Annemarie:
Sharing our campsite with an animal or two has become normal while on this journey: hyenas, hippos and elephants have all livened up our nights but Lake Nakuru provided a different kind of experience.
We’re on a ‘weekend off’ from filming in Kitale and have headed south to Lake Nakuru National Park. We swing past all the swanky lodges to the NP’s own campsite at the southern end of Nakuru; it’s a bit basic but there’s not another soul in sight, wonderful, we’re in for a peaceful night. As the sun goes down everything is going to plan: supper is about ready; the beer is cold; the tent is up; the fire is glowing…perfect. We are sitting down in our comfy canvas chairs to eat by firelight when we hear a bit of a crunch in the undergrowth. We pause, forks half way to mouths, and listen… another crunch and some footsteps. Martin grabs the BIG torch and shines it into the gathering darkness. Oh, it’s a buffalo, heading down to a very small stream in a deep gully next to the site. OK, back to supper, he’s not interested in us. More crunching, we grab the torch again, caught in it’s strong beam we see eyes… not one pair, or two, or three, it’s a whole line of buffalo turning to look at us! We hear a crunch from the other side of the camp… it’s another line of buffalo coming down to drink. Basically, it’s a herd and they’ve split either side of us to walk down to the water. “It’ll be fine.” Martin assures me, I pick up the plates and cooking stuff and begin washing up as close to the Land Rover as I can. As I clatter about I don’t hear anything but the light of my head-torch soon picks up more eyes, this time moving in the other direction. Oh good grief, now they’re going back, it’s like being caught on the central reservation of the buffalo M25. We watch patiently and soon the huge beasts have melted into the darkness and we settle back round the glowing embers for a fortifying drop of Macallan.
Next morning we’re woken by some loud rattling on the tin roof of the toilet block, I peer out, not quite ready to wake up properly. Baboons, a whole troop of them, are wandering casually through the campsite and the youngsters are chasing each other round and round the corrugated roof of the toilets. Oh well, I suppose it is Africa; I crawl back into our cosy tent and close my eyes. Martin has gone though; maybe he’s making tea. Minutes later I hear a whooping noise and have to peer out again only to witness Martin, dressed only in a towel worn rather like Superman’s cape billowing out behind him, running round the site roaring at the baboons ‘Take that and that and that… ZAP!“ Some of them saunter off – others sit down and scratch their behinds in amazement. Well, it was a quiet spot for a drink but then these humans arrived…. You just can’t work them out can you?