Zambia World Wide

The Kikuyu tribe are cousins of the Masai and although the Masai are a warrior tribe the Kikuyu are a farming community. The Kikuyu gave an exhibition of tribal dancing while we were there, the dancing consists of jumping in the air to the beat of the music. It is quite amazing to see the height they can achieve when dancing. They wore colourful clothing and appeared to be a happy race. The dancing was very entertaining and ended a very enjoyable day out.

Having been into the rift valley and seen the Masai and Kikuyu, we decided that a trip to Nairobi Game Park was a must. The New Stanley Hotel had an open air café near the hotel entrance, it was quite unique as there was a cherry tree growing through the centre, which gave plenty of shade. We often sat there and had coffee in the evening before dinner, it was a nice place to sit and watch the world go by. I don’t really need to say it was called “The Cherry Tree”. The next morning we took a bus to the Nairobi Game Reserve where we intended to spend the day, as was usual at this time of year it was a hot sunny day with hardly a breeze. We always enjoy going to the game parks whenever we get the chance and tend to turn our visits into a game the children can play. Which is of course who can spot the most animals and what are they. It also means we get some peace and quiet as the boys know that to spot the animals they need to be quiet. We always enjoy looking for game in the parks as we like to see the game but time spent in the parks is always peaceful and quiet the only sounds to be heard are those made by the wildlife around. It is like being in a different world. We visited the park twice in the time we were staying in Nairobi and enjoyed both visits. There was an abundance of deer, troops of baboons and monkeys which was no surprise, as they are generally prolific anywhere there are wooded areas. The giraffe and zebra were quite easy to find but not so easy to approach, the giraffe has to be one of my favourites. They are so well camouflaged for an animal of their size and yet move through the bush with long graceful strides which seem to barely touch the ground. It is quite common to see some of the larger animals as they have no fear, a little care was needed to get close but many were so impressive we never tired of watching them. Wherever we have been we have looked for but never seen a pride of lions. Would we be lucky this time, no! we tried but it was not to be. Lions are difficult to find as they sleep during the day and hunt at night. A pride had been seen the evening before, so we had a point to start looking, however we were still unlucky.

We still had two days left so decided to take the tour to Lake Nkuru which was the bird sanctuary I was not keen to visit. It would have been a big mistake if we had not gone there, once again we drove into the rift valley. I don’t know how far it was from Nairobi but it took about three hours to get there. On the way we stopped for a break at a colonial ranch, and then continued. Once we arrived and looked across the lake, the sight that we saw was unbelievable, really hard to accept. Lake Nkuru is home to many water fowl but the main attraction is the Flamingos’ The lake was a sea of pink, there were so many flamingos’ they would be impossible to count. It is said there are 5 million flamingos’ on the lake, a figure I can believe as they cover the entire lake. Well I did say that going to a bird sanctuary would be a waste of time, it is now time to eat my words, it was unbelievable. We spent the last day around the city but really we were just killing time, we were ready to go home. We flew from Nairobi Airport to Lusaka and then on to Kitwe where we were picked up by Keith who then drove us home.