Checking the Competition

13-14/04/2011

As part of our introduction to the Masaii Mara, King decided to take us on a magnificent sweeping tour of virtually all the Masaii plains (with a hidden agenda of checking out the surrounding competition). In total I think we were toured around 10 Masaii camps/sanctuaries so we are now clued up on the accommodation that's good and those that are bad. The whole process took roughly 2 and a half days to complete and during that time we were bogged down in a river-let and it looked as though we would have to radio for help since half the car was basically submerged in the water. I did my part of helping to rescue the land rover with the help of our other guides while Caitlin took the very selfless and noble decision to remain in the car under the shade, wrapped in a blanket and making futile comments. Instead of showing concern that I nearly fell in the water and got covered in mud when the car was finally liberated taking with it half the Masaii river, she just laughed! (She actually did offer to help, many times. What I wrote is just an attempt at a humourous retort to compensate for the emasculating feeling of nearly falling head first into a muddy river) The only slightly positive outcome for me was that a 'Mad Fish' got caught up in the gallons of water that splashed onto the ground. True to its name the fish became very irate when I picked it up to look at it before mercifully throwing it back into was was left of the river-let.

Needless to say, the Mara planes were magnificent and after these long 2 days of traveling our holiday was nearly up for the next day King would give us our jobs to do in camp.
Xav