40 days and 40 nights to go!

I have managed to bag myself a discounted spare place on a small photographic trip going to Kenya next month thanks to a last minute cancellation. The tour is being run by David Plummer (same wildlife photographer who led the trip I went on in 2007 to the swamps of Brazil).  His website reads.... "The Masai Mara tour is a 10-day (including 2 travel days) photographic safari staying only at two camps; as such no time is wasted travelling from camp to camp. Photographic tuition is given in lesson form as well as hands-on tuition in the field.   This tour is pure wildlife from dawn to dusk!" Sounds like my perfect holiday, if I don't think too long about the bugs, the heat, the diseases and the first night I will be spending alone in Nairobi.

Staying at the Kicheche camps under canvas promises to be about as close as you can get to the beasts of the big cat world. The Masai Mara is somewhere I have wanted to go for many many years, so within minutes of reading David's email I was online to my bank, calculator in hand. It was do-able. But to be honest with myself, if it wasn't do-able, I would have fiddled the figures for however long it took to make sure it was. I discussed it with Ant, replied to David and told myself I would sleep on it until the weekend. The weekend of course came very early that week (Monday I believe!) and before I knew it booking forms were being completed, money was being transferred and I was sporting a grin similar to those worn by kids on Christmas morning. The agonising countdown had begun.