Well my October half term started off with an incident even before I took off from Heathrow. My flight was on a Virgin Atlantic and on occasion the government uses this airline to deport failed asylum seekers/refugees. We only realised this when armed police boarded the plane which was followed by loud wails and cries of “I no go home, go die” for about an hour. The plane was delayed and the slightly posher families on the way to their half term hols made such a fuss about it, we were delayed even more. One lady even had the nerve to say put them in cargo. Jeez the guys were being sent back already, what more did the other passengers want.
So finally I arrived and was ready for my safari even though it was a lodge free safari…camping, can you believe I was going camping? We had one of those big giant overland trucks as well, you know the ones I normally moan about …we stuck out like a sore thumb in traffic on the way to the parks and we got stuck while doing u-turns and 3 point turns…the truck was just so big.
My room mate who was an American elderly lady with a face like a bulldog only put up with me for one night, the next morning I was dumped…the cheek of it. Actually I was quite happy to share with the Canadian girl my age and she was far less bossy and scary. But on a couple of occasions second thoughts crept in because this chick moaned quite a lot in her sleep. When I mean moan I mean those sexy moans you make when you know, you’re felling a bit naughty. I guess she did it while I was asleep too but I had quite the shock on one of the afternoons we were trying to snooze. I was quite anxious that a passer by might think we were up to something in our tent. When I told her and some of the group about her noises, she blamed it on the malaria tablets. Yeah yeah I thought…I just had horny roomy. I could live with that, at least she didn’t parade around me naked every 5 minutes like some other roomys I’ve had.
The first night of camp was a bit crap as it was raining so had to hurry to put the tent up…first time ever so we needed some help. But I got wet and it was cold and miserable so I sulked for a bit while everybody else went to the bar. By the second day we were quite the professionals finishing first with our tents and doing high fives only to see our tent blown away in the wind cos we forgot to put the pegs in. Complete muppets. This was proper camping with dishwashing duties and I washed dishes and rinsed and stacked while on holiday…that must be a first for me as I don’t even do it at home.
We had some amazing game drives in the Serengeti and the other park which I can’t spell or say that starts with an “n”. We saw hundreds of farting hippos, hundreds of elephants, one elephant that peed like it was Niagara Falls, lions chewing the arse of a zebra, intestines popping buffalos being devoured by more lions and bright blue balled monkeys…I kid you not. Plus the usual zebras, giraffes, wildebeests, wild hogs etc.
On one night I woke up in the middle of the night with a fright as I heard lion roars behind our tent. I thought it was a dream but my roomy heard it too. Plus the hyenas running around and I’m sure they were scratching the tent where my head lay. I could feel some one tapping my head…although that could have been just me dreaming but I know for sure the lion roars were real. I’m not that much of a wuss but the tent was mainly cloth probably polyester…no steel or cages on the outer layers. It’s like I was on some extreme camping trip, is it because I like the danger? Nope it’s because I’m stupid and someone let me do it.
I got on really well with my campers, there were 11 of them and apart from the scary American lady, there were 3 others that just weren’t quite right in the head. There were 2 Japanese/Hawaiian mother daughter combo that loved washing clothes every where we set up camp, apparently causing an upset with another camping group because they used up all the water. I didn’t care for them much although I was quite surprised to see the size of their underwear they hung on the line. These ladies were tiny, barely 5 feet tall but they had bigger knickers than me. The other not normal guy was from Canada although my Canadian roomy insists he can’t be from there as he’s way too weird. I agreed, I love the Canadians. There were a Dutch couple who were great except I had no clue what the guy was saying because of his accent. Then there were 2 ladies from Finland but working in Saudi, they had some great stories of their experiences with Saudi life and culture. I’m hoping they will send me info on how to get work there as it’s the only way I’ll be allowed into that country. We had a jolly American guy who snored very loudly, as we were in tents I think the whole park could hear him every night…might have been what set off the lion roars. The poor bugger who had to share with him was the only other British person on the trip. He’s a Scottish guy, very easy going and was a complete laugh on the trip. Basically if it wasn’t for him and my roomy the trip wouldn’t have been as good as it was.
Unfortunately all the normal people headed off on their extension leaving poor me behind. As they set off for the very long, bumpy drive plus possible encounters with pirates on their ferry crossing to the beautiful island of Zanzibar, I was heading back to Nairobi with the weirdos. It was a very long trip back to Kenya.
