It Began in Africa ca ca ca

Well I arrived into Nairobi and managed to get to the hotel without being mugged. So it was a good start.

The Kumuka leader was late for our pre-tour debriefing so we headed to the pub for a couple of drinks. I believe this has set the pattern for the remainder of the trip, if in doubt have a beer.

Our tour leader, Temba, eventually arrived. He's a Zimbabwean from Harare who thinks Mugabe is alright. He is also a farmer who managed to keep his farm.

The tour group at this initial meeting point consisted of 15 people;

• An aussie couple who are both ex-army. I'm getting on well with them, we went up the street to buy a hamburger.
  
• A kiwi chick. She's the chatty mousey type not the staunch type or the organising type.
  
• A creepy guy who we has hardly said a word. We discovered he was Norwegian which we thought explained it, but now we think he's weird as well.
  
• A mother and daughter team from Australia.
  
• An english couple who I've also bonded with. They are a bit posh and live in Edinburgh.
  
• An Australian woman doing the standard working in London trick.
  
• An ex-Zimbabwean farmers daughter who is not sure if she should talk politics with Temba.
  
• An American lady who is familiar with world views on the US and compensates by agreeing that Americans are crap.
  
• An older english couple. The husband annoyed me in the first 10 mins by complaining about a visa we may have to pay to corrupt officials. I immediately earmarked him as the whinger.
  
• Myself and someone else I must have forgotten.
  

In the morning a truck arrived spewing diesel fumes and looking nothing like the truck on the Kumuka website. But it's OK the fumes help you sleep on the long trips, so time really flies.

We arrived at Naivasha and met a group who had seen Gorillas. I'm sick of hearing about how great their experience was. (Yes I'm aware of the hypocracy in that statement.)

The new crew was mostly young drinkers from Australia. They had some leaving their group so they were very drunk when we arrived, making it a challenge to bond with them. But over the next few days I gave it a shot.

The tent system is generally, you share a tent. As the only 2 single guys, creepy Norwegian and I are the obvious ones to share. But so far we've had enough tents to have one each. Fingers crossed this system remains in place.

There is a roster system with Kumuka where you cook in a group every 4 or 5 days. I was on when we had a bunch of chickens to cook and not much to go with it. We'd also started late. But we did the best we could and everyone agreed it was the worst meal so far. The rice wasn't done but I think the chicken stew with random ingredients was OK. The undercooked chicken drumsticks were less popular. Of course the old english guy, who I'd earmarked as the whinger, did the most whinging. After cooking for 3 hours I was close to showing him where he could shove his stew.

Aside from all that I've seen 1,563 gazelles and/or impalas, 789 zebras, 341 wildebeasts, 120 Topies, 15 giraffes, 12 elephants, 8 hippos, 8 hyenas, 2 osriches, half a buffalo, 1 crocodile, 3 lionesses and 3 lion cubs.

I'm back in Nairobi after spendng time in the Masai Mara. I had a huge feed of meat at carnivores last night. Tomorrow we'd heading to Tanzania.