Today we leave Oliver's camp, Tanzania, and Chris. Hard day for goodbyes but we are happy that Chris can spend some time at home now. We set off for our five-hour drive to Kilimanjaro complete with our packed lunches to eat at the airport. It's a weekday so the towns and roadsides are busy with activity and travelers. We finally get through Arusha and in spite of traffic and a stop light that promotes gridlock, we are in good shape. Things deteriorate at little at the airport when the security check X-ray machine breaks down and we all stand waiting. Someone wandered over and looked at the machine, another was summoned and pushed some buttons and someone else turned off the breakers in our part of the airport. A winning combination got things up and running but with delays, we despaired of making our connecting flight at the commuter airport in Nairobe.
When we got there we were shepherded quickly through various queues and found out the small plane waited for us. We stood and stared at it for almost 1/2 hour and then someone decided we were good to go. Ron and I made the mistake of taking two back seats that were literally not able to accommodate our long legs and when I ended up smashed against the window, I almost sprinted over Ron to get up to an empty seat in the front. In a minute he joined me because even with 2 seats to himself, he was bent in half. We buckled up, the passenger in the back passed up the water and the passenger in the front sent around the mints. A bit of a rev for the engines and we took off on the dirt runway and were airborne. Our airstrip was the first of three planned landings so off we went for our 40-minute flight to the Masai Mara.
Waiting faithfully was our guide David and his spotter, Pere, a Masai warrior. We got into a well-loved rattletrap Land Rover and off we went at a speed dictated by some of the worst roads we'd encountered. The sands in Chobe were a challenge they simply served to prepare us for what was afoot in the Mara. Our first game drive in Kenya started without ceremony, although we'd been up since before 6 that morning. When we arrived at Leleshwa Camp near sundown, it was with no small relief that we had dinner and went to bed.
We found some time to laugh about the nicknames Chris and his fellow guides have for the different nationalities. The Americans are "the Wows" because we say "Wow!" when we see great things. We all became conscious of how often we do say "Wow", but we considered it a compliment. What is better than enthusiasm for all the awesome things we are seeing in Africa?
When we got there we were shepherded quickly through various queues and found out the small plane waited for us. We stood and stared at it for almost 1/2 hour and then someone decided we were good to go. Ron and I made the mistake of taking two back seats that were literally not able to accommodate our long legs and when I ended up smashed against the window, I almost sprinted over Ron to get up to an empty seat in the front. In a minute he joined me because even with 2 seats to himself, he was bent in half. We buckled up, the passenger in the back passed up the water and the passenger in the front sent around the mints. A bit of a rev for the engines and we took off on the dirt runway and were airborne. Our airstrip was the first of three planned landings so off we went for our 40-minute flight to the Masai Mara.
Waiting faithfully was our guide David and his spotter, Pere, a Masai warrior. We got into a well-loved rattletrap Land Rover and off we went at a speed dictated by some of the worst roads we'd encountered. The sands in Chobe were a challenge they simply served to prepare us for what was afoot in the Mara. Our first game drive in Kenya started without ceremony, although we'd been up since before 6 that morning. When we arrived at Leleshwa Camp near sundown, it was with no small relief that we had dinner and went to bed.
We found some time to laugh about the nicknames Chris and his fellow guides have for the different nationalities. The Americans are "the Wows" because we say "Wow!" when we see great things. We all became conscious of how often we do say "Wow", but we considered it a compliment. What is better than enthusiasm for all the awesome things we are seeing in Africa?
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