So this weekend just gone, I ventured into the heart of the Great Rift Valley to stay in two towns - Nakuru and Naivasha. By road it is 2 hours to Naivasha and another 2/3 hours on to Nakuru. Both towns have large lakes; Naivasha is a freshwater lake and Nakuru is one of the many soda lakes that are dotted along the rift valley. Flamingos are at Lake Nakuru in abundance, although last year - due to huge drought and the levels of the lake vastly shrinking - the flamingos either flew away or were left for dead on the edge of the lake. They are slowly starting to return, although I cannot imagine anymore in the lake as it was just as if someone had poured strawberry flavoured angel delight all over the lake.

I stayed at the most luxurious of tented camps at Nakuru for one night before staying at the former home of Joy Adamson - Elsamere. They were, understandably, born free mad up at Elsamere and as such I found myself returning home with that stupid John Barry themetune stuck in my head. Learned the meaning of 'early morning game drive' on saturday morning. I think they should rename it 'middle of the night game drive' as I was up at 5am. That is just not healthy. Especially if you're me and allergic to early mornings.

Anyway it was a most enjoyable weekend and it was nice to have another break away from things. Have now started another week of gym training in prep for Kili and will spend the week being healthy (or at least trying to be) and doing lots of exercise. The following week I will be spending several days in the Masai Mara. As it turns out, the roads to get to the mara are now impassable due to heavy rains creating giant mud roads - so I am instead flying there (at a very high cost annoyingly.) This I am most looking forward to, but even more so since I received a parcel from my parents this morning. Amongst the hot chocolate sachets and Hello magazine were two newspaper articles on the Masai Mara. The Mara is a natural reserve and not a national park. The difference is that a national reserve is owned by the local council (in this case the Masai tribesmen) and a national park is under the charge of the Kenyan Wildlife Service. The articles claim that the park entry cost is soon to go up from £22 to £58 PER DAY (well, 24 hours). This is absolutely ludicrous. The Masai are getting too greedy and wanting more money - the charge was only put up from £15 to £22 last year. They claim it is to protect the delicate ecosystem in the Mara and the only way of doing that is to drive away budget tourists and attract less but richer tourists who can provide the same level of revenue to the parks but without the hords of people. I do understand this to a certain extent, but they are not only shootign themselves in the foot (in that the Mara is not the only place to see Lions - Botswana and Namibia have huge safari industries) but not solving the problem! Whilst they are driving away tourists, the clear solution to the preservation of the Masai Mara is to make it a National Park and hand it over to the KWS. By doing this, the KWS would be able to enforce the rules of being in a NP very strictly. The main reason that the Mara has turned into the dustbowl that it has been in times gone by is because of tourists not sticking to the tracks provided and offroading it. But if there is no enforcement of rules like this then people will have no incentive to adhere to them.

By increasing prices so dramatically it is my personal opinion that many tourists will go elsewhere for safaris and the Kenyan government will complain about the lack of tourism. The claim in the newspaper article was that 'People perceive Kenya to be a very cheap holiday destination' and quotes were given of very low rates. However these are only out of season (i.e. going ot the mara when it has been raining lots and the grass is too thick to be able to see anything) and if you visit in July/August/January/February you will pay extortionate prices for the most basic of accommodation. In this way I am glad I am in Kenya now, and not in 5/6 years time when I fear it will be only a small 'elite' that will be able to visit one of the most beautiful countries.

I am very quickly running out of money - due mostly to the living costs in an expat area being so much more than that in Kericho - which is what I budgeted for. Very frustrating and i'm not sure travel agents and the like quite realise what my financial situation is. (for example - assuming it'll be easy to pay for a £100 return flight to the mara) I.e. i'm not some gap year student with bags of money to spare and endless resources. and I am literally going to go back home without a single penny to my name. Perhaps slightly exaggerated but true lol. aaahhh. lol.