Maasai Mara
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- Things you cannot purchase in a Kenyan grocery
store: deodorant, toothpaste, film, camera batteries, tampons.
Things you can purchase in a Kenyan grocery store: beer for $1, English preserves for 50 cents, 100g of loose tea for 75 cents, Jackie Collins novels
On our way West, we stop at the local grocery to pick up lunch ingredients. Many of the group search the warehouse-club like space for things they lack, largely without success. We settle for cheap beer, cheap tea, and food of varied origin. The drive to the Mara is another six hour stretch, this time with a quick lunch stop by the side of the road. A quick pit stop (literally) in the afternoon, then we reach camp at 6pm in the pouring rain.
Watching the storm roll in over the plains is stirring until I recall that we are camping again. All is well, if a bit damp. Dinner is surprisingly complete, although finding a chair with a merely annoying drip is impossible. As a novice camper, finding a way to get myself in the tent without getting too much water in with me is an event with higher difficulty than I had previously attempted. I score well, but with a few deductions.
Sleeping is a bit difficult -- I have recurring visions of the tent washing down into the nearby river -- but eventually it comes. There are even more animal noises than usual this night. I realize that the lions, leopards, wildebeasts, and the rest have no where to go to get out of the rain. I confirm that all the tent zippers are firmly shut. While it's true that you go on safari to get closer to nature, I'd prefer not to be quite that close.