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After stowing our rucksacs on the truck and getting a tour of its ‘facilities’ we jumped on glad to be out of the drizzle and after leaving Niarobi we quickly got on the open road heading almost due south, towards the border with Tanzania, our first border crossing. The journey was bumby to say the least, it turns out we got the ‘bum’ seats at the back, right over the rear wheels, meaning any slight bump and you got a few inches of air! We got to know a few of our fellow travellers on this first leg, and most of them seemed like nice enough people, lucky!

The border crossing came in the late afternoon and was significantly easier than getting in to Kenya, we were all processed with about 50 minutes, and after fighting off street sellers managed to get back on the truck.

As we drove further in to Tanzania the first sights and sounds of africa appeared, Giraffes running down the side of the road, Elephants roaming in the distance, its liek driving through the worlds bigest safari park, as the darkness fell, it became apparent that we were not staying at a campsite that night, and this was confirmed as we turned off the road in to the sand with all out spotlights blazing.

We disembarked and wer glad to touch the earth again, and we were quickly shown how to erect our home for the next 55 nights - a tent called ‘intoxicated’.

As we didn’t have assigned roles at that point we jumped in a help prepare dinner, well once all the boys headed off to find wood for the fire, its amazing how dry and spiky the aciaca tree are, but with a sharp axe, they are no match, and burn very hot, if not for very long.

After a beautiful dinner of squash and rice, a lot of googling at the stars and a jumping competion with the local Masi it was bed time, and we slept like logs, on nice soft sand, and Masi’s guarding our camp ground.

The next day started with near holiday stopping action, after finding a nice bush to pee behind, I turned to walk back towards the truck and caught myself on an Acacia thorn, just below my eye. A few millimeters higher and I’d have ended up with no eye left, and a very long drive to the nearest hospital.

After a shortish drive we spent a while in Arusha, home of Absolute Africa’s repair center, and our base for exploring the Serengeti and Ngorongoro national parks, this was our chance to fill our bags with supplies of sweets and water for the 4 day trip into the NP’s.

We camped just outside Arusha, in a campsite called snakepark and took an opertunity to visit a Masi village, and play with the children.

Again we helped to prepare dinner, and you know its going to be a fun night when the first beer bong is in daylight, whilst you are cooking, and that was just what happened, somehow dinner tasted good, though the custard could have been better!

I dont really remeber much of the night, apart from a sandy floored bar, more beer bongs, and being shown the Haka by a bunch of kiwi’s.

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