Thursday, August 30, 2012

Saturday, August 25, 2012

                The bonus about not doing the balloon ride was that we were able to sleep in a bit this morning before heading out to meet up with the group – the downside is that the hotel didn’t get the right tent number and came and woke us up at 6am!  It was sad…but I’m sure they have a lot of people to try and remember!

                We drove to the park gates where we were to wait for the balloon people and because we were there anyway, S.K. decided to have something fixed on the car…and fixed…and more parts needed…and it was quite the process!  The car was jacked up by putting the jack onto a rock in order to achieve the height needed.  Then, when the jack was needed for something else in the wheel well, they used a stump of a tree to hold the van up!  It was a very interesting process and I am still amazed that the entire repair took only 1.5h!

                It was a frustrating 1.5h because we knew we had a 6h drive ahead of us today…but stopping was interesting because lots of local Maasai people came over to talk to us.  The guys seem to be quite well educated and are interested in going to university and the majority speak English fluently.  However, we didn’t see many females and the ones we did see were mainly attempting to sell us things.  We gave the guys Canada pins and they proceeded to put them in the already existing holes in their ears! It was pretty funny.  They all wanted my watch in exchange for something they had –but I am useless without a watch, so I couldn’t give it up.  Had I known that was a hot commodity, I could have brought a few old, still working, watches from home!  Next time!

                We survived the bumpy road of the Mara and stopped at another curio shop to use the washrooms…and I totally caved in and bought a giraffe – that I really didn’t need to buy!  Uggg…now I am going to have to figure out how to get him home.  I think I am going to be able to construct a cardboard box that I can put him in so that I can check him as luggage!  We’ll see.  It will definitely make my last day here more interesting!

                The rest of the drive was long, but rather uneventful.  We decided to skip lunch and go to the shop Dee recommended “The Collectors Den” instead.  It was a great stop because the prices were so good and the quality of the items was excellent.  There was everything from little souvenirs to art.  It was great.  I really looked hard at some Tanzanite, and when I thought I had made up my mind to get some, I was mistaken on the price and that threw me off completely and I decided to not bother with it.  I am fantastically horrible at spending money.  I did get a couple more serving spoon sets and things like that.  All good.

                The hotel was the same as the first two nights that we were in Kenya and it had a beautiful dinner – so we were happy that we missed lunch.  Bed early tonight because I am planning an awesome work out tomorrow morning before our drive out to Amboseli.

Later,

-AJ

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