Elmenteita is an 18 km² small Soda Lake located southeast of Lake Nakuru, 30 km southeast of Nakuru Town in the eastern part of the Great Rift Valley. The shallow soda lake itself, which has been known to shrivel to a huge white salt pond, is a good site for flamingos when Lake Nakuru is out of favour, and always good for pelicans, along with an estimated three hundred bird species in all. Like Lake Nakuru, Elmenteita has no outflow, and its accumulated alkaline salts make it uninhabitable for all but one species of fish, the indomitable Tilapia grahami.
Some fishing birds can also be found here, such as pelicans and herons. In the old days there was also a hippo colony, but it disappeared due to the droughts, that occasionally have completely dried up the lake. Today Elmenteita is a peaceful and low-key place, lying in the shadow of an impressively peaked hill locally known as the ‘Sleeping Maasai’. The lake shores are grazed by zebra, gazelle, eland and families of warthog. Nearly all the land around the lake is now part of the private, fenced Soysambu Wildlife Sanctuary. Lake Elmenteita has been a Ramsar site since 2005.
Gambles Cave
A number of prehistoric sites are scattered around the lake’s once-lush shores, of which Gambles Cave, 10km southwest of Elmenteita village at Eburru, is the most famous.