Back at camp & I need a shower so after a little while we hear footsteps approaching & a voice calls out, “ready for shower”. Lovely hot water, mind you have to be quick & turn it off in between putting on the shampoo, washing etc. No luxury of standing there & letting the water run over you, however it goes a long way & we soon have the washing situation under control. i.e. there is not a lot of it done! No hairdryers, no make up and being windswept were the order of the holiday, it was bliss & you did not give a care to what you looked like.
Dinner - it has been a long day & it is only about 8pm I think! Four other couples are waiting for us around the campfire. Introductions are made & we feel outsiders as the newcomers to the group. We hear all about the day they have had in the Mara. Unfortunately they are not “our cup of tea” kind of people. When we got to the table one of them started to tell us where we could sit, as they had been there last night & had got seats!! I was not amused but soon found out that was the only night we had to endure their company as they moved on the next day. One young couple on their honeymoon (not part of the aforementioned) were going to climb Kilimanjaro we wanted to hear what they had been doing but the conversation was overpowered by the Essex lot, ordering everyone, including the Maasai, and embarrassing not themselves but the rest of us into the bargain. One of them had far too much to drink and fell off her chair and lay like a stone on the floor. We found this a good time to make a hasty retreat and off back to the tent. I did not think that I would be able to sleep very well but went out like a light. Only to woken by guess who battling his way through the curtains to the toilet. I could not get to sleep for ages, kept hearing frogs croaking one sounded like a mobile phone bleeping. There were all sorts of weird noises, nothing like I have heard before or even expected to hear. We had been told that animals came around the tents at night so imagining wildebeest and antelopes just within a few feet of us. I could heat footsteps, or rather hoof-steps at one time just coming down the path behind my head. I thought it must have been a Maasai come to wake us up but it was 4 legged!
Ian was up again. What now I say, rather exasperated. It 6.25 he replies get up. For today we go to the Mara. Excited or what!!! Then a Maasai shouts good morning, unzips the tent and comes in bringing us hot coffee & water for shaving.