Overland Tour 22-24 of 35

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So we dropped off a few peeps and picked up 16 more early this am. We got on the road apprehensively as our first impression of the new people was slightly askew (oldies and no one cool looking lol). About 30 minutes down the road we got a call and stopped the truck to wait for two people we forgot to pick up. HAHAHAHAHA!!!! Our tour leader didn’t even count everyone when we all left! So then two more Aussies came in a taxi and we proceeded down the road. We stopped at a view point of the Great Rift Valley and snapped a few candids on the way to the Masai Mara. After a super long and bumpy ride with this new truck (it had no power going up hills) we arrived at a campground owned by the same company that owns the bus. Despite having no power, toilet paper, or cold beer, we didn’t have to pitch tents in the dark as there were permanent tents set up for us. How luxurious!!!! The next morning we arose early for a game drive in the Masai Mara. The Ngorongoro crater, Serengeti, and Masai Mara are the same landscape/environmental area but governments like to draw imaginary lines to profit sooooo we are in the Kenyan side now. Lots of animals to see but this was around my 7^th safari so I wasn’t too keen on stopping for every giraffe, zebra, or buffalo. We did see some fun animals up close such as the bat-eared fox and some hyenas carrying a zebra head. Hehehe. Not much else to report except most of the new people decided to visit a Masai village for a cultural tour. As 4 of us already did this in Tanzania we knew it was a huge sham and quite a big scam. Buuuuuut we didn’t realize the newbies would be taken for so much. One lady bought a Masai blanket (which I got from a guy for $6), a bracelet (which I paid $1), and a Lion’s tooth necklace (which it wasn’t a lion’s tooth cuz that would be super illegal) all for the low low price of $120 USD. Jeeeeeeeeeeeez……This fat family of four from South Africa neeeeeded one of these copper bracelets and paid $20 for one. I paid a mango and an empty fanta bottle. Hahahahaha. We are with a bunch of goons! Whatever! But we had another night in these permanent tents so we didn’t have to put ours up or take them down the next day. So relaxing. Another long drive was in the mix for us and it was made even longer by the problems with the truck. We had such problems that the itinerary changed so we ended up at Kericho instead of Kisumu. All good for me as we stayed at a place called Tea Hotel and the area was famous for and plump full of tea plantations. I organized a tour of a tea field and got like 10 people to join. Great info from the dude and afterwards I stayed behind to pick some tea of my own! I grabbed enough for a new year’s plan reminiscent of our xmas party. New year’s gin was the goal so we purchased a bottle of local gin for a whopping $3.40 and after a few days of drying the tea leaves we submerged them in the gin for enough time so the color changed and the gin was infused with the tea flavor. Soooooo coooooool. That’s all for this blog and we’re in for another long ass drive to Kampala in the morn.

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