Date: Mon. 13 Jul 1998 04:19:28 PDT

Missing me yet??

Yup, you've guessed it, we've been here 2 weeks and we still haven't been able to get out of Nairobi!!

Okay, that's not quite true...

We got a bus straight to Lake Naivasha, stayed in a little campsite (in a hut) for a couple of nights and went to Crescent Island National Park. I don't know if you remember visiting there in '94, it's a little island in the middle of the lake where you walk around the game. When we were there in '94 we saw a baby zebra dying. l Anyway, that was R's first game viewing (giraffe, zebra, waterbuck, Thompsons).

>From there we went further down the lake and stayed at Fisherman's Cam for a couple more nights - a really massive campsite where all the overland trucks stay and hippos graze amongst the tents all night long. We went to see Elsarffere (Joy Adamsons place) and Hell's Gate National Park.

>From Naivasha we went to Nyaharuru (where we phoned John - sorry we I didn't phone you but you weren't in and you can only make international calls before 3pm UK time). At Nyaharuru we went to Thompsons Falls, and for the second time since we arrived in Kenya, I turned round to R and said, "I've just remembered that I've been here before!!!!". No he wasn't too impressed.

>From Nyaharuru north to Maralal - where probably about 60% of the population live in traditional lifestyles (with all the gear on and everything). Catching a bus and sitting in between 2 Samburu warriors j is quite a bizarre experience - they all carry spears, and clubs and knives everywhere they go. There is a concession to the 20th century 1 though - their knife sheaths were made out of plastic shampoo bottles | rather than the traditional leather. I

We were hoping to get to Lake Turkana from Maralal, but couldn't get transport. Instead we took a nightmare 8 hour journey in v. cramped v. dusty conditions down what some people might generously refer to as a dirt track in what some people might call a bus, to Isiolo (dive - don't go there).

And now back to Nairobi. We're currently organising a trip up Kilimanjaro. It's a 6 day hike (I think I'm looking forward to it).

We spent the first few days travelling everywhere by matatu (9 seater Nissan minibus with 18 Kenyans and one mad driver where you have to sit with your rucksack on your lap and you can't put your feet on the floor because someone else's luggage got there first).

Anyway all the other travellers we've met say that this is a completely mad way to travel because it's so dangerous (average 1 fatal accident somewhere in Kenya everyday). You'll be pleased to know that we've now discovered the 'official' buses!

We're sticking quite well to budget (I think that Kili is going to kill that though). There are enough flush toilets that I'm still quite sane, we do crave hot showers quite a lot though. We've probably camped 50% and stayed in rooms the other half of the time. You should see how my standards have dropped (a half clean pair of socks and a portion of beef stew is luxury to me now!!).

It took us about a day and a half to discover that eating with the locals is about a quarter the price and 3 times tastier.

I'm peeling

Rich is wearing all my t-shirts because he didn't bring enough of his own. He's also getting all the hassle from the hawkers (coz he's the bloke I guess) it's GREAT!!!!

If you happen to be thinking of either of them it's Sophie's birthday on the 29th and Gareth and Helen's anniversary on the 19th. (Please can you remind Nathan about G&H). I don't have time to write to anyone else, so if you could forward this to Nath that would be really lovely of you.

I hope our message to John made sense and that you've managed to send stuff off to Nakuru. I really appreciate it v. much, you're lovely lovely lovely people!!! Please can you also apologise to John for the bizarre conversation - I was in the middle of a very busy post office and couldn't hear what he was saying very well.

I think that emails are only going to happen in the capital cities and phone calls are going to be v. v. v. rare. Next capital is Kampala in about 3 or 4 weeks probably.

Love to you both, thanks so much for spending time with me in my last weekend in the UK.

Be cool, miss me
tamara