We like it!