It was another morning and another place to bid good bye to. After breakfast we bid farewell to our fantastic hosts – Benjamin and his team and started on our long 7+ hour trip to Nakuru. On our way through Samburu we saw a few animals and birds we had seen before.

On our way to Nakuru:
Waterbuck
Elephant
Gernook
Grevy’s zebra
Onyx
Giraffe
Samba
Grant’s gazelle
Kirk’s Dik-Dik
Common water buck
Somali Ostrich

It was our time finally to experience the great rift valley. We had heard about it but it was a different experience to be driving through the rift valley at an elevation. It felt like we were in Ooty or Kodaikanal hill station. Very pleasant and lots of greenery around and we could see down to the valley. We packed lunch boxes at Samburu so we stopped on our way their for lunch at a curio shop. We arrived at Nakuru in time for a game drive and after the spotting the usual suspects (in addition to the Bateleur eagle we had not seen earlier) we got to witness a family tree of lions!! We were greeted by three sleepy lions – a male and two females. The lioness closest to the male woke up and wanted to get down from the tree and the male kept lazily blocking her. Just when we were about to give up and move on, two lion cubs walked up the tree to join their parents!! That was such a lovely sight. Finally the parents decided to get down and go for a hunt while the cubs were handed over to the remaining female (we suspect an adult daughter of the parents) to take care while they were away. What a cute sight to see. Before then the other van had stopped by and spotted the rare sight of two leopards mating!! What a lucky day.

At Nakuru:
Yellow spotted rock hyrax
Male impalas
Buffalos
White egrets
Zebras
Baboons
Bateleur eagle
Giraffes
Superb starling
Finch
Dick-dick
Ring necked Dove
Cormorant
Blue heron
Night heron
Water buck
White rhinos
Leopards mating!!
Lions on a tree – male, two females and two cubs!!!

At the end of the game drive we headed to the Lionhill lodge (which was actually on a hill that looked like a sitting lion) which was set beautifully on the hill side. We checked into our rooms and came down quickly for drinks and dinner. A local group was singing and dancing and Amulya joined them as they started singing some hindi tunes (ek do teen…) and dancing to them!!

Dinner was very special with freshly made naan, dhal, curry and some live entertainment by a guitarist singing Simon & Garfunkel and other awesome tunes. We sat around a bonfire after dinner to be further entertained and reluctantly retired for the night. That was another rocking safari day and we couldn’t wait to see what tomorrow had in store for us!!