SillierThanSally: August 2012

It has been a while….I know, life in London and at the Olympics was fabulous and non-stop. We have wrapped up work at the Olympics and are now smack bang in the middle of Kenya, on our way to the Serengeti.

The Olympics was once again a brilliant, vibrant event. Brett and I had a ball working at the NBC Gymnastics/Basketball venue at the O2 Arena in North Greenwich. We had some fabulous local staff (and some not so fabulous), the NBC crew were brilliant….it was like catching up with old family members, as we had not caught up since the Beijing Olympics, It was great to see so many friendly faces on the American crew. And of course to catch up with all the rest of the catering crew that have come from all over the world to work at the Olympics, some I have known now for over 10 years, and are some of the most fabulous people I know.

The Olympics pretty much consisted of us working our arses off and partying with the crew for a month straight!

Now we have started our African adventure, there were a few miss adventures getting here…like me freaking out as I thought I had left all my art supplies (art supplies = my pride and joy) atmy dad apartment in London…and I mean, I freaked out… there were water works, the whole shibang! I had everyone scrambling to try and find them, and get them to me! We were constantly running for planes for one reason or another, and when we arrived at Nariobi airport at 5am tired and sweaty…off course Egyptair decided not to send on our luggagewith us to Kenya (Egyptair you suck), so after arguments with ground staff and being informed that our bags might turn up the same time next day, we trundled off to catch up on some sleep at our hotel and then get back into our 2 day old smelly clothes, for our nights and next day’s outings.

Sunday was day one of our 7 week tour with Arcacia from Nairobi down to Cape Town. After a 5am run to the airport to pick up our bags (we did a little happy dance when we were reunited with them, as we feared we might not see them again), we headed to our 8am tour departure point, had a quick change into fresh clothes (yay) repacked our bags (I found my missing art supplies, they had been hiding in my main luggage the whole time…so off course more waterworks ensued, from relief and also stress that Brett and my dad were both going to kill me from running them around in circles trying to locate and post it to Kenya) and were off to the Masai Mara.

The Masai Mara blew all my expectation out of the water…if you have ever thought for a moment you would like to go, DO IT!! It was a mecca of wildlife and draw dropping landscapes.
We were lucky enough to be there during the Wildebeest migration, which brings with it pretty much every other animal in the African animal world.On a 2 day safari we saw frolicking gazelles and impalas,pumbas (wild pigs with attitude), stunning prideful zebras, a lounging cheetah, a lioness protecting her fresh kill with vultures circling overhead, a lion and lioness exhausted and taking a nap after doing the deed, herds of elephants, curious giraffes and lazy as hippos…..and thousands and thousandsof wildebeest.

We stayed at a fab tented camp while at the Masai Mara, we even had our own toilet and shower (which I thought was a bit of a luxury, as we are camping most of this trip), we ended up sharing our shower (unwillingly) with a bunch of French travellers (that were also camping on site) that kept sneaking into our shower rather than using theirown amenities block….so it was weird waking up at 6am to the sound of our shower running while Brett and I were both still in bed. Then having to queue for our shower….in the end we kicked them out.

On day two of our safari, we had an interesting trip, that included 3 flat tyres with in the space of 2 hours….it definitely made for some great laughs as we were travelling with a fun bunch from our tour and also made for some fast footwork by our driver as one of our flats had lions circling in the area at the same time… not that they were that fussed by us I think, we just happened to have our second flat while tracking them.On the way back from the Masai Mara to Nairobi our slightly odd driver in frustration ran a barricade made by the local Masai tribesman (to slow down drivers and protect their goats), then proceeded to nearly run over some goats in his haste and have the angry Masai tribesman chase after us with spear in tow. Good thing a car out runs a Masai tribesman anyday!

So today we are heading to the Serengeti and Ngorongoro Crater, where the wild life is meant to be out of this world! Stay posted for those photos next time =)