Black & White, Grey, Brown and Pink

2nd Sep, 2008.

And so our safari started. The crank of the engine of our Landcruiser announced the beginning of our 10 day wild trip, as we departed from Nairobi. Our first stop on this journey was Lake Nakuru in Kenya. Nakuru boasts of the one the biggest bird spectacle on earth, with thousands and millions of pink flamingoes hanging around in the lake. To get to Nakaru, we drove towards the rift valley, stopping on our way at our overnight campsite. We quickly pitched ’em up, had a nice lunch of veggie sandwiches, and proceeded towards Lake Nakuru.

Here’s a totally excited M pretending that she is putting in some effort to set up the tent

The sight at Nakuru was unbelievable – there was this thick line of pink highlighting the entire lake! As we drove closer, the thick mass of pink started looking like smaller pixels of pink, and then we started seeing the individual forms of the birds’ bodies. I’ll let the pictures do justice to the scene:

See that pink line on the right of the shoreline of the lake? That "line" is all pink flamingoes!!

Amazing, isn’t it? Can you imagine all this beauty is there just because there’s a lot of algae in the lake! Turns out that Nakuru is an alkaline lake, which attracts algae, which happens to be to pink flamingoes what Pav Bhaaji is to me – their most favorite food.

While the flamingoes were definitely spectacular, they were by no means the only interesting living beings around. Besides the pink, there was:

Grey...

Golden Brown...

Dirty Brown...

Black & White...

And of course, more pink...
And more...

And more...

And more...

We clicked and clicked and clicked pictures of the animals & the setting, both from the lake (most of the pictures above), as well as from a beautiful vantage point called Baboon Point (named after tons of baboons that hang out in the area). As evening dawned, we jumped back into the Landcruiser, and headed off to our campsite, where Geoffrey was waiting for us with some wonderful hot soup and a much-awaited dinner.

Driving back to base camp, after an extremely rewarding day at Lake Nakuru