After saying goodbye to the Masai Mara and our hosts, we headed towards Lake Nakuru for 4 hours. Since it was New Year, the traffic was not so chaotic on this day and at least outside the more densely populated areas, there were hardly any vehicles on the road. We made a stop at a rest area on the way. Here was really what going on – at countless stalls, the locals and we could strengthen with beef stew, kale and ugali.

After arriving at the park, we went straight to exploring the park right by the lake. The landscape was beautiful and the lake looked as if it would carry more water than usual. Trees and even some cabins were under water and so some of the paths were not passable, so unfortunately we could not make a round trip around the lake. But even so the park had a lot to offer. We saw countless zebras and buffalos and hundreds of flamingos. This park was definitely a paradise for bird lovers. While Andreas had taken the wheel again, Mel was on the lookout for more animals. And indeed – however she had done it – through trees, undergrowth and bushes Mel spotted our first rhino on this trip. We tried to get closer to the animal by countless ways to take better pictures – but these attempts were unfortunately unsuccessful. So we made our rounds and finally drove to a higher vantage point, from where we had a complete overview of the lake, before we left for our accommodation in the middle of the park. This was a rather large, but simple hut in which usually several volunteers or young people slept. The whole area was surrounded by a fence about 1.50m high – quite good, because our host told us that only a few hours before a pride of lions had moved along the fence. After we had enjoyed our home-cooked spaghetti with ketchup and it had become pitch dark in the meantime, we heard a hyena roaming about 30m away and, for us, making strange noises. So we went to sleep with new neighbors.