Our first, and only full day out, which lasted 12 hours began by chasing down a rhino. Seems they are hard to come by on this safari and our driver passed up a herd of elephants and other animals telling us we would see lots of them but we couldn’t miss the chance to see a rhino. By the time we got to where it was sited the huge beast had crossed this remaining creek from the May rains and John said let’s go for it.
He went a little to far to the right and we all felt us hit bottom and I knew we were not going to make it through. He gunned it, and we were going no where. I proceeded to get out my journal and spent the next half hour getting caught up. I knew that flat tires and break downs happened on safaris and the drivers knew how to handle the situation. At this time, in this place we were not allowed out of the truck. Soon other trucks came around to offer assistance. One tried to pull us forward but it didn’t work. Then they all started leaving.
This is the one they called in to pull us out backwards which meant we did not cross the creek and we did not see the rhino.
Twelve hours later, we watched the sun go down and were in for a wonderful surprise when we entered our camp.
This is Jeremiah and Chef Paul. Their crew had prepared a special African meal for the four us in the bush under the moonlight. In the short time we were there we just fell in love with these guys. They treated us like kings. I helped Chef Paul stir up some corn meal and he told me he was from a Masia family, he studied in Nairobi and wanted to come out here in Masai Country to help his people have a better life.
We walked for quite a little distance by “torch” (flashlight) guided by the crew, then followed a ‘candle glowing in paper bags’ path to a great open fire, and a large grill where a virtual banquet was on hand.
They gave us Masai blankets and set a beautiful table. Our meal started with Butternut soup, that was so delicious. We had a variety of salads one called Kachumbari. We also were serve Ugali, and wonderful chapatis. There were four kinds of meat, all so good you couldn’t choose just one, you had to have one of each. Choma sausage, beef steak, pork chop and roast chicken.
They even danced for us after the meal and brought us a goodbye cake. They sang “Hakuna Matata” from Lion King as they danced around our table. What a fun night, we sure had “no worries” and enjoyed the dinner late into the evening. No wonder that by the time we said goodbye the next morning we felt like we were leaving dear friends. Jeremiah said he wanted us to come back the next week.
We had to leave, for the next day we jumped this 6 hour shuttle bus ride to Tanzania for another safari. Below is the place where we made the one stop for bathroom break. This was pretty far out in the country and even though there were toilets here the shuttle bus passengers kept one gal busy carrying buckets of water to flush. She worked hard for the little bit of money she received for that job.
P.S. We also learned that if you couldn’t wait till this stop, you just let the driver know and he would pull off the side of the road and you would find a bush. This happened twice along the way. No one batted an eye, except us. We drank little water and held on till the scheduled stop.
On the Tanzania safari we were inside the famous Ngorongora Crater. We saw many giraffes and this tall one made a fabulous run for us which Mark caught on video which I do not have. Sorry.
