Travel Guide Nakuru National Park

Located on the outskirts of Nakuru, Nakuru National Park encompasses the lake and its immediate surroundings, the cliffs along its western boundary, the forests on the eastern shore, and finally the vast savannah area to the south. The modest size of the park (less than 200 km2) makes animal watching very easy. In particular, you have a very good chance of seeing one of the many rhinoceroses that live in the park. Entirely fenced by an electric fence, the park now has more than 60 white and black rhinos. Several have even been born in recent years.But the big attraction of the place is the alkaline lake and the thousands of birds it attracts: flamingos, pelicans and more than 400 other species. A few years ago, before the lake lost part of its flamingo population, Nakuru was considered "the most beautiful bird show in the world"! The change in water level has unfortunately made it lose some of its magic. At the end of the 1970s, the rise in water levels caused the exodus of a significant part of the flamingos to other lakes, notably Lake Bogoria. Not all of them have returned. These important variations are not a recent phenomenon, we know that in the past the lake dried up completely on several occasions, notably in 1950. Air vortices then raised the deposits of soda and dispersed them on the fields of the neighboring farms, for the greatest misfortune of the farmers.This explains the origin of Nakuru's name: " enakuro" in Maasai means dust devils. In spite of all these events, the lake is always surrounded by a pink line of thousands of flamingos. We advise you to go there early in the morning.