Morning at Lake Nakuru
Carlow Nationalist - November 2010
“Francis,” I whispered across the hillside. At least I think I whispered.
He was standing five yards away, over by the safari-vans which were parked in the shade of an umbrella tree, sharing stories with the other drivers. They laughed quietly, their hands covering their mouths; the story of some silly question asked by an over-excited tourist I guessed, "...are there tigers here in Kenya?", or some such thing.
Francis must have seen something on my face as I stood on the edge of the cliff; he left his colleagues and hurried towards me. Above us in the sky, the orange ball of an equatorial sun rose higher in the East African morning trying to escape its own reflection which floated serenely in the flat waters of Lake Nakuru. The sky was tangerine in colour, but it held subtle hints of citrus fruits and candy peel, children's toys and nursery walls. Single, confetti-coloured clouds ballooned along the line of the horizon, the world appearing as if it had just been born in Genesis.
Way down beneath my vantage point on the hilltop the lake was shining like God's mirror; it edges fringed with a bloom of pink; reminiscent of the loose cherry blossoms which flutter down and coat a garden pond in Springtime. But these pink blooms were more than windfalls, they were flamingos. "Up to two million of them", Francis had said tracing the edge of the lake with a pointed finger. "They feed on the rich nutrients of the volcanic lake, on tiny algae which flourish in these rare waters where nothing else will grow." Francis knew these things and much more.
On the plain below us, vast herds of buffalo were breaking cover in single file towards the water's edge. One by one they emerged from the thick stands of trees and out towards the flatness of the lake's margins in a ritual as old as time itself. Giraffe ambled, picking their steps carefully like ballerinas, stopping from time to time to browse from the highest branches. A solitary white rhino pawed the ground setting a cloud of red dust adrift on the light breeze. The chocolate-brown blur of an Augur buzzard rose screaming from the long-dead skeleton of a lake-side tree, its efforts laboured with strobing dark and light wing-beats. And from nearby, a woman's excited voice declared a hyrax on the rock-face; bathing its thick fur in the early morning sunshine, like a large tailless cat to which God, as a joke, had attached a pointed but smiling rodent's face. Amongst the group gathered there on that African morning there was a hush of expectation, the small crowd scoured the countryside with field-glasses in the dared hope that a lion may show itself.
“What do you see my friend?”. It was Francis' turn to whisper.
“Look there,” I said pointing low, not wanting to be seen by the others. Covetous of what I imagined I saw.
Francis removed his dark glasses and rested a dark hand on my shoulder. “Where?” he hushed as a laughing couple passed us by.
“There," I said, "by that yellow rock. Do you see the pied crows in the bush?”
Francis said he did. “But they are just crows man" he patted my shoulder like a consoling parent, "very common in Kenya, even in the city you can see them.”
“No," I insisted. "Beneath the bush, on the left. It think it's....” I was almost afraid to say the word, afraid that if I said it the moment would end forever, “...a lioness. Can't you see her? she's lying in the shade," I risked pointing a finger in her direction. "You must see her,” now I was almost pleading.
I had been wrong many times before on that morning; every broken branch in every tree had become the hanging tail of a leopard. Every termite mound and hummock on the morning plains had been a cheetah surveying its kingdom. And each time, Francis had stopped the van to humour me before peering through his field-glasses. “It is so difficult to tell in the morning light,” he said kindly, shaking his head towards me. “But you are spotting well, you saw that secretary bird kill the snake and that new born rhino in the thick bush. That was really something man, really something.”
But this time I knew I was right by the look on his face. “It is a lioness. It is,” he whispered urgently and grasped my arm tightly. And then we were like two schoolchildren sharing a private joke. With a broad smile on his face, he slapped my back then looked around to see if anyone had noticed. “I cannot believe it man, all of these people and they have not seen her. You are the only one.” I had wished for a moment like this all of my life and now it was just as I had imagined.
I took my photographs quietly, selfishly and savoured the moment. “You can tell the others now,” I said.
We drove away to the sound of a hundred cameras clicking, each one capturing the image of a lone lioness on an unforgettable Kenyan morning. Francis smiling his big beaming smile, tapping the steering wheel to the beat of a song that played only in his head, his white teeth shining brighter than the risen sun. For the longest time he said nothing, even choosing to ignore a pair of tiny camouflaged dik-dik that sat motionless and almost invisible in the roadside bush. As we rounded the bend of the road and swung the van towards camp, Francis turned to me and shook his head, “that was really something man,” he laughed, “that was really something.”
Individually tailored Kenyan safaris, with a choice of destinations, may be booked through Star Travel, Nairobi. Contact: startravel@iconnect.co.ke Telephone: +254-72-7501190