Travel Notes on Naivasha, Kenya

#Kenya After finishing our tribal trip in southern Ethiopia, we found that taking a bus to Kenya was closer than going back to the Ethiopian capital. The Kenya ETA we applied for online was issued in one day, so we took a four-hour bus to enter Kenya. The customs officer looked at my old passport and stamped the entry stamp in five seconds. When it was my sister's turn, the new passport only had Taiwan written on it. He quickly chased me back and told me that he had stamped the wrong one and crossed out the entry stamp on my passport. He said he was very sorry and that he could only stamp it on paper. We understood the reason, so we didn't make it difficult for him. Later, we went to Uganda and entered and exited the country twice, and the customs officer also stamped the entry stamp on paper. It took another ten hours on a night bus from the border to reach the capital Nairobi. Compared to Ethiopia, where three people were squeezed into one seat and the buses were smelly and dirty, Kenya's buses were newer and had larger seats. They were so comfortable and easy to sleep in. But as soon as I arrived in the city, I regretted coming to this country. It should be the noisiest capital in Africa, with 24-hour horns and broadcasts and super-loud speakers on the roadside that never stopped. But the only consolation was that there was finally water and electricity. After staying there for two days, I felt that there was nothing fun in the city. Moreover, two girls were constantly harassed when walking on the street. Africans have no sense of boundaries and kept touching shoulders and hands. It was very disgusting. But we didn't want to spend money to enter Kenya's national parks. We had seen lions by car in South Africa's national parks, so we were not very interested in taking a safari. Moreover, the ticket price for Kenya's Masai Mara National Park was terrible, $200 per day excluding the car, and accommodation was more than $300, which was shockingly high and really not suitable for our budget-friendly travel (a two-day and one-night self-driving trip with a South African national company only cost $30 including accommodation). Therefore, we took a bus to stay by Lake Naivasha, an hour's drive away. Accommodation here is very cheap. You can rent a small apartment with a lake view, a kitchen and a living room for NT$600 a day. We are tired of eating black food, so we cook for ourselves every day and occasionally take a super cheap taxi to the night market for snacks. It was written online that you can do a safari hiking by the lake, so I asked the hotel owner and he pointed us in the direction, so we went for a walk at dusk. Sure enough, there were lots of zebras, antelopes, wildebeests, etc. on the roadside. Although they were all animals that you get tired of seeing, you can only stay in the car in the national park, but here you can get very close to them on foot, which is quite interesting. When we finished taking pictures and were about to go back, we met a black girl in camouflage who claimed to be a police officer. She asked us to pay a $15 entrance fee. We thought she must be a scammer on the main road, so we ignored her. She got mad and pulled us and wouldn't let us leave. We simply squatted down and refused to move, listening to her continued scolding. Soon she called a companion with a gun over, but the companion looked very scared, so we still ignored him. The black girl got angry and grabbed our necks and pushed us down. The gunman was probably afraid of causing trouble so he tried to persuade the black girl, but he was scared away when he couldn't persuade her. Later we continued to fight with him, and he received several calls and suddenly seemed like a different person. He said we could leave, and kept saying he had no ill intentions. He asked us how we felt, whether Kenya was fun, and that we could come to see hippos tomorrow... We were confused. Later we went to other pier parks. Everyone was very friendly. We didn’t feel bothered and there was no hard sales pitch. It made us forget all the unpleasantness. It really is a very comfortable town. On the third day, we went to Karagita Public Beach Pier and chartered a boat for NT$500. The boatman took us to see hippos sleeping in the water, eagles, ospreys, and African vultures, and bought fish to feed pelicans. After the boat ride, we bought a fish from a stall nearby and asked the vendor to grill it for us with some vegetables. The total cost was only NT$100, and it was fresh and delicious. After leaving the pier, you can walk to the three-star hotel Lake Naivasha Resort nearby. Tell the guard that you want to go to the restaurant in the resort and he will let you in. Just order a cup of coffee for a few dozen dollars and then walk to the beach where the hippos are resting to drink coffee. The hippos are less than one meter away, but because wild hippos are aggressive, the hotel staff will always stay with you. After giving them a few dollars as a tip, the staff was very happy and kept asking the hippos to stand up, lie down, open their mouths, and close their mouths. It was quite interesting. It was another black animal trainer. We did all the other activities except the $33 ticket for the boat ride to Crescent Island. It really doesn't cost much here. I recommend this town to friends who don't like big scenes and like to vacation away from the hustle and bustle.