With my entire family and a couple of friends away on one of my favourite weekends of the year, shooting guinnea fowl (not for sensitive viewers) and drinking copious amounts of red wine on Huntersvlei, a spontaneous decision to go on an adventure to the otherside of the Mara proved to be good for the soul.
This came in the form of rugby and a BBQ (as one of the chef refers to braais...Bee bee queue) with 2 South African ranger trainers from tanzania (my touch of home and social companians for the past two weeks), a hilarious aussie air balloon pilot come artist and his wife, an airoplane pilot and another lodge manager or two of expat variety. We had to get to the other side of the Mara River to another camp, so all fun and games as the Mara area has extraordinarily good roads, and a 20km drive took us about and hour and a half. I had three ex rangers in the vehicle though, so wasn't in the line up for designated driver. We passed through the zebra and Wildebeest herds from the Loiter plains that are on their way to greet the migratory herds from the serengeti - quite incredible!
But I must admit the real joys of the occasion were having a braai, oh and listening to the crazy aussie as more beer was consumed, endless source of amusement! He has an attitude towards life that I last experienced in the people I worked with on the ski slopes in tahoe. Lifes great, kenya is amazing and everything else is bullsh*t, which can be taken to mean pretty much anything, from its actual meaning to the complete opposite. His favourite swahili saying is Arahaha (or something like that) which he translates to meaning maximum pleasure, all the time - that is life!
His wife (of 3 months) is great, an ex managment consultant who needed a break from the insanity and excessive hours moved to Carnarvon (one of the western australian towns...904Km north of perth - so basically in the middle of nowhere) where they met. She has just moved to Kenya to be with him, is building a house for them and doing a website designing course online...eeek, not sure I can live in the bush full time.
Anyway, festive evening and good to know there is life outside of the lodge and as in all small and distant places there are always token and awesome characters around to play with.
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