Lunch Stop with Lizards and a View

Tuesday, August 30, 2005

Around eleven o'clock, we stopped for a camp-lunch at a look-out point overlooking Lake Nakuru called the Baboon Cliffs.

There were no baboons in evidence, but there was a gorgeous view over the game reserve and lake below, and bold little lizards scampered over the warm rocks.

I took a piece of watermelon and my journal and found a rock to perch on while I wrote. While I sat there, happily sunning myself, two bus-loads of chattering uniformed African schoolchildren pulled up and gathered at the overlook with their teachers and some solemn-looking chaperons.

Listening in on the field-trip lecture, which was given animatedly in perfect English, I was treated to a vicarious nature lesson on the wildlife of Nakuru. For instance, I learned that the lizards on the rocks were called agama lizards and that the drab brown ones were females while the splashier blue and orange ones were the male of the same species.

Later on, I said hello to some of the school-girls who appeared to be around twelve to fifteen years old. One of them, less shy than her friends, said she would like me to take her picture.

From up here on the cliffs, we could see for miles. We could see the narrow dusty roads we'd travelled on earlier stretching across the plains. We could see far over to the other side of the lake where there appeared to be a whirl-wind or sand- devil of some kind forming a shifting smoky-looking cloud on the shore. Since returning from Africa I have learned that it most likely was that, but it possibly could have been a gigantic swarm of flying insects.

Hopefully it was a whirlwind. I'd rather not meet a swarm of mating flies that looked like that.

From above I could also see a strange formation of flamingos extending into the water. It almost looked like they were forming a little flotilla.