This morning we decided to take advantage of the luxury of the Four Seasons and delay our departure until after lunch. So we spent the morning variously catching up and or lazing around. A few souvenirs from the hotel shop, then lunch was done and we were on our way. Swai, our driver/guide, told us that it was 150 km or about 5 hours to our next camp and that our route would take us out of the Park/Conservation area in order to shorten the drive. So the day was largely just a drive to get there. Once out of the Park the roads deteriorated at times being nothing more than the marks of previous vehicles. Swai explained to us that the route we were taking was not used during the rainy season, and we could see why. Long stretches of clay soil that would turn into a quagmire with even a small amount of water.

Late in the afternoon, dusty and hot, we arrived at Lemala Camp, on a small rise not more than half a mile from the Mara River. It is what they call a mobile camp. Meaning that each season it is packed up and moved to a different location. This one, it seems, will be moved to the southern end of the Serengeti within a month. Accommodation was a spacious tent, with inside toilet and shower. The toilet waste was piped outside into a drain pit. The shower was a bucket shower. Outside our tent there was a 10 gallon canvas bucket suspended from a pole and connected to a hose that ran to the inside shower head. One of the camp staff would fill the bucket with warm water and then hoist it (the bucket) to the top of its hanging pole and then inform us that the shower was ready. Inside Nina or I (depending on who was showering) would pull a chain attached to the shower head and turn on the flow of water. Seemed primitive but it worked, very like an Australian bush shower, but in Australia one generally does not get the camp attendant to do all the hard work.