Right now I’m sitting in the middle of our camp grounds with V, Ben, Siobahn2 and Michael. We got back from a full day game drive about an hour ago and now we’re just sitting around reading/writing while waiting for the sun to set and for dinner to be ready. Dark clouds are rolling in over the hills and the air smells of rain. There’s a Masai boy playing with a bunch of sticks right behind me and down the hill a ways the owner of the campsite is showering in a small room made of tin. A fire place burning wood that the Masai workers living here brought in earlier heats the water. I can hear the clanging out cowbells and the occasional moo off in the distance somewhere. The local Masai tribe must be moving one of their herds.
And here I am, next to an empty fire pit, in the same pants I’ve been wearing for two weeks, wondering if we’ll all be able to get enough water out of the hand pump well to brush our teeth tonight. It’s one of those moments where you kind of realize, wow, I actually am all the way out here… and that’s pretty cool. Well, assuming I’m able to brush my teeth, at least. Going home is going to be hard.
The game drive today was a lot of fun. It was a full day game drive, so we got really deep into it and went right up to where the Masai Mara reserve joins with the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania.
I had a picnic lunch of local style chicken and potatoes under a tree
in the middle of the plains today. Talk about surreal. Not another
group of humans anywhere in sight, just a family of impala that were
clearly envious of the shade (that we had admittedly stolen from them
for the duration of our lunch).
The Serengeti hardly even seems real. It’s more like we’re on some sort of movie set. At times, you can see for miles in every direction and no matter w here you look something is happening. One moment you’re watching impala grazing amongst a herd of Zebras, the next a group of elephants passes you by and then you’re watching a pride of lions finish off the left-overs from last night’s kill. Then at other times there’s nothing but sprawling grasslands for as far as you can see – it’s like being on another planet.
