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We left the crater floor just before dusk and opened
our last bottle of wine for the ascent. The beer was gone, and the
bottle of gin was warm and almost empty. I had not taken a shower
in three days and was wearing the same white pants in which I had
left Nairobi. As we crested the rim of the crater, I spilled my entire
cup of cabernet in my crotch and down my pants leg, making me even
less sightly but improving my body odor. We immediately encountered
a lone armed soldier wearing a red beret at the remote intersection
of the Lerai Ascent Road and Ngorongoro Crater Road. He halted us
50 yards from where he was standing and ordered us to advance no further.
I spoke to him in Kiswahili—jambo (hello), habari (how
goes it)—and he indicated that Hillary Clinton would be coming by
shortly. To our surprise she was visiting four or five African countries
on a goodwill mission. Larry and Jerry were having trouble containing
their excitement. At their febrile insistence, I convinced the soldier
that we were very close friends of the Clintons and that Hillary would
want to see us. He let us approach the road. We all poured another
cup of wine, and in just a few minutes her motorcade arrived and slowly
proceeded past us. Hillary was in the third or fourth vehicle. Larry
and Jerry spotted her and got her attention with their best inebriated
bellow—“Hillary, Hillary, we know you.” She turned, waved and drove
on. A vehicle occupied by the Secret Service then pulled alongside
us, began questioning us and relayed our answers to Hillary via radio.
She bought our story and told us to meet her at the Serena Lodge.
Larry and Jerry were besotted on the juice of joy. You would have
thought they had hit the power ball lottery and slept with Sharon
Stone in the same instance. I decided to sober up on the drive to
the Serena, but Larry and Jerry polished off what was left of the
wine. |
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