Day 21: 18 August 2002 8:30 pm
The group are instructed to clean the truck in preparation for the three new truck mates. Hope they appreciate it.
After a late breakfast, it was a three and a half hour journey to Nairobi to an idyllic campsite with hot showers, clean toilets and a common room stocked with magazines and videos.
The truck had to be cleaned from top to bottom, so I helped with some washing up, as the kitchen was completely emptied.
Tom and I were in a dilemma as everyone in the group is planning to have dinner tomorrow night at "Carnivore", a touristy restaurant that specialises in games meat (Jason affectionately calls it 'Herbivore'). For US $25 per person, you can gorge and feast on all you can eat ostrich, eland, hartebeest, crocodile, wildebeest and zebra. Drinks are extra. Apart from the fact that we do not eat red meat, it seems like an expensive night out, when we could put the money towards a different excursion. The problem is that 'everyone else is going' and it will be Helen's and Ruth's last night with the group - they were only doing the three week trip.
So we decided to make our 'famous last stand', further increasing our reputation for being 'boring old farts', but we refuse to bow to peer pressure. It doesn't help that we pitched our tent on a completely different lawn to everyone else - we didn't want to listen to Roberta and Beth rabbiting on for hours when everyone else is trying to sleep.
Nomination Day: There is only one nominee this week after an unanimous vote - Rose. Our 'Hyacinth Bucket' of the truck, I can sum her up as vain (she cannot resist any chance to preen herself in a mirror, applying make up for the dust and dirt to stick to), self-important, attention-seeking, domineering and has a vicious temper. She also rubs Tom up the wrong way. Evicted.
Positives: Gorgeous camp site - hot showers and videos are bliss!
Negatives: This is the most isolated that I have ever felt from the group, but I guess this is self-inflicted.