Lake Natron

 We didn’t have a particularly good nights sleep. It was very hot in the tent, even with AC on (I was originally surprised there was AC but can see why now).. It was also very windy which made our tent very noisy. How Alladin got any sleep I don’t  know as unsurprisingly the guides rooms didn’t have AC..he did at least have solid walls!! 

Anyway we were up at our normal time for breakfast and actually the breakfast buffet wasn’t bad. We had to smile when they brought over Pete’s fried eggs.

 

We met up with Alladin and Elias at 8am and drove round the lake to a place where there were plenty of flamingos and pelicans. We walked down to the lake with Elias while he gave us some information on the birds and the local area. Who knew flamingoes can live for 40 - 45 years? You could also see loads of salt on the ground where that water from the lake had evaporated.

Once we had finished at the lake we drove to the starting point for our hike to the waterfall. Now I had read that our feet might get wet but Alladin warned us that we could end up waist high in water so the correct choice of clothes and foot wear was important. Lightweight clothes and walking sandals worked well.

The walk started on some pretty good paths and Elias stopped every so often to give us some information.

Then after about 20 minutes we got to the part where we had to get in the water, and yes Alladin was correct, it was up to our waist!! Luckily the water was pretty warm. From here on we alternated between wading through the water and scrambling out and over the rocks. I have to say Elias was brilliant telling us where to put our feet and giving us a steadying hand when needed. Having him with us made the hike fun but I would not have wanted to try and do it without him. We saw other people with the wrong sort of footwear (flip flops or socks and trainers) who were struggling or with a guide who wasn’t really helping them. At one point you have to climb out of the water up some rocks with a waterfall pouring down on your head…..in the end there is no way of avoiding getting pretty wet!!

Anyway we actually reached the waterfall without incident and really enjoyed the hike.

Obviously after some time at the waterfall we then had to retrace our steps back to the car. 

We did apologise to Alladin as we were going to make his seats rather wet but he wasn’t worried as it was so hot they would quickly dry. 

We got back to the lodge in time for lunch, which was actually served to us and was very good. By the afternoon it had got very hot so we relaxed on our terrace before heading to the bar for a pre dinner drink.

This evenings experience at dinner was pretty much the same as the previous night although we did have a table by the window so got some nice views over the lake as the sun went down.

So all in all we had really enjoyed our stay at Lake Natron. The scenery is lovely and we enjoyed the activities. It was nice to spend some time out of the car. I would say that the lodge was ok but nothing special. When we were planning this trip Ben at eTrip had offered us a more expensive lodge as an alternative but we decided to go with the cheaper option….I don’t know if the more expensive one would have been any better but value for money wise we were happy with our choice.

Tomorrow we would move to the Northern Serengeti.