The drive from the Masai Mara to Lake Nakuru took half the day.  Zannah and I were joined by Narumi, a Japanese student in her early 20s.  Narumi was traveling solo around East Africa and had been in Uganda before Kenya.  As we left the Masai Mara, Zannah pointed out a barefoot Masai man herding goats while texting on his mobile phone.  Times have changed, we agreed.

After checking into our hotel in Lake Nakuru, Zannah, Narumi and I took a short walk around town.  Tusker Time arrived and the three of us stopped at a restaurant for a beer before dinner.

 

Early the next morning Steve took us out in the safari van for our first and only game drive around Lake Nakuru.  I kept my fingers crossed that we would see a leopard – the only one of the Big Five we hadn’t spotted yet – but the elusive big cat stayed hidden once again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Steve drove us up to the overlook on Baboon Cliff, where a warning sign read, “Visitors are requested to carry their litter with them to reduce baboon menace.”  I’m happy to report that our time on the cliff was completely menace-free.

 

 

 

Our game drive ended around 11am and we returned to our hotel for a quick lunch before hitting the road back to Nairobi.  Zannah and I were cutting it a little close – we needed to be at the Nairobi Railway Station by 6pm in order to catch the night train to Mombasa – but we made it with time to spare.