We called a car and took it further along Naivasha to the next lake along, formerly a salt lake with flamingos and now freshwater with fish. The restaurant overlooked the small lake, with a couple of warthogs grazing on bent knee by the shore. It was all a little like being at the Punjab Club, with fewer people and more attention to the pleasantness of the environment.
Along the way, we chatted idly about the most dangerous animals – not the hippo, it turns out, which kills about 500 people a year. Above it are mosquitos, dogs and snakes, though the internet clickbait we read didn’t specify what kind of snake, or indeed what kind of mosquito, so hard to know how seriously to take it.
Lake Naivasha and its environs are filled with colonial estates and the difference between the lush, beautiful game reserves with rolling lawns, lakeside vistas, healthy wildlife and well-trained servants on one hand, and the grubby, dilapidated workers’ barracks on the other (leave alone the markets with their open drains) is striking and rather discomfiting.
As the tables filled, I realised all the other diners were white except for one couple who were black. All the staff were black. We eavesdropped a bit on one of the other tables, a very Home Counties group, grumbling about Brexit but clearly (and rather surprisingly) from the Remainer side. Six years on and it’s still being probed like a sore tooth, the only analogy I can think of is the invasion of Iraq. Fortunately one of them did betray a Telegraph affinity by remarking on the news that Ukraine has been sending women and children to safety while keeping the men back to fight – ‘you wouldn’t see that in Diversity Britain’ he huffed.
After lunch (which ended with a tasty sticky toffee pudding) we stopped at the farm shop then went on to Crater Lake for a walk. This turned out to be a reasonable distance away, in another animal sanctuary with a hefty entrance fee. The walk was around the rim of the crater and I was a bit reluctant as I was dressed nicely (by my admittedly low standards) including in a long linen skirt. But I tied it in a knot and off we went, told that we wouldn’t need a guide (rare in this country) as the trail was well marked and the dangerous animals were on the other side. ‘Only rabbits’ said the man taking our entrance fee, and in the next breath advised us to keep to the high trail around the crater rim, as lower down the bush was dense enough that we would not see the wild buffalo until it was too late.
The trail began with a couple of small volcanic hills, which I struggleed with – not the ascent, though they were quite sharp, but the descent as both were covered in loose gravel and even the larger stones were loose. This is the kind of trail I am least comfortable on, as I am always nervous going downhill and feel extra unsteady on my feet, and this time because of my nice skirt I couldn’t even do my usual undignified thing of sliding down on my rear.
It was very pretty though – the lake fringed by dense forest, the green and orange cliffs around around, rising to where we stood in light and shadow with clouds overhead in a vivid blue sky. The terrain, treacherous as it was, was scattered with obsidian. Every now and then a view of the outside would open up, and we’d see herds of impala, once with males fighting.
About an hour in, so halfway through the walk, the GF said, sharply, ‘stop, go back’ and I stopped and stepped back staring, for just before us was the largest snake I’d ever seen in the wild, at least seven feet or more, thick and yellowish brown. It coiled and slithered and the two of us backed away. Eventually it also went away and after a good wait, we walked on, unable to give that spot a berth as it was a narrow stony outcrop that had to be climbed, but hyper vigilant about every overhanging bit of rock. I equipped myself with a stick and the GF pulled his glasses on more firmly (both of us remembering the tale of the spitting cobra told by our cook in Kilifi) and we went on, very shaken.
I told myself, and the GF, that it couldn’t possibly be a poisonous snake, as it was so big and robust it was clearly a strangler. We talked a bit about what we’d do if one of us were to be bitten by a snake, tried to remember if sucking out poison is deprecated, and decided that we’d try to use the crater’s echo to shout for help and then try to make our way together to the start of the trail. We decided to ask the reception what kind of snake it might have been and I remarked that they’d probably saw it was the most harmless snake in Kenya, in fact people keep it in their roofthatch as it eats mosquitos and our fright would be thoroughly mocked.
At one point we heard a very large animal tramping through the undergrowth and nearly leapt up the nearest tree except there weren’t any at that time.
It remained a beautiful walk though, and in under the two hours allotted to it, we arrived at the start where we asked them about the snake and saw their smiles freeze and their eyes widen in horror. A black mamba, apparently, and word quietly went around. I don’t think anyone will be allowed there without a guide any more, at least for a while.
We returned to our place where the hippos were making their way from the lake to the meadows and passing rather close to our back garden. Where yesterday I’d been a bit nervous when they came this close and insisted the GF come inside, today I peered for a closer look. ‘Far from the most dangerous animal we’ve encountered today,’ the GF remarked.