Montezuma meets Mona Lisa

 Let's get to part two of the animal series! I am starting to cheat a little bit in terms of the order of things – sue me!

Generally, I still have to write five posts if I want to cover the trip in Kenya properly (!!). Luckily (meh...) I was lying around with Covid  for a week in Nairobi, otherwise I would have experienced even more and the backlog would be completely unsustainable...

Anyways, back to topic. So we took a matatu to Naivasha – the town situated next to lake Naivasha about 90km north of Nairobi. Naivasha is a typical weekend holiday destination Nairobians. There is the possibility of camping near the lake shore (we did not do that, we lived in a palace) and there are several National Parks to visit.

Ok not really a palace, but it had Palace in it's name – does that count?

Generally our neighborhood was very lovely, featuring the essentials of life:

Some impressions from Naivasha town:

There are three National Parks in Naivasha: Hell's Gate National Park, the Crescent Island Game Sanctuary and Mount Longonot National Park. We decided for the hardest of the three options and climbed the mighty volcano (2.560m). Ok it's a bit less impressive when you know that Naivasha lies at 2.086m... But hey – A for effort!

The greatest challenge was the return from Mount Longonot to Naivasha. We had the opportunity to experience the limits of Uber outside of Nairobi. After every request the drivers called us and asked where we were and where we wanted to go. Also they wanted to renegotiate the rate to the triple amount. After a few declined rides we decided to accept a much higher rate in order to get back. The driver informed us that they neither see where the pickup point is nor the destination when they receive a request. So they have to accept the ride in order to see these things and some further away rides might be completely un-economical for them or clash with their schedules. This whole business seemed quite weird, since the point of Uber and other ride sharing services is to bring transparency to both parties. In the end we encountered these problems basically everywhere outside Nairobi, so that they became practically useless.

The next day we decided to rent a car to drive to Nakuru which is about 70km away. Alone the rental process was totally worth the experience! The office was a random container in a parking lot and what became soon clear is that they really did not have cars. As soon as we said we needed one they started making phone calls and told us to be back in 10 minutes.

We negotiated the rate at KES 4.000 (a bit more than €30). Having some experience with Kenyan timing, we came back an hour later. The car was clearly not there, but they told us it was, but kinda was not ready yet. It then arrived after about another 10 minutes. The guy who brought it removed some personal objects from it and then presented me with the keys. I asked about a contract or something so we'd have paperwork in case the police stopped us. They all looked at each other and started to laugh, telling us: "This is Kenya!" which seemed like an adequate explanation. :D

Fuel policy: you get it at as empty as possible and return whatever.

I won't comment in detail about the experience / safety of the drive itself. Lets just say it felt very convenient that we were driving half the trip directly behind the hearse of the Montezuma Monalisa Funeral Home.

In Nakuru we entered the National Park – entrance fee $60 per person + a little something for the car. Driving around you can well spend a day there, seeing loads of zebras, gazelles and monkeys. Then there were some water buffalos and warthogs.

Oh and shitloads of flamingos! That's actually what this park is famous for!

The lions and the leopard we saw only at one occasion and it's only possible to find them if you're accompanied by a guide or a ranger. We picked one of the rangers up and for a tip of KES 1.000 (€8) he showed us some animals.

At the time the National Park felt really spectacular – so much better than any car zoo in Europe! But after our stay at the Maasai Mara it was just a very limited and "touristy" experience compared to the real thing.

The trip back from Naivasha to Nairobi by matatu is another experience I wanna share, because it shows us being really REALLY stupid. So we were quite heavily packed up with our backpacks, walking through one of Naivasha's market standing out like two light towers looking for the central matatu station. Of course immediately some helpful soul-catcher presented himself and brought us to a street kiosk in order to book the matatu. Behind that one was another guy who asked where we wanted to go and told us the price of KES 400 each. We paid with a banknote of KES 1.000 and after rummaging a bit in the kiosk he ran off in some direction and nobody returned for five minutes. At that point we were pretty sure (70%) we were duped – ah stupid tourists! Then he returned with KES 200 and told us to follow a third guy who showed up. That guy guided us for 10 minutes through the all possible and impossible areas of the market and in the end told us to take a seat in a bus on which "Nairobi" was written as a destination. Then he took off. Now our dupe-o-meter rang at 95%. Of course they just took the cash sat us in the bus and we'll have to pay a second time when the bus starts or stops. We didn't have a ticket or anything. Oh the humiliation and we didn't even have an argument in an eventual discussion with the conductor!

But surprise: it all worked out fine. Nobody paid – probably everybody had already paid beforehand and we could leave without any hassle at our final destination?! Even though it seemed to work out fine that time we were resolved to never again handle things like that!

A closing note: I consider the visit to Naivasha and Nakuru not essential when you visit Kenya. Do it if you have time, if not, prioritize other areas.