After a beautiful star-filled sky last night, we awoke to clear skies and made short work of packing up. This was day 50 for Bev and Kathy with just 10 more days remaining until they reach the coast. We set off again into the forest but this time the vegetation thickened quickly making travel for the walkers and the camels a bit more difficult. We also walked into the dreaded black cotton soil, but this time because it hadn’t rained in a while we were able to stay on top of it rather than sinking - bonus!!
We headed out of the forest towards small trails that soon took us to an area of small bomas, and to Karasha’s delight a new clan of Masai from Tanzania. We had walked out of Masai land into other tribal areas for the last few days so seeing Masai again was a welcome sight for him. He automatically greeted them and began discussing our route and the best direction to walk and all were more than willing to assist and even share a cup of milk with him and other drovers.
At one point Barabara pointed out some camel footprints ahead of us…funny, our camels were behind us?? Sure enough we came upon a herd of camels grazing in the bush. One was the biggest camel we had ever seen and poor Rasta, who was the current title owner, was dwarfed in comparison!
As we continued on, our eyes gazed upward to huge spiders in golden-coloured webs far above our heads. For those of you who know Bev and Kathy, you know we are terrified of spiders so these huge monsters hung above our heads were incredibly scary!! We soon learned that they are called Golden Orb spiders. They are about the size of your hand and produce a golden-coloured silk web that is the strongest spider silk in the world and the strongest natural material made by an animal. In Singapore, the silk is harvested to make golden coloured clothing which is very expensive. To Bev and Kathy, it was simply a HUGE spider!!!!! We basically ran under the webs hoping these monsters would not sense our fear and drop suddenly to the ground!!! Later we saw some closer to our height with their webs strung between bushes - yes equally as frightening!!! But we made it passed them and decided to pass on the golden evening gown!
We walked 15.5 km and set up camp a bit closer than usual to a road. Tomorrow is a rest day, and more walkers will be joining, as well as Rory and his wife Jenny, with a small resupply. We look forward to meeting the new walkers as well as Andy and his family who are returning to walk the final days with us to the coast! John, Amanda and Robin will be leaving the safari, with John and Amanda returning prior to the end.
Quote from Joseph Thompson: “He who goes gently goes safely, he who goes safely goes far.”