The three beer limit didn't stand up too well, but we still dragged ourselves out of bed this morning and got packed up. After being initially concerned about the sheer weight of vehicles and people in and out of the site, we have come to really like the 'Snake park'. Once again it has been the people we have met that have made the experience, Ma and BJ, the owners, are brilliant and the overland drivers have been great. It was quite difficult to drag ourselves away. Thiemo, Debs, Fiona and Ali, it was great to meet you, perhaps we will meet again one day. Hopefully not in the next few weeks though, because that would mean we have made a terrible directional error!
Finally getting going, it was good to be back on the road, for one of us at least. Debs has been feeling a bit under the weather so today's ride was a little more testing. Despite that we made really good progress towards Manyara where we planned to have lunch. Unfortunately shortly before our stop we had one of those incidents that we hoped we had left behind. Passing two young boys on the side of the road, who had been waving at us, one of them suddenly threw a rock that hit Debs in the arm. More angry than hurt, she slammed on her brakes and gave chase to two now very frightened children. They ran a long way before they stopped, but hopefully they have learned a lesson. The even sadder thing is that these two boys were in quite smart school uniform, so they couldn't even use the excuse of not knowing better. I really hope this is the last time it happens, but I suspect it won't be. An inspection of Debs arm later revealed that she has been left with a bruise and some broken skin, so the stone was thrown with some force!
Putting the incident behind us as best we could, we had a decent lunch of beef, rice, beans and pickle for the bargain price of £1 each. When we can we will try and stop for lunch and then have a lighter evening meal, which will take some of the pressure off carrying and finding food on the road.
Initially we had planned to stay in Manyara, but that left us with a long distance to travel tomorrow to make our next stopping point. The drivers at the snake park and a helpful safari driver who stopped to say hello, had informed us of a camp-site near Tarangire national park so we decided to head for there.
The next 25 kilometres were difficult for Debs, but for about 10km of it we were accompanied by a young Masai boy, Francis, on a bicycle. He was quite sweet and pointed out where the camp-site was to me. Asking for 500 shillings for a soda (20p) was a bit cheeky, but as we were stopping for one ourselves, I happily bought him one. Waving goodbye to my new found friend we set off down the 1km of dirt road to 'Zion camp'. The staff were welcoming enough and it seems alright, so we are happily pitched for the night. With any luck Debs will get a decent nights sleep and she will be able to move on tomorrow fighting fit.
On a side note and probably a very good thing, the small bar here doesn't appear to sell beer!
No comments:
Post a Comment