Kenya Stop #2 - Ol Pejeta Conservancy, August 26

 We started the day with breakfast at the Elerai Camp.

Followed by a long, dusty, bumpy ride to the park and the airstrip.  I'll bet you are glad that's over!  Me too.

Two flights.  First back north to Nairobi.  Remember Wilson Airport?  Puddle Jumper Central?  It is even busier today.  Quite the melting pot.  Then another 1 hour flight north to Ol Pejeta Conservancy.  Its pronounced "peh jet a".  Don't know why.

Our guide for the 3 days, Duma, met us at the airstrip and we loaded up the land cruiser for a ride to camp. It was shorter, it was smoother and it wasn't nearly as dusty.  You won't have to hear anymore about that.

Our tents in this camp were also excellent.  Large.  As in about 12 x 20 feet in the main room, plus a bathroom, shower and toilet area.  Much larger than a Maasai hut that would house 7 for the whole year.  The phrase "glamping" has a very clear meaning.

One interesting feature of this camp is that our tents feature a bucket shower.  What does that mean?  Do we have to lift a bucket over our head?  How many buckets can we have?  Why can't we have nice things?

Actually, it is a pretty nice thing.  Not quite as nice as full-on plumbing, but here is how it works.  They have a large bucket above the back of the tent.  Whenever you request a shower, they lower the bucket, fill it with very warm water and raise it back up to the roof.  You just pull the chain, stand under the rainhead shower, get wet, turn off to save water, soap up, turn it back on and rinse.  I never ran out of water, even with washing hair.  The only inconvenience is that you have to give 5 minutes notice for them to gather the water.

At about 4:00 we gathered for the nightly GAME DRIVE.  And it began to rain.  Hard.  Like it wasn't the dry season.  It continued to rain for several hours.  So, we bagged the GAME DRIVE and brought out a deck of cards and the wine.  Pinochle in Africa.  It didn't make any difference.  The girls have been winning pinochle for 40 years.  They did it again.  Being in Africa mattered not a whit.

An excellent dinner and a slowly clearing sky led to a pleasant end to the slowest day we've had.  And when we got to the tent, we found out that we had hot water bottles in the bed.  This is a good thing, as it gets down to 45-50 overnight.  Hot water bottles between your feet and a heavy comforter makes everything right with the world.  See you tomorrow for day 2 at Ol Pejeta.