Kemba Camp, Tanzania

The shennanigans started last night, and did they start.

First up, the usual to-ing and fro-ing with the tips. The Serengetti was very fast for two hundred and fifty US, with lots of driving, rushing between animals and schedules. Basically, most people felt a little ripped off. And yet you still have to tip. It’s just hard, sometimes, trying to remember that all the noughts don’t mean so much, and that actually it’s still only a few quid.

After rushing through the park (‘can’t stop for family of lions, got to get home’, we spent around six hours driving back to Snake Park. inner was a bbq – a load of top-quality dead animal parts, cooked over one of the fire pits they have here. There's still quite a divide between the 'originals' and the 'newbies' and, up until now, it's only really been Phil, Derek and me who've made an effort to cross the divide. I mentioned Jess has been winding me up, and it appears now that she's getting a lot of stick from most of the people on the truck... only she doesn't actually know it. I was talking to Rob and Boyo, and they pointed out that she's is invariably first up to get food when dinner is served, first to get seconds, and first to finish off anyone's leftovers. It doesn't in anyway help that she's quite overweight. It's hilarious, and as I watched, I realised they were spot on. In fact, Boyo pointed out that even some of the guides from the other trucks had noticed. Thing is, if I didn't find her so obnoxious, I'd feel bad about chuckling about all of this.

Oh yes, Ella arrived! I couldn’t believe it. ‘Ella’ is the Nomad truck I was on through Southern Africa in May and June. She was on transit, so I didn’t know either of the drivers, but what were the chances of seeing exactly the same truck in Tanzania?!

Matt arrived in the midst of this. Matt is the final member of our trip. He'd come all the way from Winnapeg via London, but had managed through his own errors to miss two flights. Then they'd lost his luggage. So he'd been hanging around in Nairobi for a few days, waiting for his bags to arrive. Sadly for me, Rob's put him in my tent (my tent, my tent, goddamit!). Still, he seems like a reasonable bloke – asking a few too many questions, perhaps. Anyway, he was soon introduced to a 'Ma's Revenge' – a shot containing amongst other things, tequila and tobasco. Ma's an interesting character. she's small and wizened. She wears rimless glasses and has that slightly asexual look that older women with short hair sometimes affect. She seems very cuddly and nice but I have a strong feeling she's very easily underestimated. Quite a steely core, I think. I heard her dealing with some of the Maasai locals working for her, and that lady ain't for turning.

The shennanigans, then. I went to bed around 1am. My new tentmate, Matt, was still awake. He's twenty-two, and a little naive...well, perhaps that's not fair. He had a lot of questions, though, some of which were a tad obvious. Anyway, the others came back around 2am, making a lot of noise. They'd decided that, since it was Matt's first night, they should jump him in his (well, our) tent. Sadly, since they were all fairly paralytic, their approach wasn't exactly covert. This meant I had plenty of time to position myself at the tent door, and grab them with a roar when they attempted to unzip it. Screams aplenty. After that, they left us alone. That certainly wasn't the end, as they then all piled into Ellie and Danni's tent. My favourite moment was when Matt – who doesn't have any sort of torch – headed off to the toilets. I heard him come back and climb into next door's tent. I heard much shuffling and scraping for the next ten minutes before I heard, 'Wait, I'm in the wrong f***in' tent!' He appeared two minutes later, looking slightly flustered. He'd been trying to climb into the wrong sleeping bag.

The noise continued, with contributions from Derek. While it didn't worry me, I did think it might draw complaints from the other campers. I wasn't disappointed. Five minutes later, I heard a female with an American accent basically going nuts, 'Shut the F**K up!...need to be up in three hours!....'. Perhaps predictably, this didn't draw the contrition it might have if it had been I making the noise. I think the most eloquent response I heard was, 'F**k off rednecks, Go invade someone else!' Diplomatic.

It quietened down soon after, but I remember thinking there might be reprisals. Sure enough, come dawn... I was already awake. I heard cowbells, and some yelling in an American accent. 'Yup, fair dos', I thought. I do think our guys had been out of order the night before, so this felt like fair retribution. I went outside ten minutes later, though, to find Danni and Ellie fiddling with their collapsed tent. It turned out that the guys from the night before had not only woken them up, but collapsed their tent with them still inside it. I still thought this was funny, and nicely poetic. However,. they'd also padlocked their zip. It was fortunate that the zip didn't close properly, so the girls were able to crawl out through the door. Rob pointed out when I told him about all this that it could have been dangerous if either of the girls had been asthmatic, claustrophobic etc. 'Not cool', as he put it.

The kicker, then, is I have a feeling the other truck here tonight may be the same guys we had issues with. Interesting. I do think that our bunch showed little understanding of having done anything wrong. Still, they're young – mostly.

Otherwise, it was a drive day today. Oh, oh, oh! I forgot...we went to a Maasai Heritage Centre today, which was basically a massive 'Aladdin's Cave' of statues, necklaces, crafts and weapons. And Tanzanite.

Tanzanite is a precious stone, purple in colour, and only found in one area in Tanzania. I don't really know what happened today. I looked at the price charts, I had a chat with the expert and Rob... and I took a punt. I've just spent a ridiculous amount of money on some gems. It's almost entirely mined out now, and will be rarer and rarer. The prices have been appreciating by twenty-five percent per year for the past few years – taking a dip on nine-eleven. They're beautiful, too. Even with the amount I spent, the gems I have are surprisingly small. I figure, though, that they're stunning, and they're not going to go down in value. I've bought two – one as an investment, and one to, inshallah, give to someone someday... We shall see. I don't think I shall regret buying them. I may regret not buying more. It's definitely the thrill of the gamble, though. I just have to get them back to the UK. I'm not going to be hiding them anywhere intimate, that's for sure.

Buoyed by this crazily impulsive spending, I bought some carved animals as presents, and added an 'antique' Maasai spear to the club I bought in the village the other day (because you know, it's always good to have a Maasai club under the bed). A bit of haggling, too, although I have to get the hang of walking away. I was looking at spears with Ed, the new Irish guy, when his girlfriend came up and said she was thinking about a tanzanite gem. I imagined him thinking, 'Okay, you can have a gem if I can have this spear.' I could just picture them in their tent, later – him playing with his new spear, and her looking at her gem.

We stopped for an hour in Arusha. This was a bit of a shock after the tranquility of the various camps, with people offering to help us, sell to us, buy from us. I think it must be because it's the start of the month, but every ATM had huge queues. In one, a security guard was actually helping black women with the buttons because they clearly didn't know how to work it. Perhaps it's wages, or benefits, or something. I've been struggling to get hold of enough currency, since I still have to pay for Zanzibar and also give Rob the dollarage for the rest of the trip. Having stayed behind to guard the truck, I had precious little time to do everything I wanted to. I ended up drawing two batches of 400,000 Tanzanian Schillings out with two cards, then running to a beaureau de change and swapping most of it for dollars. This at the expense of both lunch and the bathroom. I was back at the truck bang on time, then seethed to myself for ten minutes while we waited for everyone else. So, sum total of one beer since breakfast. Can't wait for dinner.