At Mpala, I realised that the chances of me tracking the gorillas in the mountains of Rwanda, Uganda or Congo was remote. Gorilla tracking is very expensive, which is allowed for a limited number of people every day.
The global meltdown seems to be hitting tourism in this part of Africa as well, and the authorities here told me that they were not getting the required number of people to issue permit. This took me two extra days in Mpala, where I realised that I may have to cut short my other plans and decided to head to Tanzania.
Before heading to Tanzania, I wanted to visit the rift valley. I had heard a lot abou the lakes in the rift valley like Lake Baringo, sprawling over 16,000 hectares and Lake Bogori, a hot water spring lake.
Ceicil, a research internee with th esatellite image study 
of Mpala, was happy to accompany me. We decided to hire a cab and drive by ourselves. Mpala's administrative officer Tuni was happy to help me and got me a Toyota Carolla for the journey. Soon after James, the cab owner handed over the car keys, Ceicil asked me if I was going to drive, since he was comfortable only with auto-gear cars.
Though it was a matter of pride to drive in a foreign land, I was greeted by a surprise! I don’t have an international driving license, but had no option at this point of time. Soon after I passed Nyanuki, my worst fears came true. On the highway, when we passed by the first traffic police, we saw him waving, or I presumed he waved at us. I was confused wether to stop or not. Ceicil asked me not to stop, but I decided to face the worst and slowed down. The cop looked surprised at the expression on my face and asked me to produce my driving license. I told him that I had an Indian driving license and produced it.
Soon the cop began talking tough and said that he would charge me for the crime I committed in Kenya. While Ceicil began conversing with him in Swahili, the local language, I was a mute spectator. The cop asked me to produce my passport and I handed it over to him without a word. Even after five minutes, the cop did not show any indication of arresting me. He was just telling Ceicil that he would be producing me before the magistrate, who would slap a fine on me and may even send me to jail. I silently passed a note of 1000 Kenyan Shilling in Ceicil’s hand. Immediately, my passport and driving license were in my hands and the cop shook my hand with a big smile. Hmmm, I was stunned at the behaviour of the cop, as this was nothing new to us Indians!
When we left, Ceicil told me that the cop was waving at the motato (local private transport, just like our maxi cab, which have to operate only on licensed routes) and not at us. ``They don’t stop private vehicles on highways,’’ he added. A lesson learnt the hard way. Since then, I never stopped at any point, even in places the entire stertch was of the highway was manned by traffic cops.
Traffic cops on Kenya highways never target private car owners unless the driver is not wearing the seat belt.
Our original plan was to visit lake Bogori first and reach lake Boringo by evening as we had to start off early the next morning. I had to catch a flight from Nyanuki to Nairobi. Initially, Ceicil said that he knew the way, as he had visited the two lakes couple of times. He hails from Nakuru, which is near to both the places. On the way, I realised that Ceicil knew the route from Nukuru and not from Nyanuki. The route map was made through satellite pictures, downloaded in the lab, but was of little help while driving. We had to take a deviation at Nehruru, after visiting Thomson falls. But, the locals warned us against taking a deviation, as the route was very narrow and unsafe. Instead, they had suggested to us to go via Nukuru.
We had driven three hours and had one more hour to reach Nukur. From there, Lake Bogori would be two hours and further two hours to Lake Baringo. I decided to settle for visiting Nukuru Lake National Park, instead of trying a misadventure at that point of time.
While driving down the rift valley, I realised how beautiful it was. In one shot, we had to descend over 500 feet into the valley – like something that exists in our ghat sections. On the top, it is a fertile land where people grow coffee, tea and other spices. Nukur is the place, where excavation on human evolution has taken place and has a lot of archaeological importance. By the time we reached Nukur by afternoon, we had crossed the equator six times and at the end of the day, we had crossed it eight times.
Nukuru is a beautiful city, with world class infrastructure. It is the fourth largest city in Kenya. Nukuru Lake National park is just adjacent to the city and four kilometres from the city centre. It has all large animals in it. Though the city has grown right to the adjacent of the national park, there is hardly any human-animal conflict. The entire national park is electrically fenced, so that animals cannot enter the city.
Driving inside the park is a pleasure and a tourist can never regret for visiting the place. The national park is around a rift valley lake, which is over 10,000 hectares. It is surrounded by hills and there are facilities to drive around the lake and over the hills. Some nice picnic points have been made on top of the hills, from where the tourists can have a bird’s eye view of the magnificent lake. There are at least six beautiful resorts in the national park and two or three camping sites. There are many activities available in the park – all for a price. The lake is inhabited by birds like pelican, flamingo and others. A large track of urea is formed around the lake, which is the result of bird droppings.
Near the pelican corner, I drove straight on the urea track till a car tyre mark was found. I parked the car and was getting ready to take pictures. Suddenly Ceicil pointed out that we were sinking. I just got out of the car and realised that the front tyres of the car was sinking. I tried backing up, which worsened the situation. In five minutes, we were in trouble.
We decided to seek help from other vehicles, but many were reluctant as the place was wet. At last, a range rover with four wheel drive came to our rescue. We knew that the driver and his assistant were doing a business. They said that the forest officials could fine us up to $1000 so close to the lake. We had no choice 
but settling for 1500 Kenyan Shillings with them.
The rescue process went on for over an hour and our car came out safely. But, the range rover got badly caught in the process. We just gave a gentle push to the car, started it and drove to safety. But, the range rover had dug a huge hole around its wheels, which began spinning. We got some boulders and wood pieces from the road to bail it out, but the driver decided to call for another help and asked us to leave the place.
We decided to drive back till Nehruru, as we had to reach Nyanuki before 10 in the morning. It was half past eight when we reached Nehruru, which was an odd time to drive. We took up a room in a hotel for the night, next to Thomson falls, and decided to continue the journey next morning.
17-12-2008
Nehruru
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