Yet another rest day

Okay, we HAVE been doing some cycling, yesterday was 112 km and the day before 157 km along with another border crossing, this time into Tanzania, but I want to clarify in case you may be thinking all we do is take rest days....that extra 5 days bussing and resting in Kenya due to the election makes this 3 days of rest seem especially decadent!  But we are making the best of it and this time we are pampering ourselves with a stay on the rim of Ngorongoro crater - it is absolutely amazing!  A vast expanse of green, 260 square kilometres of pristine Africa, except for the roads we will travel on tomorrow on our safari.  Every species of animal in East Africa can be found in the crater, so it is full of life! 

Tanzania is lovely, very much like the southern part of Kenya.  It looks like you could plant anything here and it would grow and flourish.  We are deep in the heart of Masai country, it is pretty cool to be cycling along and see them in their traditional dress along the side of the road then realizing some are talking on their cell phones!  Our guide/driver told us there are about 25000 Masai, and each man can own about 200 cattle so there are fat cattle everywhere too.

We are now past the halfway point on this journey, we figure about 5500 kilometres of cycling and it has been interesting to watch the sectional riders who joined us in Nairobi get into the groove.  The poor things started with the two days mentioned above, and our first late afternoon in camp we experienced our first rain.  Unfortunately, I ended up out in the worst of the monsoon and when I rode splashily into camp I was pretty sure I had could not have been more drenched.  Right when I got there, the wind picked up, ripped some branches out of the trees which landed on tents, luckily the tents were unoccupied and not damaged, just very wet.  Fortunately, my thoughtful camp valet was waiting for me with a dry-ish towel so I peeled off some of the wet layers then watched the rest of the storm from one of the camp shelters.  Oh that's another thing, these sectional riders may feel overwhelmed but at least they get actual campgrounds with toilets, showers which might even be warm and grass! to pitch tents on.  They will figure things out though,  just as we did in the beginning.

There's a crater for me to look out at, so more later!