The pink shore — Lake Nakuru flamingos, white rhinos, and the Rift Valley
Nakuru is Kenya's fourth largest city and the gateway to Lake Nakuru National Park — a Rift Valley soda lake whose alkaline waters feed the algae that sustain what was once the largest flamingo concentration on Earth (over a million birds at peak times, now affected by lake level changes). The park also protects both black and white rhinos in one of Kenya's most successful rhino sanctuaries, as well as leopards, lions, and the dramatic Menengai Crater (an extinct volcano) on the city's edge. The town itself is Kenya's 'fastest growing city' — a rapidly urbanizing Rift Valley hub with a strong…
The Nakuru area was one of the last regions of Kenya to be settled by European colonists (the fertile Rift Valley highlands were 'reserved' for white settlement until Kenyan independence in 1963). Lake Nakuru was gazette as a national park in 1961, specifically for bird protection — the flamingo concentrations that drew international attention in the 1950s led to its UNESCO Ramsar designation. The Kenyan government's rhino sanctuary program established in the 1980s has made Lake Nakuru one of the most successful rhinoceros conservation areas in Africa.