We have arrived in Nairobi! Getting into the hot, humid airport at 6:40am from a 8 hour journey from London. What a greeting as we find ourselevs in a long immigration line, where we were stung $50USD each for a VISA!
Welcome to Africa!
We soon collected our bags and were happy to see someone waiting for us at the airport! Its the first time in a year that someone has greeted us at the airport – and even though we didn’t know who it was it still felt good!
Like any traveller arriving in a new country we head straight to the ATM to get some cash out as soon as possible – and got stuck again! The bank didn’t want to give us money out – but after a quick call back to the bank in the UK we soon got our cash and hopped in our taxi complete with our singing Taxi driver Charles! On the way out to the Masai Land we went past the sites and smells of Nairobi – a city we’ll try and explore later! We then headed through the town on Karen as we headed to Ngong. Karen was a town with lots of ‘Muzungos’ or white people – so we felt right at home as we stocked up on toilet paper, water and treats!
Soon we were in the town of Ngong – which was amazing and mindblowing – now this is a third world town! We got some fresh milk, staright out of the goat – along with a lot of stares – as the milk was poured from a big bucket into plastic bags!
Leaving Ngong we headed over the bumpy dirt roads over the Ngong hills to overlook our new home in the heart of the Rift Valley! Befroe we knew it we arived at the home of Virginia and her family – where we were to be placed for a couple of nights! A complete change from where we were yesterday in the city of London! We knew from this point that we had a LOT to get used to!
First glance at the house and it was a shock! Very simple! And the rooms were VERY dark even during the day – which made unpacking interesting! But soon we were having our first walk with some girls – and within being in Kenya for 2 hours had already spotted Giraffes! Not just one Giraffe but a clan of about 30 of them! Amazing and what a welcome to this amazing country! Soon we headed back, while avoiding the thorns to get back to the house for lunch…
The first lunch consisted of Ugali – a African Cornmeal lunch that filed you up fast! Its probley the worst food in the world…but hey it does fill you up! When we mixed it with some beef and veggies, it made it almost eatable and it made for a great start to the trip….but soon we were buggered from the flight and hid from the sun for a nap – its News Years this evening after all!
We walked back to Ngong to get some drinks for the big party this evening – what a welcome to Kenya – we only paid about 5000KSH which is only about $50USD for a crate of beer, softdrinks, bottles of wine and whiskey! We then picked up some dog food, which was the offcuts from the butcher and headed home to party! On giving the dog his food – we opened the bag to discover that we had bought a baby calf….it was bigger than the dog and made keeping our dinner down harder!
Soon we counted down and headed into the New Year….
