Paintball: Mara style!

I couldn't help but giggle as I reflected on my surroundings. I was crouched down in a lugga (small stream bed) somewhere in the Mara North Conservancy wearing coveralls and a uncomfortable mask holding a paintball gun. Dave was crouched down about 20m from me and we both laughed. How did we get here, this is so crazy!? Soon Dave was shot at and I jumped up and shot a balloon pilot from the other team right in the back and then quickly dove back down into the lugga! This was so cool!!! Dave and I were guarding our team's flag and I think we were doing a pretty good job. A little bit later I saw Wes sprint up and head straight for the flag, he saw me and started unloading his paintballs in my direction. I was hit! “AHH! Ow! (and a few expletives were shouted in his general direction)”

Wes shouted “surrender!,” to which I replied, “NEVER!!!” and after a few more paintballs from him in the face and arms I was able to return fire and chase him away. Sadly though, he had acquired our flag.

We walked back to the main area where we started. I was covered in yellow paint and my arm was starting to bleed. This was wild. We all showed off our first welts and bruises and reloaded our guns. We were anxious to start the next game.

Julie, Lily and I after the first game

For the next few games we just put the flag in the middle of a set area and tried to get the flag back to our respective teams first. I, of course, thought the best plan of action was just to give my gun to one of the rangers who looked like he could handle two and sprint up immediately with him covering me and get the flag. This started out great! I got up to the flag way before the other team, but then there was Wes again and I got shot up... again. The next game I tried to hang back but we were playing until surrender this time so I just went for it! I grabbed the pole that the flag was attached too and ran! I was shot a few times but I thought I had made it... until I looked up and saw that the flag had fallen off, crap! After that it wasn't really about getting the flag it was just about shooting people.

If you are wondering why I was playing paintball in the Mara, a group of us had gathered to celebrate J.P.'s (balloon pilot at the Mara Safari Club) 40^th birthday. It was mostly balloon pilots from all around the Mara and then most of fisi camp and the majis (Yale researchers studying the mara river). Everyone was really nice and it was awesome to meet such a funny bunch of people. The pilots were Australian, British, Canadian etc. and a lot of fun to hang out with. Many of them had been living in the Mara for awhile and had a lot of interesting stories to tell. We stayed up late drinking Tuskers and talking. It was a very good day.

Me probably complaining to Wes about how many times he shot me. 

The Fisi crew!

Also, they had three little kittens!!! Notice the hair coated in yellow paint. 

***

On the way to the place we were playing paintball our bus got a flat tire. It was taking awhile to fix as one of the lug-nuts got stuck. We jumped into other vehicles and just carpooled the rest of the way. Before leaving though, we tried to apply some heat to the lug-nut to see if it would loosen. No one had a torch (duh.) so one the balloon pilots tied some toilet paper around the lug-nut, doused it with something flammable and then lit it. This didn't work but it was hilarious. Picture 20-some people standing around, most with tuskers or cigarettes in their hands, watching a flaming lug-nut on a tour bus in the middle of the Mara.

This is what that looks like. 

The morning after all the paintball fun we piled into the Cruiser to start our trip back to camp around 11am. It was only a two hour drive so we should have been home with plenty of time to shower/relax/get some work done before we had to head out on obs at 5pm. About 45min into our drive we got a flat tire. We had a spare and it was easy enough to change. No need to set anything on fire! I got my first lesson in the ways of changing a Cruiser tire in the bush, so that was very good. An hour later we had entered the Mara Conservancy (home) and were just about 15-20min from camp when our spare got a flat! Crap. We called the conservancy mechanic Langat to bring us a spare so we could get home. Langat didn't have the right tire for a Cruiser so he came and picked Lily and I up, we drove back to camp got our second spare and brought it back to Wes and Julie. We changed the tire for the second time and returned to camp. We had given Langat the original tire to patch and after I took a quick shower it was ready and we could replace our second spare with the original tire. Third tire change of the day, and forth of the trip. At this point it was 4:45 and time to go on obs. We were all really tired but luckily all the tires stayed inflated on our obs! A pretty crazy two days! 

I couldn't blog without showing you some cute animals... so here is a baby hippo and its mom!