Back to London

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So we've now arrived back in London, and I think I'm in utter shock that we're going to be in Canada tomorrow afternoon... not sure how I can be in shock about it, since that's been the plan for months and months, but I can't believe how fast the time has flown by. On the one hand, it seems like yesterday that we left the UK, and on the other hand, seems like a lifetime ago.

We crossed the border from Tanzania into Kenya relatively easily, although it did take a loooooong time for the border officials to process our visas. We spent the night at a campsite about one kilometer over the border into Kenya, where monkeys ran wild around the camp and through the trees. The next morning we awoke bright and early and headed to Nairobi, where we stopped off in the city centre to do some errands, and then moved onto a campsite. Nairobi has a reputation for high crime (nicknamed "Nairobbery" by a lot of ex pats), but it seems perfectly fine in the downtown areas during the day - I think you just have to be sensible, as with anywhere.

We arrived at the campsite and checked into our rooms - no actual camping this time!! There were six of us sleeping in one dorm, and it ended up being a rather painful night for me, as I will detail in a moment. But once we checked in, we took turns repacking our bags in the confined space, and spent the rest of the afternoon and evening hanging out and generally making nuisances of ourselves to the other guests.

We all went to bed reasonably early, and although there were mosquito nets in the room, nobody used them (except Paul, who was sleeping on the bunk above me, and did NOT pull his net over my bunk. He claims he didn't know it was big enough to cover the two, but I'm not entirely buying it.) Anyway, when I woke up the next morning, my hands had been quite badly bitten by mosquitoes, and I had a few ugly bites on my face as well. Over the next couple of hours, my hands and fingers swelled so badly that I almost couldn't bend my fingers or even make a fist. It was incredibly itchy and painful... and not to mention very, very unsightly. Fortunately they've returned to normal now, but it took a few days for all of the swelling to reduce. I guess if there's one thing I've learned over the last six months it's that I indeed have a crippling allergy to foreign mosquitoes.

The next morning we got up, said goodbye to Kat and the rest of the crew, and transferred onto a new truck headed for the Masai Mara. This was a different experience entirely, and, as Paul pointed out, really made all of us appreciate the experience we had for the six weeks.

Our new leader was, to put it mildly, awful. She was loud, rude and rather vulgar, and continually did stupid things like leave our money for the park entrance lying around the truck, where the notes would blow around in the wind near the open windows. At one point, she accused one of the Masai of pickpocketing her, when in fact she'd merely left a wallet in a bag on the truck. We're quite confident that she was also skimming money off the food budget as well, considering in six weeks we'd always had huge amounts of food, with plenty left over - and we actually ran out on the first night with her. It was actually kind of funny, and I'm sure she hated the nine of us as we were probably know-it-alls about everything, but we all left feeling like we'd had a wonderful crew the first time around.

The drive into the Masai Mara was very eventful. A few weeks ago in Tanzania we'd had a minor breakdown in our first truck, but the driver managed to get it sorted out fairly quickly without any hassle. This time, as we drove into the park, there had recently been heavy rains and the truck kept getting stuck. We'd drive for a bit, and then the huge thing would fishtail and get stuck in ruts on either side of the road. The boys in our group were incredibly eager to help get the thing out (I think it made them feel manly), so every time we bogged, they'd jump out and push the enormous truck until we managed to get free. In the end, I think we were delayed by about four or five hours, but it was a cool adventure (especially when we had to walk for a few kilometers along side it in the bush!)

The Masai Mara itself was interesting - game viewing wasn't outstanding, but it's the luck of the draw and you can't always expect to see amazing herds of animals every time. We did see some elephants and a lion, as well as the usual zebras and giraffes, but it made me very glad that we'd seen as much as we did in Etosha/Chobe/Serengeti. We also stopped briefly at a lodge where the group became cornered by about six terrifying baboons. They were seriously scary: they're huge (about half my height, maybe even taller), with disgusting yellow eyes and are definitely bitey and scratchy. They coralled us on two sides of a bridge and they walked along the twelve inches of space in front of us as we flattened ourselves against the one side of the bridge in avoidance. A few people got smacked by one of them but I managed to avoid touching them entirely. Terrifying, really.

Later that day we had the option to look around a Masai village or simply go back to the camp. I opted to go back to the camp (without Paul, who was looking in the village) when Nick, one of the boys in our group, asked a Masai warrior if he could buy the knife he was carrying. Within minutes, all the boys in the group had knives, and were urging me to buy one for Paul, as he would be the only guy without one. We argued the point for about forty five minutes until I finally caved in, and one of the warriors went to get one for me. (Masai weapons are incredibly important to the men - they use them to kill lions, which is pretty spectacular.) And after I kept insisting that Paul would never want one of these, he LOVED it! Honestly.

That night was our last night together, and we just spent it chatting and drinking cupfuls of Amarula (a fantastically delicious African liqueur, kind of like Bailey's but far better). We got up the next day and transferred onto a shuttle to take us back to Nairobi, as the rest of our new group under the hideous tour leader were continuing into Uganda and Congo to see the mountain gorillas. Once we got to Nairobi Paul and I sneakily put our stuff into Nick and Chris' room so we could later have a shower before our flight. We spent the afternoon hanging out with the two of them (had a nice chapati-filled lunch at a nearby local cafe) and generally awkwardly doing nothing as one does before saying goodbye. We then met up with rest of the group for dinner, and then it was time for us to hit the road. It was actually really sad - I can't remember the last time I laughed as much as I did over the past few weeks, and we were all saying how lucky we were to have met such nice people. I'm sure we'll all catch up with each other again, but I was definitely blue, and I miss everyone a lot. At least it's easy to keep in touch though.

Our flight to London was exhausting, as it left at around midnight and I spent eight hours attempting to sleep. Fortunately, we'd booked a day room at a Heathrow hotel, so we were able to have a rest and a shower before we headed off to Oxford to see Jacob and Mari and collect the last of our UK possessions. It was nice to see them and have a catch up over the last six months.

We've spent the last few days in London doing touristy things, and Gill, Kevin, Nicola and Leon all came down here to see us, so it's been fantastic seeing them again. Nicola heads back to Edinburgh this afternoon, but we'll see Gill and Kevin and probably Leon again before we go. And I'll definitely post a final blog when we get to Canada so my devoted fans (I'm sure there's at least one of you) will know that we made it back.

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