Safari report (1), broken gears, a good Samaritan and arrival in the Mara

We were picked up in a people carrier from the guest house at 7 a.m., and left town towards Ahero (rice paddies) and then turned right onto the road to Kisii (sugar and tea) .... which was excellent ... but soon deteriorated. Passing through Kisii it rained, and a new thing with the piki-piki drivers are umbrellas, which are shaped into an extension at the back over the passengers !

Continued south into Maasai land, with some excellent new tarmac roads, and rough lumpy, bumpy stone and earth roads.   Somewhat short of the park, we broke down !!!!

The driver got out and crawled under the vehicle and tapped various things with a minute spanner; another vehicle going to the lodge stopped, but was full, so couldn't take us.  While the driver was tapping and knocking, I went for a short stroll in the bush to look around and photograph flowers and object d'arts ....

... and the driver eventually emerged, having decided one of the gears in the gear box had broken, and we couldn't move !  He got on the phone to the company in Kisumu (four hours away !), by which time a lovely man who worked at the lodge in a car coming from that direction had stopped to try and help.   He immediately offered to take us and our bags back from whence he had come .... which we later discovered was 50 km !!   A good Samaritan indeed.   How many drivers in UK would pick up stranded people and drive 50 km AND back to where he picked us up ??   Not many, I suspect.

Once at the park gate, we showed our passports and the Samaritan explained what had happened, so we were let in with no tickets, 'pay later' !!  

                                                                           The delightfully named Oloololo gate

Once we had checked in at the Serena Lodge (greeted by staff with cold drinks and wet cloths for our dusty faces) I sat by the pool and enjoyed the views, but had to shift previous occupants off some of the seats ...