On Safari!

We're sat at computers in a little town called Kiisi amidst the tea plantations on the hills of southern Kenya, en route from the Maasai Mara to the Serengeti. We've got (another) border crossing coming up! We've been in our bright yellow colossus of a truck for just over a week now, and I've got mixed feelings about it. We're seeing loads, and it's fun to mix with lots (28!!) of other people on the truck, but it is a bit false in that almost everywhere we go is full of western tourists, and we're following and being foll0wed by several other Absolute Africa trucks as we go. Plus, (especially frustrating for me!) most of what we actually do involves sitting on our arses in the truck for the day, only getting out to eat, shop, pee and sleep. Being in such a close environment with the same people also makes it feel a bit like Big Brother - especially when our group acquired 10 new people a few days ago! That said, there are definitely lots of good bits. We've been to the national parks and game reserves of Kenya, seeing shitloads of zebra, gazelles, buffaloes, eerie bearded wildebeasts migrating, as well as hippos, elephants, giraffes and lions up close. The scenery is remarkably diverse - from vast lakes set in lush vegetation to scorched yellow bushland stretching as far as the eye can see, dotted only with thorny acacia trees. The sunsets over the Maasai Mara (which we'd intended to view from the security of the campsite, but, due to a flat tyre in the middle of the park, we saw in the open wilderness) are spectacular and very atmospheric. We've visited the beautiful luxury home of Joy and George Adamson (of Born Free fame) on the shores of the enormous Lake Naivasha - and gorged ourselves silly on the delicious cakes they served for 'high tea', watched by cheeky Colobus monkeys. Our lunch was stolen by hungry baboons a few days ago. We've got an amazing Tanzanian cook, Goodluck, who is making me fat. Yesterday we visited a Maasai village, went inside their cow dung huts and danced with them - Tash even got to wear the chief's hat! That was very cool. Apparently our driver was arrested in the park yesterday, and our tourguide had to bribe the officer 2000 shillings to let us off after he threatened to burn him. Poor Gitonga! Ok, have to get back to the truck via the local supermarket... Hope you're all well!