Day 134-136 CHRISTMAS AT MOUNT KENYA We left Rumurutti on Christmas Eve morning and drove to Nanuki, in search of a turkey! We arrived at a butchers shop just as it was closing and by sheer coincidence they had one turkey left which had been ordered by a customer but not collected. We were so happy but rather shocked when we saw it: a mammoth 14 llb bird, with enough meat on it to feed ten people! Quite how we were going to cook it remained a mystery but we were determined to have a great Christmas feast...bush style! We camped at the lovely Timau River Lodge, a glorious ram-shackled farmyard at the base of Mount Kenya on the western side, guarded by petulant geese and anxious turkeys (no wonder!). We had glorious views of the mountain peak early in the morning whilst the regiment of geese plodded around guarding Biggles. Timau River Lodge is owned by an Indian family and all the other people staying at the lodge or camping were Indian. As a family we all love India and felt very at home amongst the laughter, cricket matches and wafts of curry coming from the lodge! Rather than Christmas carols, the music blaring from the bar was the latest Bollywood movie tunes - something we rather enjoy after the two Christmas' we have spent in India. On Christmas Day morning, after opening up our stockings (our smelly old hiking socks) and getting overly excited by gifts of fruit pastilles, jaffa cakes and chocolate money...we got to work preparing our Christmas feast. The other turkeys didn't seem to mind pecking at our feet as Jilly and Camilla set to work stuffing our Christmas turkey. Rich also tried a spot of Turkey wrangling with a machete around the farm much to owner's amusement. Once the Turkey was wrapped it in lots of foil we threw it in a BBQ oven (basically a BBQ with a metal box on the top). It cooked throughout the day and we crossed our fingers that it would be edible. Without electricity during the day we resorted to keeping the beers chilled in the cold stream running from the base of Mount Kenya. The result -ice cold beers! Florence, a lovely girl who worked at the lodge was excited when we asked her if there was a local church we could go to. She was proud to take us to where she worshipped: The Timau Gospel Outreach Church. As we drove up to a corrugated iron hut and could hear loud music and singing from within we realised this was better than we could have hoped for. The service we were to attend resembled more 'The Price is Right' than 'The Vicar of Dibley' services we had been used to back home. The minister and his helpers were on the stage with microphones, accompanied by enthusiastic dancers and a very proficient electric organist who enjoyed fast pop beats with heavy bass! People raised their hands, swayed, danced, sang and praised the lord - it was great to be a part of such a wonderful atmosphere. We were of course the only 'muzungos' and we were treated like royalty. We had to walk on to the stage and introduce ourselves with the microphone and were given a special blessing by Minister Martin. During the service people from the congregation talked about how they had found the Lord - many of them confessed to being alcoholics so we felt as if we were at an AA meeting...One lady told us all "last Christmas I was drunk and asleep...this Christmas I have the Lord". As the congregation all clapped and cheered we all looked at each other and thought that was exactly what we intended to do - spend this Christmas mostly drunk and asleep... Back at the campsite we prepared our feast. Along with the turkey we cooked sausages, bacon rolls, roast potatoes, roasted butternut squash, green beans and gravy...all on the BBQ and camp fire! We also managed to buy some smoked sail fish in Nanuki - which tasted just as good as smoked salmon! Eight hours after we had put it on the BBQ, we checked the turkey and it was cooked to perfection! Dad carved the bird on the bonnet of Biggles and we ate a fantastic feast and drank some superb Chilean red wines. For pudding Rupert (Camilla's brother) had sent over a delicious Christmas pudding and her aunt and uncle a Christmas cake - so although we were miles away from home, we had a wonderfully traditional day in very untraditional surroundings. By the evening as we sat around the camp fire we were all indeed drunk and asleep - a great Christmas!