Week 9

Thursday 16th June.

Medditeraneo madness.

We had a super dooper lazy day. We spent most of the day in our tent and on the phone/skype talking to people. We had a great time talking to and catching up with Mandy and Andy. we skyped Ingrid and got to say hi to all the girls. We skyped my sister Donna and her fiance James, but their computer was too slow so they could see us but we couldn't see them, and we also skyped mum and dad and had a really good chat with them.

We watched a movie and had an afternoon nap. Hungry from our 'busy' day we headed to a nice restaurant at the Junction shopping mall called Medditeraneo with Marcus and Fiona, Jerome, Wil, and Mark. The food was really nice, we had some prosciutto, I had beef ragu with homemade pasta and Alex had a steak. The wine was great, we had good company and I finished off the night with a yummy lemon sorbet with strawberry sauce. `

Friday 17th June.

Medditeraneo madness: Part 2.

We were up early (and by early I mean 9.30am) to go to Crossroads to find a cardboard box, some newspaper, and some bubble wrap. We found everything at Nakumatt, the gigantic supermarket and took it back to Karen Camp. Luckily for us there is a really friendly, super efficient Swiss man who likes packing things that was happy to help us. Everything bubble wrapped, newspaper stuffed and taped into the cardboard box we jumped into a taxi with the friendly, super efficient, packing loving Swiss man and Fiona and went back to Crossroads to send the parcel home. 22kgs of souvenirs. Whoops. It was going to cost us US$130 to send the box via cargo ship which would take 3 months or more, or US$170 to send it via airmail and it should take a week or so. We ended up spending a little bit more to have it home sooner and safer.

From there we got another taxi to take us all back to Junction and spent the afternoon wandering around the mall, Marcus and I bought a few tshirts from a Kenyan tshirt brand called Bonk. In the early afternoon we went to a sushi restaurant for lunch. It was even better than the other sushi restaurant we had been eating at. Then we continued to wander around until we were hungry enough for dinner. We didn't think it was ever going to happen, but amazingly we did find enough space to go back to Medditeraneo and have a late dinner.

Saturday 18th June.

Medditeraneo madness: Part 3.

We spent the day packing up what has been our home for the past week and reorganising all of our stuff. Benne, Jimmy, Aileen and Emma got back from the coast, they had a pretty wild time and it made me even more glad that we had stayed in Nairobi and spent our week relaxing, rejuvenating and eating and drinking lots of yummy stuff.

I spoke to mum and dad again on skype, it might just be the last time we get internet fast enough until we get to Cairo, as we have heard that internet in Ethiopia and Sudan is hard to come by.

We went back to.... wait for it...... Medditeraneo for dinner with Marcus, Fiona and Jerome. By this stage the staff recognised us and were upset when we said we wouldn't be able to make it in again because we were leaving the country.

I was up until 2am writing week 7 of my blog and then had a really bad sleep afterwards. I don't know if it was because of revisiting all of the emotions experienced in Rwanda and writing about them in detail, or the anticipation of moving into the new truck tomorrow morning, getting good seats and getting back to truck life after our week of relative luxury. Perhaps a little from column A and a little from column B.

Sunday 19th June.

Survivor: African adventure.

We woke up and waited around impatiently to see the new truck. We are not getting our original truck back now because it is still in the shop getting revamped and they don't expect to be able to go through Syria so the company wanted the truck in East Africa, not stuck up North. No one had seen inside the new truck because Farron had kept it locked all week so that everyone had a fair chance at seats and those that had gone to the coast or to the Masaai Mara didn't miss out from not being around.

Finally Farron gathered everyone up and took us on a guided tour of our new home. It is so much smaller than the old truck, both in the lounge room and storage wise. It is also a different set up with the front half of the lounge room consisting of forward facing seats, the back half consisting of inward facing seats, and a row of seats along the back wall. There is under seat and above head storage space which is a bonus, but there is no beach (flat platform area at back of truck where you could sit or lay down on) which is a shame.

After the guided tour Farron asked everyone who wanted to sit in the front half to stand to the left, everyone who wanted to sit in the back half to stand to the right, and everyone who didn't care to stand in the middle. Then one by one the groups of people were let on to the truck to choose their seats.

Although it is well known that the only person who had a set seat is Farron and all the others are fair game, we all tend to stay in the same seats. Mainly because all of our crap is above, below, on and beside the seat that you sit on. For that reason there is not much moving around in the truck and you really want to make sure you like where you sit. We wanted to sit in the back half on the inward facing seats, preferably near Marcus and Fiona, and not near certain other people. The whole week at Karen Camp had resembled an episode of 'Survivor', with people conspiring to make sure they wanted to sit near certain people, or avoid certain others, there was a lot of insider trading going on with what other people wanted and who wanted to sit where.

Its funny how relatively little things can turn into massive things when you have nothing else to focus on.

In the end everyone was happy with their seats, and we got inward facing seats in the back half of the truck across from Marcus and Fiona. Phew.

We packed all of our stuff into our new home and said goodbye to Karen Camp for the last time at 11am. We stopped at Crossroads to do some shopping in the Nakumatt. Five cook groups had to shop and we were told to stock up for ourselves as well because the options will start to become real limited in Northern Kenya. This of course sent me straight into survival mode and I bought enough to live on for a good 3 months, plus every AA battery that Nakumatt had on its shelves.

We drove down a bad highway filled with potholes and surrounded by roadworks until we reached Bantu Lodge at the base of Mount Kenya (although Mount Kenya was no where to be seen). We set up our tent and headed for the bar. It is a nice enough place that has a river flowing around the property and a small lake  at the back, but it did feel somewhat like a school camp for indiscernible reasons.

We ordered some food, which took more than 2 hours to come out, and watched some bad African dance competition on tv. Almost ready for bed I ordered a mug of coffee for Jerome and a pot of tea for myself, and an hour later we were given one very small cup of hot water, some hot milk, some sugar and a spoonful of instant coffee in a bowl. That took them an hour.. Giving up we went to bed and watched a National Geographic documentary on the laptop about crocodiles in Africa.

Monday 20th June.

2 months today!

We had a bit of a sleep in, not getting up until 9.30am because as far as we knew we were leaving the camp at noon. When we got up we decided that we had enough time to enjoy breakfast before packing up our tent, luckily, because we found out that we were now staying another night because Farron was waiting on a truck part to be delivered from Nairobi.

We spent the day fishing and exploring the camp grounds, watching baboons, colobus and vervet monkeys play and taking photographs. Cook group made a really yummy chili concarne dish and after dinner us newbies celebrated our two month anniversary of being on the truck by playing drinking card games.

Tuesday 21st June.

T.I.A.

We left Bantu Lodge at 9.30am and had a cruisy drive, arriving in the very rural camp- Arches Post in Northern Kenya just after lunch time. Farron organised a game drive in the Samburu National Park 5 minutes down the dirt road. He thought that the fee paid for park entry was for a 24 hour period, not one calender day so he said we could do one afternoon drive and then a morning one tomorrow.

We had enough time to eat something and set up our tent and then we got in the truck and made our way to the park gates. Bu they had changed the rules so that entry was for one calender day, not a 24hr period so we went back to camp. T.I.A.

We ate dinner and went to bed early in anticipation of our early start for the game drive.

Wednesday 22nd June.

Samburu sensation.

We were up at 5.30am and on the truck  by 5.45am so that we could be at the gates to Samburu National Park at 6am when they opened. This was our first, and probably last, game drive in our home. It was nice to be in a truck with so much space and with all of our gear in easy reach. There was us, Marcus and Fiona, Lars, Jerome, Janet, Wil, Kate and Geoff so there was a lot of space.

We saw a lion, heaps of antelope, baboon and vervet. We also saw the 'Weird 5', 5 unique varieties of animal only found in this area being: the reticulated giraffe, a different type of zebra, the oryx, the girrantelope (a.k.a. the gerenook), and a different type of ostrich. It was a beautiful park with a wide river flowing through it lined by towering palm trees. We stopped along the river to have lunch and ate while watching antelope and zebra cautiously drink from the croc filled river, we finished lunch by warding of the gang of baboons that had surrounded us. There was one that was jumping on the roof of the truck and trying to climb up the stairs. Cheeky bugger.

We got back to camp at 3.30pm happy with our day and about 500 photos richer. There was the option of doing a Samburu village tour that Farron had organised. I was really keen to go and Alex came along too, it ended up being a private tour for the both of us because no one else wanted to join in. We were led on foot by a local Samburu woman to a village just outside the camp grounds. We were met at the gates to the village by 10 or so Samburu women singing a traditional welcome song for us. We were then led into the village circle where the women sang more songs for us including a traditional woman's celebration song that they got me to join in on.

We learnt that this village is populated by about 40 women and their children. There are no men here, and it is a kind of refuge village for women who ran away from home to escape early arranged marriage, or by those abandoned by their husbands and made un-marriageable by the abandonment. There were round mud brick houses with cow poo roofs that take 6 months to build and only last for 6 years, a center area where the animals are kept locked in using acacia branches, and a preschool and playground for the children.

The women had set up a little market for us to look at, filled with local crafts made by them. We bought a traditional Samburu beaded necklace and two tiny little Samburu beaded bracelets for my sisters twins. The baby bracelets are actually meant to be curtain holders or something similarly useless, but will make adorable bracelets and then maybe napkin holders when the babies grow out of them. I paid a pretty high price for the items, but knew it and didn't mind because all of the money made from tourists like us goes to sustaining the village and building more play equipment for the kids.

After the tour we were escorted back to camp by 10 or so women, singing us goodbye songs. It was so good and also a good opportunity to get photos of the Samburu people who refuse to be photographed and will yell at you if they catch you trying to get a sneaky snap. I spent the afternoon organising and re-touching photos. Cook group made a vegetable and potato stew and Alex was on clean group. Not long after he had finished cleaning, exhausted from our long day we went to bed and watched a movie.

Week 8

Thursday 9th June.

Trivia night at Fish Eagle Inn.

Breakfast at 8am and on the road by 9am. There was only about 80kms to drive today to the campsite on lake Naivasha where we will be staying for three nights. We said goodbye to Benne and Jimmy who were heading for Mombassa to meet up with Jan and have a few extra days on the coast. We stopped in Naivasha town and had 1.5hrs to do personal stocking up and shopping for three cook groups.

Making it to Fish Eagle Inn we thought for sure Farron had turned into the wrong campsite as we passed the signs for the pool, spa, sauna.... surely this place is not for us! But it was. Between the lake and the restaurant, pool, accommodation there was a huge block of grass where we were able to set up our tents. The lake itself was pretty ugly, it was really shallow and muddy and looked like a giant swamp. Alex couldn't fish because it illegal as it was off season, a shame for Alex but the first time we have seen evidence of responsible fishing in Africa. We couldn't swim in the lake, even if we wanted to- which we didn't- because for every 30 meters there was a hippo or two. But it was a nice setting with fresh grass, huge trees, heaps of Maribu Stalks (the giant ugly birds that evolution left behind, that not even a mother could love, that really pissed off mother nature!), and Colobus monkeys everywhere.

To have washing done at Fish Eagle was going to be stupidly expensive as they were charging between 100-200 shillings per item (about US$1.30-2.30) and they wouldn't wash underwear. We wandered across to the camp ground on the next property and asked at reception if they could do our washing. The young woman called someone to ask them, presumable her mum, and said that they could do it privately for 30 shillings a piece and that underwear was no problem. You got yourself a deal lady!

Alex, Aileen and Emma were on cook group and made roast potatoes and a really yummy minced meat sauce. Because we were not going anywhere for the next three days, and were not planning on doing any of the activities that included hiking and mountain bike riding through Hells Gate National Park, I got a bit cheeky and put cheese on my potato. Damn it tasted good.

After dinner we headed for the bar for a trivia night that Farron and Leigh had organised. I had enquired earlier what the prizes were and was promptly given the task of sorting out prizes if we wanted some. The teams were Alex and I; Marcus and Fiona; Emma and Aileen; Kate and Geoff; and Sheri, Wil and BJ. . There were four rounds with ten questions in each round. A lot of the questions were Africa related, or related to the trip we had done so far and the people in our group. There were also some general knowledge questions, some celebrity questions, some mathematical questions, and some nature questions, and one riddle question. Farron and Leigh did such a good job with the questions and we had a lot of fun answering them. In the end there was a draw between Emma and Aileen and Wil, Sheri and BJ so Leigh came up with a showdown question. The final result was: 1st- Wil, Sheri and BJ; 2nd- Emma and Aileen; 3rd- Marcus and Fiona; 4th- Kate and Geoff; 5th-Alex and I.

The prize for coming 1st was a body warmer (thanks Box Hill Hospital), a condom, and whoever came last had to do their cleaning for one dinner time. 2nd got a body warmer, a pair of disposable earplugs, and whoever came 3rd had to put up their tents once on demand. 3rd got a body warmer, a mini sewing kit, and whoever came 2nd had to give them a giant bear hug. 4th got nothing because when I making the prizes I didn't know how many teams there were going to be. Whoever came last- that would be us- got congratulated on being a loser, a body warmer, one Australian dollar, and they (we) had to do whatever the 1st, 2nd and 3rd place teams told them to do for 30 minutes, plus do the dinner clean for whoever came first on their demand. Damn!

It was really good fun, and after our 30 minutes of servitude were up and we had had a few more drinks we called it a night and went to Helsinki, the name of our tent, and watched a movie.

Friday 10th June.

High tea time.

Overnight I heard a bunch of hippos and also what sounded like a pack of about 1,000 wolves. It made the trek across the giant grassy field to the toilet block in the middle of the night more interesting, and a little hair raising!

Emma, Aileen and Alex made really nice omelet for breakfast, which I indulged in as my tummy was already upset from the cheese the night before, so why the hell not. We spent the rest of the morning relaxing and watching colobus monkeys playing in the acacia trees above us. They make such a deep, glutteral sound and were jumping from tree to tree. Mid morning we went to the tent to have a nanna-nap and were woken up in the afternoon, just in time to go for high tea at Elsamere. Elsamere is the home of Joy and George Adamsonhippy, and together they passionate and successful animal conservationists. we went with Farron, Leigh, Jerome, Mark, Lars, Sheri, and Wil. After watching a 40 minute documentary on the life of Joy and George Adamason

We got back to camp just in time for cook group to start on dinner, Lars was making a traditional Norwegian dish which was apparently really nice, but I didn't try it as it was full of milk and cheese and my stomach was really making me suffer for the indulgence of the past few days. I took the laptop up to the bar to charge it and use the wifi. I was feeling pretty crappy in the tummy so we went to bed fairly early and watched a movie.

Saturday 11th June.

27 Hippos.

After a lovely sleep-in we went up to the bar mid-morning and jumped on the net. The internet was far to slow to skype but I was able to chat with mum via facebook chat, and messaged dad who was up at the houseboat on Lake Eildon.

Farron told us that he had found out that the Australian Embassy in Nairobi is shut on Monday because there is a public holiday in Australia. Lazy buggers. So now we aren't able to catch the overnight train to Mombassa because the train only leaves on Monday and Friday nights. I'm really disappointed by this because I was so looking forward to catching the train. We considered catching the overnight bus to Mombasa and train back to Nairobi but we cant even do that because the train only runs from Mombassa to Nairobi on Tuesday and Sunday nights and we are leaving for Ethiopia on Sunday. Bugger bugger bugger. We could get the overnight bus both ways, but I was more excited about the overnight train than I was about getting to the coast for two nights.

We grabbed some lunch at the neighbouring campsite and I made myself feel better with a bit of retail therapy. There was a bunch of little stalls set up on the ground along the fence line between our place and next door. I got dad a funny wooden bowl with a giraffe on it for his 60th birthday, got myself a mask and some soapstone bookends, and got 27 colourful soapstone hippos, three for me and the rest for presents. 27 hippos... sounds like a C-grade movie.

It was my cook group night with Marcus and Fiona and we made a vegetarian rice stir fry. We had been thinking about going into Hells Gate National Park where there was an annual wheelbarrow race and rave party but decided not to as I was still suffering from the cheese, and it started pissing down with rain. Jerome checked it out and said that we hadn't missed out on anything and the rave party was not what we were imagining it would be. We spent the rest of evening trying to decide what to do with our week off the truck, considered maybe doing a three day safari in the Masai Mara and went to bed no closer to a final decision. 

Stay tuned.....

Sunday 12th June.

Let the layover begin.

Marcus, Fiona and I were up early to get breakfast ready for 8am. We laid out the usual cereals, got the water on the fire to boil for coffee and tea, and made a batch of scrambled eggs. There was a truck clean booked in for 9am. We all, well most of us, got stuck in taking everything out of the truck, cleaning all of the cooking equipment, all of the tuppaware, the utensils, cutlery, plates, bowls and cups, we cleaned out all of the storage containers, went through all of the food and sorted the good from the bad and the ugly.

We were finished cleaning and on the road by 10.10am. Not a bad effort, I guess many hands to make work light. and those hands that stood and watched instead of helping clean got a lot of dirty looks.

We arrived at Karen Camp, Nairobi in the afternoon and officially started our week layover off the truck. We upgraded to a tent (i know, i know it sounds strange) that had a comfy bed, a bedside table with a light and spare power socket, a chair and a nice comfy feel. We ordered in for dinner with Marcus, Fiona, Fiona's friend Amelia, Farron, Leigh, Wil, Sheri and Tony and had sushi delivered to camp. It wasn't fantastic sushi but it tasted amazing because it had been so long since any of us had eaten anything like it.

Monday 13th June.

Posting from the Posta.

Had a nice sleep in. Once up and fed we caught a taxi to the nearest shopping mall, Crossroads, with Marcus and Fiona. We headed for the Posta (post office) to send dad's birthday present home. It would take about 6 days and cost US$25 to send. Much better than the three days delivery time and US$150 that DHL had quoted us.

We went back to Karen Camp and I called mum and dad. Tomorrow is dad's big 6-0 birthday and mum had organised a surprise birthday party for him today. It was so nice to speak to them, dad sounded like he was having an absolute ball, I would have loved to have been able to be there and celebrate with him. The rest of the afternoon we tried to figure out what we wanted to do with the remainder of our week off. The Masaai Mara would be awesome, but very expensive. The beach would be fun, but we would spend most of our time travelling. I sent a few email enquiries to hotels in Mombassa and down at Diani beach where  Benne and Jimmy were. We said goodbye to Emma and Aileen who were headed for Diani beach as their embassy had been open and they were able to get their letter of recommendation from their embassy so that they could get their Sudanese visas.

Went to bed not much closer to a decision, but no longer considering the Maasai Mara.

Tuesday 14th June.

Visa run.

We were in a taxi by 7.30am driving through the crazy peak hour traffic of Nairobi on a mission to get Sudanese visas with Jerome, Kate, Geoff and Farron.  Our first stop was a photocopy place where we had to get copies of a credit card each. Don't ask me why, its just something the Sudanese government likes I guess. We had copied ours the day before but had been a little to try-hardish and had copied both sides of our credit cards so that any person with half a brain could go on a shopping spree because there was our signature and the CVC security number on the back.

From there we went to the Australian embassy. Entering we had to surrender our mobile phones, and ipods because they look like phones, we had to send our bags through an xray machine and walk through a metal detector.  We all handed in our passport to the correct window and sat down and waited for them to type up our letters of recommendation.

Letters in hand we got back in the taxi and went to the Sudanese embassy. The security was not nearly as strict and we walked in through what looked like a side entrance with a really happy security guard. Once in their Farron handed in everyone's passport, credit card copies, two passport photos, letters of recommendation and 4,000 Kenyan shillings (US$46.50). Farron said that there was no point all of us hanging around because it would probably be a long wait with nothing to do, so Kate and Geoff walked to a local market and Jerome, Alex and I got the taxi driver to take us back to Crossroads where we grabbed some lunch and a coffee.

We went back to Karen Camp and relaxed the afternoon away on the couches before going out to a Japanese restaurant for dinner with Farron, Mark, Kate and Geoff, BJ, Lars, Fiona and Marcus and Fiona's friends Amelia and her partner. It was a nice night with way too much food, nice wine, gross sake, great company and many laughs.

Wednesday 15th June.

Sarit center madness.

By this stage we had decided to just stay in Nairobi and explore the city, go shopping, eat lots of yummy food and just hang out rather than rush around catching overnight buses for what would turn out to be only one full day at the beach.

We got a taxi with Marcus, Fiona and Amelia to a huge shopping mall called the Sarit Center, behind which is an even bigger market. We went to the market to do some hard bargaining and walked away with a really nice mask, some Masaai statues, some soapstone bowls, and a really nice mirror made out of a traditional Masaai necklace.

Exhausted and hungry from all of our hard work, we went back into the Sarit Center and headed straight for the food court. It was immediately a very strange experience. We were shown to a table by someone who we presumed worked for the shopping mall, then as soon as our bums hit the cold and uncomfortable metal seats we were surrounded by about 10 people all throwing menus at us. After a few dizzying minutes Amelia finally cracked and asked everyone very politely, but loudly and sternly to back off for a few minutes so that we could have a chance to look at all of the different menus.  After we had decided what we wanted we signaled to the waiters who came rushing back like eager seagulls. We all ordered from different places, I got some satay chicken and chicken and sweet corn soup, and Alex got fried chicken. We walked around for a bit longer and then got a taxi back to Karen Camp.

We chilled for the rest of the afternoon and ordered in again for dinner from the Japanese restaurant, but ordered from the Chinese menu and I ended up getting more chicken and sweet corn soup. Yum!

Week 7

Thursday 2nd June.

Back to the Kabale Hilton.

Woke up to the most beautiful view from our upgrade tent looking out over lake Bunyonyi. I spent the morning sitting on our 'balcony' writing weeks 3 and 4 of my blog while Alex walked around the lake fishing. He didn't catch anything but had a nice morning. We spent the rest of the day bumming around in the sun, eating and relaxing.

We left the lake at 5pm to make our way slowly down the shitty road, the alternative was to stay there another night and leave crazy early in the morning, so as much as we would have loved to have stayed at Lake Bunyonyi another night we were also happy not to have an early morning. We got back to the same 'hotel' in Kabale and set up our mats and sleeping bags in the hall again. Alex and Aileen were on cook group, and having lost Andrea in Rwanda, Emma joined their group. They made a yummy vegetable, curry, soupy thing. I spent the whole evening and night doing sweet F.A., laying on my mat in the scout hall type place playing games on the laptop and watching movies.

Friday 3rd June.

Adrift in Jinga, Uganda.

We were up at 5am and on the road at 6am. We drove all day only stopping three times. Once for breakfast at the petrol station we had lunch at on the way to Kable. Alex, Aileen and Emma set out cereals and bread in front of the truck in the petrol station and Marcus and I cleaned crouched on the ground of the petrol station. We stopped for lunch at the aids orphan shop we had breakfast at on the way to Kabale and got another chicken and avocado wrap. Delicious. We stopped once more just before the camp in Jinja at a mini mart/service station so cook group could buy some supplies for their sweet'n'sour sausages and rice dinner.

Arriving at Adrift Camp, Jinja, Uganda we were pleasantly surprised at how nice it was. We set up our tents on a small patch of grass between the bar and the toilets and set ourselves up in the bar. The bar looks over the great Nile River, which after our jaunt back to Nairobi we will be following all the way to Egypt. Also, from the bar you can sit and watch people do the 45 meter bungy jump and get dipped in the Nile. I didn't even think for a second that I might like to do it again, mum and dad will be pleased no doubt. There was also free wifi which is very exciting, but also was very slow.  Hopefully I will be able to skype mum and dad.

I forgot to mention that we have crossed the equator 4 times at this stage. We have to cross back into the Northern Hemisphere again making it 5 times in total. Pretty impressive!

Saturday 4th June.

Nile perch bonanza.

Alex was up early to go fishing in Nile. I slept in and then made my way to the bar to try and upload some photos. I managed to post some of my blog, but was unable to upload photos because the internet was so slow. I tried to call mum and dad on skype but it was to slow.

Alex came up for lunch, happy as a pig in s**t because he had caught some Nile perch. After lunch he went back to fishing and Felix and I caught a taxi into town with Mark and Jan so that we could buy stuff for dinner. I ended up spending most of the time in the line for an ATM while Felix ran down to the market to grab supplies.

Had a chilled out night sitting in the bar, watching the sun set over the Nile and organising photos.

Sunday 5th June.

Welcome home Farron and Leigh.

Had a relaxing day doing nothing much at all (its a hard life hey...). We watched as Jimmy, Benne, Aileen and Emma bungied, Alex went fishing and caught more Nile perch. He also hooked a massive fish which snapped his smaller rod. Impressively he managed to fix it 'McGuiver style' with some paper, glue and duct tape.

I managed to speak to mum and dad by calling their mobile phone via Skype. It was a pretty bad connection with bad feedback, long delays and it kept on cutting in and out, but it was so nice to hear their voices and their laughter. It made me feel close to home again even though I was sitting in a bar looking over the Nile River. I felt rejuvenated after speaking to them and then to make a good day even better, Farron and Leigh arrived at 5pm. It is so nice to have them home again, we all missed them.

Cook group made a really nice beef and potato stew and Farron made his dinner time speech about what we can expect the next day. Everything back to normal and how it should be again.

Just before bed I organised with the guys at the bar for Alex to get a big cooked breakfast in the morning for his birthday. The kitchen didn't open until 8am but we were leaving at that time, so they very generously said that they would open earlier and cook the brekky.

Monday 6th June.

Happy 29th Birthday to Alex!!!

I got up at 7am to make sure Alex's breakfast was being cooked and to grab his birthday present from Benne who had been stashing it for me ever since I bought it at Nungwi Beach, Zanzibar.

At 7.30am sharp Alex was up at the truck about to grab himself some breakfast when I gave him his big cooked breakfast and painting (I got him a large painting of lots of blue fish swimming in a circle. It kind of resembles a Magic Eye picture). He also received a bottle of Amarula from Mark, a really yummy, creamy liquor. While he ate his breakfast I went to pack down the tent and Mark kindly gave me  hand so that Alex didn't have to do it on his birthday.

Taking off at 8am we drove most of the day to get to our next camp closer to Nairobi on the shores of Lake Victoria. We arrived in the afternoon and set up our tents, making sure we weren't underneath a sausage tree. Lake Victoria, or at least the part we could see from camp, was like a big ugly swamp. Not at all what I had imagined. The camp was also 'different'... it looked like it would be the perfect setting for a haunting or bloodshed horror type movie setting.

Amazingly though it had free wifi and was unbelievable fast. Faster than any internet I have ever used, ever! Thanks to this I managed to upload hundreds of photos, but unfortunately it was the middle of the night in Australia and we would be leaving early in the morning so couldn't skype anyone. Alex gave a big Nile Perch to the staff who said that they would cook it for us and we were told that cook group could have the night off because we were all going to order from the bar. It had been organised that we meet up with another African Trails truck as one of the guys on it had traveled down the west side (Marrakesh to Cape Town) with our crew. It was like witnessing a large family reunion. Fun was going to be had!

Alex's fish came out perfectly cooked and absolutely delicious, there was enough for everyone to have a small portion of it which was good. We all ordered out food which came out in drips and drabs. I ordered a 'fillet steak' (read: a small piece of bone with some fat, leather and griscle attached), but it was nice to be able to order a meal and sit down at a table and eat with everyone. Everyone was buying Alex drinks for his birthday and Darny, our replacement driver while Farron was away played a drinking game with Alex, and a few other unsuspecting victims. It went a little something like this: Alex had to mimic Darny's every move, much like a game of Simon says, but if he failed then he had to drink whatever Darny gave him to drink. Darny put his arms in the air, Alex put his arms in the air. Darny poked his tongue out and made a funny face, Alex poked his tongue out and made a funny face. Darny took his shot of tequila, Alex took his shot of tequila. Darny spat his shot of tequila back into the shot glass, Alex failed to spit his back into the glass. Alex had to drink Darny's spat out shot of tequila. Gross but very funny!

Aileen came to the truck and helped me make a fairy bread cake for Alex. She had never even heard of fairy bread before and I was happy to spread the joy around the world, she will now take fairy bread back to Canada and spread the word. We gave Alex the giant plate of fairy bread while everyone sang happy birthday to him.

Best. Cake. Ever!

The celebrations continued into the night, songs were sung, eels ate straws and fun was had. A great night all up.

Tuesday 7th June.

Nice camp in the making.

We had breakfast of avocado on toast and made our way to the next camp. We stopped for lunch in a small town and grabbed some meat and chapati. We got to camp in the afternoon and upgraded to a really nice permanent tent for Alex's birthday. Mum and Dad had sent him with a birthday card with some US$ inside, so that paid for the upgrade for two nights. It was a really nice place, everything was brand spanking new. Although there was no internet, no food at the bar, and there was meant to be a watering hole- but it hadn't been dug yet.

A game drive in Nakuru National Park, famous for the pink flamingos, was organised for the following morning. It worked out to be US$60 each for park entry and 1,000 shillings each for the safari car (US$11.60).

Cook group made roast beef and potatoes. It was Felix's last night on the truck so we had a few drinks and said goodbye to him. We also fare welled Jan, Benne, Jimmy, Darny and Janet who were all being driven to Nairobi in the morning. The week layover was originally planned to start this week, but had been delayed a week so that we could cruise back to Nairobi and stop at Hell's Gate National Park. The boys however had a plan to go to head down to the coast and took the opportunity to spend an extra week there, Felix's dad was arriving from Germany, and Janet's husband was arriving in Nairobi from Scotland for a week, whom she hadn't seen in over 7 months. We were also missing Fiona who had left to go to Nairobi from Jinja so that she could send her passport back to England to get an Ethiopian visa, because when we organised them in Harare, she was meant to be finishing in Nairobi and had not yet extended to Cairo, so didn't get one. It was weird having such a small group! We went to bed at a reasonable time and watched a movie, still tired from the birthday celebrations and knowing that we had to get up really early in the morning.

Wednesday 8th June.

Rhino, flamingo, and much more in Lake Nakuru N.P.

We woke up refreshed and ready for the day after a brilliant sleep in the most comfortable bed so far. Our safari car was there to pick us up at 6am as planned. There was me and Alex, Lars, Marcus, Aileen, Jerome, Geoff and BJ. Nakuru National Park was only about 15 minutes drive away from our camp so we were there when the gates opened and as the morning mist was still settled over the plains. It is a small park, only about 150 square kilometers,but it holds a great concentration of most animals, except for elephants because the park isnt big enough for even one nellie, let alone a whole family.

We saw everything we could have hoped to see, another brilliant game drive. We saw black and white rhino, thousands of pelican and pink flamingos, lions that had just finished with a buffalo carcass and we watched as hyena and jackall moved in to finish the job, there was two adolescent male lions with the beginnings of a mane fast asleep in the shade of a sign, baboons, vervet monkeys, giraffe, zebra, many different species of antelope including waterbuck, and right at the end of the drive as we were heading out of the park we caught a glimpse of a colobus monkey.

We stopped for lunch at Lake Nukuru Lodge, a fancy pants lodge in the middle of the park. Getting back to camp at 6pm we bought our driver Peter a beer, which he well and truely deserved after driving us around for 12 hours. We were told when we arrived home that there was no cook group as Farron had organised some locals to cook us a feast. They made a yummy roast potato and bean stew with a mountain of chipati bread. After dinner Benne and Jimmy had everything set up for a beer-pong tournament, but we were all so buggered from the massive game drive the tournament had to be postponed and we went to bed to watch a movie on the laptop.