Explore The Rift Valley
Naivasha, like so many Kenyan place names, is a corruption of a local Maasai name, this time meaning heaving waters, E-na-iposha, a pronunciation still used by Maa-speakers in the area. The grassy lakeshore was traditional Maasai grazing land for two centuries or more, prior to the lake’s “discovery” by Joseph Thomson in 1884. Before the nineteenth century was out, however, the “glimmering many-isled expanse” had seen the arrival, with the railway, of the first European settlers. Soon after, the laibon Ole Gilisho, whom the British had appointed chief of the Naivasha Maasai, was persuaded to sign an agreement ceding his people’s grazing rights all around the lake – and the country houses and ranches went up. Today the Maasai are back, though very much as outsiders, either disputing grazing rights with the many European landowners still left here, working their herds around the boundary fences, or labouring on the vast horticultural farms around the lake.
The lake, slightly forbidding but picturesque with its purple mountain backdrop and floating islands of papyrus and water hyacinth, has some curious characteristics. It is fresh water – Lake Baringo is the only other example in the Rift – and the water level has always been prone to mysterious fluctuations. The lake shrunk to half its present size in the 1950s, and although it has recovered since, it remains smaller than it was when the original European settlers arrived (its former extent marked by the outer edge of the fringing band of papyrus, where you can still spot the occasional fence post).
The fast lakeside road has brought tens of thousands of migrant workers to the farming estates, where they grow vegetables and flowers, mostly in giant, polythene greenhouses, for export by air to European supermarkets. Since the late 1980s, great stretches of acacia scrub have been cleared for the expansion of the farms, and ugly lines of squalid field-hand housing have sprouted in the dust between the plantations. The mixed, migrant community at impoverished KARAGITA, the largest lakeshore settlement, is still scarred by the post-election violence of 2008, which hit it as hard as anywhere in the country, causing thousands to flee.
Despite the development, and the ever-growing encroachment of farms and job-seekers, Lake Naivasha is still a place of considerable natural beauty. The lakeshore retains some patches of fairly unspoilt savanna and woodland, and boasts plenty of local wildlife. Even today, you can still see the odd giraffe as it lopes down to Crescent Island, and the area’s climate, with a light breeze always drifting through the acacias, along with the many hiking possibilities around the lake, makes it hard to beat as a first stop out of Nairobi.
On the northeastern side of the lake, NAIVASHA TOWN has little to offer as a place to stay, and unless you arrive late in the day, you may as well head straight down to the lake. If you plan to spend any time in the area, however, you may want to go into town to stock up on essentials first.
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Mount Longonot
Mount Longonot
The prominent cone of the dormant volcano Mount Longonot (2777m) looms high above Lake Naivasha, flanked by thorny savanna slopes and visible for many kilometres around. It’s a relatively easy ascent, worth climbing for the fabulous views in every direction as you circle the rim.
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Lake Naivasha dangers
Lake Naivasha dangers
Beware, out on Lake Naivasha. The possibility that underground springs may feed the lake, its location on the floor of the Rift Valley, and its shallowness all combine to produce notoriously fast changes of mood and weather: grey and placid one minute, suddenly green and choppy with whitecaps the next. Boating mishaps are all too common and you should be sure your vessel has lifejackets and your “captain” and mate (don’t go out with only one crew) have radio contact with the shore, not just a dodgy cellphone connection. Watch out, too, for hippos, which can overturn a small boat easily if frightened or harassed. Although there’s no bilharzia in Naivasha, the hippos, the dense weeds, and the occasional sightings of crocodiles combine to offset any enthusiasm you might have had for a swim.
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Wildlife of Lake Naivasha
Wildlife of Lake Naivasha
One of the lake’s most interesting features is its wildlife, especially its protected hippo population. Despite their bulk, hippos are remarkably sensitive creatures, with good night vision, for never is a camper’s guyline twanged. By day you can also, occasionally, still see giraffes, floating blithely through the trees, taking barbed wire and gates in their stride. Naivasha has extraordinary birdlife of all kinds, from grotesque, garbage-scavenging marabou storks to pet-shop lovebirds, doves cooing in the woods, and splendid fish eagles, whose mournful cries fill the air like seagulls. And Lake Oloiden, once a bay of the main lake, is now a separate, saline lake and frequently has a large flock of several thousand flamingos on its southern shore.
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The thorns of the rose
The thorns of the rose
Despite the listing of Lake Naivasha as a Ramsar wetland site of global ecological importance in 1995, the future of the lake’s delicate ecosystem is far from secure. Naivasha’s multimillion-dollar horticultural industry is one cause for concern, particularly the use of pesticides on the lakeshore’s huge farms and the enormous volumes of water used to irrigate them.
It is becoming increasingly apparent, however, that the survival of the lake and its wildlife depends on a multitude of other factors ultimately linked to the country’s growing population. Since 1977 the number of people living near the lake has risen at least fivefold, and human waste has become a major problem due to inadequate sewage treatment facilities, with the result that some partially treated effluent is finding its way into the lake. The Malewa and Gilgil rivers (which flow into Lake Naivasha from the north) have also been dammed, rendering the lake even more vulnerable.
Consequently, the lake’s wildlife is seriously threatened. Until the exceptional 1997/98 rains raised the lake’s level, thereby diluting the pollutants, the fish eagle had been especially badly affected, though its numbers now appear to be stable. The birds were not getting enough to eat, and Louisiana crayfish, introduced in the 1970s for commercial fishing, were largely to blame. By eating their way through the lake’s flora (which, as well as acting as a soak for excess nutrients and a sediment trap, serves as food and cover for some species of fish and birds), the crayfish caused the water to become murkier, making hunting harder for the eagles. Fishermen also complain that tilapia and black bass have sharply declined due to agrochemicals washed into the lake, and many of the area’s 350 species of birds, as well as the hippos and other wildlife, are still in danger: the lily-trotter, the great crested grebe and the crested helmet shrike have already all but disappeared.
Some companies finally appear to be waking up to their responsibilities. Oserian, the huge Dutch-owned flower exporter, has developed a new way of fighting fungal diseases without resorting to chemicals, using geothermal steam to purge diseases in its greenhouses, while other companies have adopted computerized drip-irrigation to optimize their water efficiency.
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The Rift Valley Music Festival
The Rift Valley Music Festival
Taking its cue from Malawi’s increasingly popular Lake of Stars festival, the annual Rift Valley Music Festival is Kenya’s first international music festival, and has taken place every late August since 2010, at Fisherman’s Camp on the shores of Lake Naivasha (t0715 050588, wbit.ly/FacebookRVFestival; three-day tickets). Energetic and dance-oriented on the Saturday, it turns more low-key and family-friendly on Sunday when the mood is blankets, picnics and beer. The highly recommended festival features mostly Kenyan artists and a few international acts playing from a single, central stage to an audience of a few hundred. Recent line-ups have included Ayub Ogada, DJ Yoda, J Star, Suzanna Owiyo, Frankie Francis, Jesse Hackett from Gorillaz, Joe Driscoll and Felix B from Basement Jaxx. You can stay anywhere around the lake and walk, cycle or get a matatu every day, or book ahead if you want to stay on-site.
