Day 282 - Daytime Safari, Amboseli National Park, Kenya

Today was to be full of more treats. We were off on a day time safari (where there tends not to be so many larger animals to be seen) followed by a visit to a Masai village.

Having seen many of the Masai, when we had been out in the van, we jumped at the idea of visiting a Masai village. Our host, Eunice arranged an impromptu visit to see one of their encampments.

We arrived to an overwhelming welcome, with the villagers lined up in front of us. They performed a dance for us, including their jumping up and down moves and made us feel like long lost relatives. There were only 5 of us and this over exuberance on their part, whilst flattering to us humble Brits, was a little over the top.

After the welcome dance had finished, we were ushered into their enclosure. We were treated to a demonstration of  how to make a fire (without matches), a tour of a hut, a meeting with the chief and witnessed the amazing dung beetle perform a dung ball rolling stunt.

This next picture, wasn't the same beetle. In fact I don't think it may even be a dung beetle. It was one we found in the hotel and I think it was dead. Either way, Julian wasn't at all perturbed about picking it up. Julian (I fear no bugs!) with his giant dung beetle. It is almost impossible to believe that these things can fly. 

It was an amazing visit and we learnt alot about their way of life, why they carry the spear, what it can be used for and how they lived. As we left the village after an exhausting day, to what we thought was on our way back to the hotel, we exited the mud walls and were presented with a huge display of artefacts for sale, that had miraculously appeared on the outside of the compound whilst we were inside. We were ushered along to see them all. Our host explaining that it would be rude not to buy something. We had already paid quite a hefty fee for this visit and were not disposed to buy anything. The items, whilst very lovely in their own way, were not to our taste and, as we were always travelling, we had already decided that we couldn't pick up souvenirs of everything  from all the places we had visited. In the end we had to buy a couple of items, but we were not impressed either by what was for sale, the price of them which was extortionate, or the fact that we had literally been ambushed on our way out. It was clear that it must have taken a huge efforts by a lot of people, to have laid out this display, so in the end our guilty conscious's won out and we dug into our pockets again.

Sammy and Julian wearing/clutching their purchases.