Masai Mara

First stop today was Naivasha township where Julie's case had finally been brought by courier, having failed to board her plane to Nairobi five days ago. Another quick supply shop.

We had been warned that it was going to take us a long time to cover a short distance today, and it certainly did. A couple of hours down the road we passed through Narok, and the made road ran out. It was a bumpy dirt road full of pot holes for the next 5 hours - an African massage as Amos described it.

Talking of which, I'd better introduce the crew. It's a three man crew this time. Amos is the tour leader and all round organiser. Basically he's the one with the unlimited phone plan for making bookings and retrieving lost luggage. Amos actually grew up in the Kibera slum, and eventually worked to put himself through college, so there is hope yet.

Noah is our cook extraordinaire, who seems to be able to whip up a 2 course meal for 12 in a frypan and two saucepans.

Patrick is our driver, and after 10 years with Kumuka knows all of the side tracks, which he actually needed today. After a couple of hours the bumpy two lane dirt road became a one lane road, and an hour later it degenerated into a track. The only other vehicle we saw on the track was a broken down Coke delivery van. They really do go everywhere. Finally the track disappeared all together, and Noah bumped the truck across the paddocks and over the hills till a Masai village appeared out of nowhere. Presumably they had mobile phones and were expecting us, as they were dressed in their traditional robes ready to greet us.

After shaking hands, and double counting the US$35 they extracted from each of us, they started the well rehearsed show. The chief's son wearing a lion's head led the warrior dance, complete with the required participation from the guys in our tour group. Later on we found that the jumping we had been doing was a contest, and that the highest jumper got the most girlfriends. Not surprisingly they all wished that they had tried harder - not me of course.

Not to be outdone, the ladies of the village had a much sedater dance for our girls to join in. After that we broke up into pairs to visit a house in the village. Our guide was Jackson, who showed us his mother's house as he wasn't married, and explained lots of the Masai customs and traditions to us. Some I won't go into here, but arranged marriages and multiple wives are some, providing of course that you have a dowry of three cows, five sheep and two blankets for each. Actually it turns out that this is common and not just for the Masai - our driver had to pay the same price for his wife.

The Masai women are the workers. They build the house from cow and elephant dung, and remake it every few years when it falls apart. They raise the children, cook the food, carry the water and plow the garden. When asked what the men do, the answer was "Umm, we are the warriors who fight off the lions." Inevitably the visit finished at the village craft market where we sorely disappointed them by not purchasing anything. Why, we were asked, do Australians dislike our wooden things? Quarantine is such a difficult thing to explain while watching African animals migrate thousands of miles across several countries.

Finally we got back to the bus, and arrived at our campsite on the river at dusk. Normal setup, and tea. No power or lights at this camp, but we do have cold water and pit toilets. Animals are all around, and we hired Masai warriors to guard the campsite during the night, and accompany us to the toilets.