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Mmmm birthday cake . . .
Up, pack, breakfast and into the car. Mariko enjoyed her first night ever camping at the age of 26, its weird as as a kid camping a lot, I love it but I wonder how virgin campers feel. Maybe a bit dirty, or tired from lack of sleep, or frustrated with the tent. Who knows, all I know is that me and mariko are both very messy girls and just sprawl our stuff all over the tent which makes losing things very easy!
On route for the seringetti our first stop was a trip to a masai village. Here we were greeted with a song and dance from the people to welcome us into their village. We went straight into a jumping contest with the guys of the village and the guys of the group. Traditionally, a guy would kill a lion for marriage, but as tourist come to see lions bringing money with them they now jump for the occassion. Which is why all paintings and sculptures are of masai jumping.
This is then followed by us ladies getting the beaded necklaces popped on our necks to do a shoulder dance thing that makes the necklace bounce around.
After, we are shown how they make a fire from scratch, milk a cow and how they build their houses-purely from sticks for the frame then filled in by wet cow dung which dries out solid.
We have a little visit into the house of the head woman whose husband had died not to long ago, and normally when this happens they leave the village they have built and start a new one but due to land and the government I believe they can't do that anymore.
We let the masai use our cameras as they are fascinated, as are they fascinated with me having turquoise nails. Rox gets peed on by a baby masai, I go for a pee, and after roughly an hour at the village we leave.
Next stop is an orphanage in a village, where we pop in to give out the stuff bruce has brought over from canada, which consists of whistles, little balls, footballs and a teddy bear from the football team he coaches back home.
As we had arrived during their lesson time it was a quick in and out as we didn't want to disturb their lessons too much. So me chucking a little ball at the kids playing catch and throw probably wasn't the best idea!
Back in the car and we get to ngorongoro gate, where we stop off for a toilet break and for farhini to over blabber in the info centre showing us on a 35 map where we are travelling to and stopping over the next 3days, all I kept hearing was about how there is one road in and one road outta the crater due to it being so deep, I wish I had kept count. Again I don't know how people didn't show their boredom on this one, african time though I suppose, or just a guide that likes to talk and repeat himself, get it drilled into our heads.
So we get a transit visa and drive throughv ngorongoro where we stop to take a pic of the crater.
We stop at the gorge on the way to have din dins, which was a pack lunch looking out over the gorge. My replacement for not eating chicken is a full packet of chocolate cream biscuits, so I share them out.
We have a guide talk to us about the gorge and the work the woman did here(temporarily forgot her name), but she found footprints from cavepeople time that had been preserved there. This is something else I must put on my to google list to refresh my memory. We popped into the museum and read the walls before getting back into the car and driving to our serengetti campsite.
It was great, we had the campsite to ourselves tonight. We jumped in showers, dumped bags in tents etc and got ready for tea.
The red wine got cracked open, food got served as we were sitting under a long open tent thing on one long table. So it was soup, followed by a meat rice dish and vegetables, followed by a birthday cake they had made for judy at the campsite. It was amazing, all iced and everything, so we sang happy birthday and had a slice each, it was a very airy caked and was yummy though the icing was very sickly, the white and bold green icing.
We sat round the fire drinking our wine, chatting, some drinking scotch. David had bought some konyagi, and we all were given some to drink straight, every hated it, but I loved it, no surprise there the canadians hating what I love, but its just like gin.
There was a thunder storm going on in the background so the cameras had been out with their slow shutter speed to capture it, so shermin got me to use my windy up torch and draw circles all around everyone sitting at the camp. And I never knew you could do this but the finished effect was you could see everywhere the torch had been it was great, so I did one writing my name quickly, and later on in the trip I master this light skill!
So I popped to bed, where I could here something in the bushed near by, and one of the guys who works there came over to investigate, and I saw him inspect the grass just behind the tent where I had brushed my teeth and spat, and I could see him trying to figure out what it was, it was dark I suppose, but not sure what the creature was sneaking around. While I lay there I could here the guys round the camp fire chatting and laughing and the hyenas making there awhoop sounds not too far in the distance. Half an hour after me the others retired to bed.xx
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