Lake Natron and Waterfalls

No biking or driving for a day, but still well worth a blog post. This was an amazing day - we went on a tour led by a Maasai teenager to Lake Natron and to this waterfall in a canyon. The whole area around where we were staying was so dry and desolate, it was hard to believe that we would be touring watery places, but there was a lot of water to be found!

Lake Natron is high in acidity - there are a bunch of rivers that feed into it, but nothing that feeds out, water just evaporates. So, you can't really swim in it. There are flamingos that are adapted to the water, you can see hundreds of them eating. We drove there in a "jeep" which was actually more of a truck with bars in the back so you could stand up while someone was driving. It was really fun, but definitely not something that would pass US standards. On the way to the lake we saw more giraffes, and our first wildebeasts.

The women make money by selling crafts, and they are very persistent. I bought a pretty bracelet at Lake Natron. As we went to get back in the jeep, all of the women and girls who were selling things packed it up and followed us, surrounding us and trying to sell more. This one guy, Steve, was the weakest link - at one point he had like 20 bracelets on, and was completely surrounded. He wound up buying 4 of them.

After lunch we hiked to the waterfall. It kind of reminded me of hiking in Utah, you had to walk back and forth through the water. Fortunately I had some good waterproof shoes I just bought, it definitely made it easier. The hike was one of my favorite parts of the trip, there was a lot of rock scrambling, river crossing, and at the end this amazing waterfall and pools to swim in. I had been so so so hot all day, going for a swim was such a nice relief. Our guide was really cute helping us across. He wore traditional Maasai dress, but once we got to the water crossing he hiked his robe up and he had these yellow shorts under. And under the yellow shorts he had a bright blue bathing suit. His ears had been stretched in the lobes, and he wrapped the lobes around the tops of his ears to keep them out of the way. It was a little disconcerting at first, but then kind of cool.