We could say that today we suffered a bit from some political silliness or national rivalry, depending on your point of view. You see today our itinerary required that we change camps. The new camp we are going to, (Kicheche Bush Camp), is a little north of the Mara River maybe 50 km from Lemala. But to get there we first had to take a small plane from a rough airstrip near Lemala to a town called Tarime, then a car across the border from Tanzania into Kenya at a border town called Isebania, then another plane from another rough strip at Migori to an air strip in the Serengeti called Mara North and then an hours drive to the camp. Now there was once a border crossing between Kenya and Tanzania on the Mara River that would have enabled us to do this same journey by car in a couple of hours but that border crossing was closed to prevent tourists from doing day trips into the Tanzanian Serengeti from Kenya. As it is now if you want to visit the Tanzanian Serengeti you have to take accommodation in Tanzania.!!
I should mention that today we said goodbye and thanks to our Easy Travel driver/guide, Swai, who has been with us for the past 10 days. He has proven to be an able and knowledgeable driver/guide and companion, and perhaps more importantly flexible and able to cope with our changing whims and requests. Swai, thank you!.
Any way despite what could be seen as an inconvenience, we had a good day, the flights were scenic, the drive through the border town interesting in a way that only 3rd world border towns can be and our new camp seems to be the lap of canvas luxury.
As I write this entry I am sitting on the bed in my tent, looking out onto a forest of short Acacia trees, where there were giraffes a little while back and I can hear zebras squawking somewhere out there. The others are out on an afternoon game drive but I begged off to get a bit of down time.
As it turned out I made a big mistake by taking an easy afternoon as the rest of the group had an exciting evening including a sighting of a Cheetah, as you can see in the photos.