Lake Nanja

The lake with a mountain the background.

During the Big Birding Day some of our friend mentioned an interesting lake near to Arusha. We decided to take this weekend to try to explore the place.

It worked out well since we could visit one of our friends in Arusha and then head out early Saturday for a full day of exploration. Our friends knew roughly where the area was but we had to do a little exploring to get there. This included stopping at a very small lake and thinking it was Nanja, at which point we all unconvincingly said, "Okay, this is cool..", only to be relieved that we were at the wrong point.

When we finally reached the correct location, we found ourselves on top of a hill in a more permanent than usual Masaai village. Instead of the usual acacia branch walls surrounding the houses there were sisal and trees planted around the edges. The village overlooked a valley and a mountain to the southwest. The surrounding area was drying out and vast expanses were dotted with a beautiful yellow flower.

We met the village chairman to inform him we would be puttering around and we were instructed to greet the elders. The Masaai don't speak very good Swahili, in fact the majority of the children don't speak any at all. Similar to our trip to Lake Natron, it was funny (and frustrating) to be back to square one with language communication. It's amazing how far a warm approach and big smile can go.

The lake was much larger than any of us had thought. We realized it was impossible to circumvent and since we wanted to see birds we figured we would just choose a direction and walk until it got too late.

We headed south and the lake was brimming with birds. The weather was overcast and cool which was poor for bird watching but excellent for our own temperatures. Usually it gets too hot to be out all day (though we push it) but the clouds hung in the sky until around 2pm which was only an hour before we decided to head out.

The landscape was beautiful and the community seemed to be unspoiled by rampant tourism. Now that the secret is out I'm curious how long it will stay like this. The village chairman noted that three teams came on the big bird day and it was many of their first time to visit. It's probably the closest place near to Arusha to do some serious water bird watching and one of the rare places you don't have to pay a fee to access. We plan on doing a camping trip sometime in the near future to try to walk around the whole lake!

A view from above as we walked down to the valley.

The wildflowers were in bloom.

Reeds and water.

Doing some birding!

It was cloudy and overcast for the most of the day.

Checking birds.

The valley was surrounded by hills.