Nakuru, Kenya
July 28,2024
The bus was a museum-worthy relic that shuddered with every kilometer, threatening to fall apart and ensured we felt every bump in the road through its sagging seats. I found myself thankful that this might be the last interminable night bus I take on this trip. Woo hoo! Around 2 am we reached the border, got stamped out of Uganda and stamped into Kenya. It was another eight hours before I reached Nakuru in the early hours of a drizzly day.
The last time I was in Kenya was 2001; what used to be a village has morphed into an up-and-coming town. Nakuru is undergoing rapid change with new roads, traffic plazas and buildings going up. It is larger now and the pace frantic, but not as chaotic as I remember. From the rooftop of my hotel I have a birds’ eye view of the streets. Tin-roofed shacks mingle with concrete buildings downtown but in the hills above town are the sprawling villas, mostly lost in the haze. But not everything has changed. Small shops on the street still sell mira. A mild narcotic, just about everyone in Kenya used to chew this constantly. Apparently, they still do.
The drawcard for this town used to be Lake Nakuru, famous for thousands upon thousands of flamingos. If you ever saw clips of a sea of pink taking to the air, it was likely filmed here. But floods in 2014 changed the salinity of the lake and the flamingos fled. Some went to the lake in Queen Elizabeth NP in Uganda that I visited recently and most, to Lake Bogoria, north of here. I am not enticed by the idea of paying a steep entry and guide fee for this sadly depleted national park. Call me El Cheapo or perhaps La Cheapa! I can see the lake not that far away, hazy in the mist and smog.
From a café atop a tall building I see the dark outlines of tree branches at the edge of the lake. Oh! These must be the trees all around the rim of the rim that drowned when it flooded. Yes, they are everywhere along the edges of the lake. I see their reflections even on the far shore.
ITCHY FEET TRAVELS 