Our drive was over 5 hours long. We started on nice highway, then a road with speedhills, then potholed road, then trackbear road, then no road at all. It was a jittery bumpy road in an old van. Chris says it is rear drive. It has one of those pop-up roofs you always see tourists hanging their heads out of. It seats 9, but there are just the 2 of us and Chris.
Along the way we progressed into dry savanna land, and saw lots of Masai people along the road. Some of them waved, some begged for money, and most were just sitting watching their herds of cows and goats. Two boys were sitting throwing stones at passing cars. One Masai was walking along in his blanket and carrying his masai stick, and talking on his mobile phone. Network is quite good here even though we are literally in the middle of nowhere. We were able to phone Polykens no problem (he lent us a phone for the safari).
When we got to Masai Leisure Camp, we were greeted with wet washcloths to wash off our dust (dust is an understatement). The workers are masai, all dressed in their masai blankets and jewellry. It looks like a 5 star resort here. There are flagstone paths and little monkeys running arouind. Our "room" is a huge tent, with a wooden floor and a nicer bathroom than anywhere we've stayed in Kenya so far. The tents are powered by generators, and the electricity comes on for 2 hours every morning and 3 hours every evening. The only downside is that you can hear your neighbours very clearly through the tents, and there is a very loud Korean family occupying the 2 tents next to ours.
Lunch was really good, we got 5 star treatment from the staff and the food was excellent. Our waiter Steve chatted with us until the Koreans came and demanded his attention. Steve says there are over 50 guests currently staying here, but the majority are gone on full day safaris and will all be back for supper.
We visited the gift shop and Frankie made friends with Sammy, the Masai who works there. He is very familiar with Diguna.
Our driver Chris took us on a 3 hour safari at 3:30. We saw the usual zebras, thompsons and grants gazelles (we now know the difference), topi, giraffe, 2 lone bull elephants (after the age of 50, the male elephants are kicked out of the herds by the younger bulls), warthogs, male (black) and female (brown) ostriches, large maribou storks, and thousands of wildebeest. It's amazing to watch the chain reaction when they run. One of the most fascinating things to watch was a bunch of buzzards fighting over a dead wildebeest. Then we saw a whole bunch of safari vehicles all stopped looking at something. It was 2 lionesses who had just finished eating a zebra they had killed, and were now resting.
After a very good buffet dinner, we went out to find a dark spot to gaze at the stars and take pictures. The night watchman kept insisting on going with us. We could see the Milky Way as clear as day, and a lot more stars than back home. There were lots of bats flying around after dark.
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