Listening to Benjamin narrate his childhood chronicles of how a lion killed a young boy out of anger after it was chased away from its kingdom, drew me closer to him. Benjamin a professional tour guide at Lake Magadi, broke all odds and decided to attend school, be educated and informed so as to get a chance to interact more with the tourist whom he waved at when young. Despite the stereotype held by many, he eloquetly communicates in English, swahili and in his native language.
Courtesy of Vesatile Adventures, through their project #photography in the wild we got a chance to tour Lake Magadi. The #photography in the wild is a project that teaches you how to capture beautiful memories of our Landscape, culture and wildlife.
Our journey kicked off at around 7:00am. We had several stop overs before reaching Magadi. Through this stop overs, the CEO, David macharia grabbed the opportunity and taught us how to take landscape photos and which time and angle is the best to capture the sceneries.
Lake Magadi is a private company managed by TATA and produces two types of salts, that is, Sodium chloride the table salt and sodium carbonate. The machinery was built in 1911 and 106years down the line its still in function.
A maximum of 32 wagons and a minimum of 16 wagons leave Magadi to Kajiado everyday. The trolleys which are designed specifically for salt carriage are supposed to carry a capacity of 40tonnes.
At the lake, beautiful flamingoes are spotted having a good time. The CEO made fun of it that he had booked them thats the reason why they were in such a great number waiting for us. The flamingoes at lake Magadi are of two types, that is, the greater and the lesser. They breed at a lake in Tanzania because there is a specific temperature which they require, not forgeting their incubation period which is 26-35days. The flamingoes feed on green blue algae.
On our way to the Hotsprings, we met wild animals such as antelopes and i was interested to know how they survive with salty water, only to learn that they wait until it rains for them to take water. Gods work is just amazing, how do they survive considering the hot temperatures? For us we kept on quenching our thirst.
Recent weather changes, drought being experienced in our country has resulted in the migration of our animals to Tanzania to look for greener pastures. If this continues, our upcoming generation will only see a lion, an elephant and all other wild animals on the pictures, they will live to be told tales of how Magadi used to be a solid lake. Therefore we need to conserve our own.
We had a splendid day, a fun-filled day where we got a chance to learn. Make a point of visiting the Lake and experience the healing power of the Hotsprings, hot temperatures and the scrumptious meals served at the hotel.
Story- Christine Mwaura