Safe arrival

Thankfully my flights were uneventful and despite a few moments of panic in Nairobi airport as the last few bags came onto the conveyor and I had still not seen my backpack arrive, my luggage and I arrived. It was an interesting journey to the hotel, which I picked from Lonely Planet recos and positive Trip Advisor reviews. It seemed easy to reach from the airport and was conveniently located close the National Park and the areas I planned to visit during my one day in Nairobi. I cannot properly express the chaos of the airport parking lot, it seems most of the international flights arrive within a two hour time span so just leaving the airport was a challenge. But I saw some goats on the road and we had a nice chat about the weather and what time the sun sets. Apparently when closer to the equator sunset means the sun is gone - as in it's black as midnight in a very short amount of time. Forget the hour plus of twilight I was used to in Portland. We hit some insane traffic which we later discovered was due to an accident on the highway, a term I'll use loosely going forward. But the most interesting part of the trip to the hotel was when my driver explained that he was going to drive across a field to get to the hotel. I mean yes, I did intentionally choose a location on the outskirts but driving across a dirt field of potholes was unexpected. We arrived about an hour later than expected, due to the traffic, not the field, and the room is spacious and clean and has a view of a garden and dogs that sound wild and somewhat ferocious barked late into the night.

My ambitions to sleep in were in vain but it felt amazing to sleep for at least a few hours in a proper bed. It looks like we're in for scattered thunderstorms today so it remains to be seen how productive today's adventures will be but I decided to spring for a driver so the lovely Kilonzo who picked me up from the airport will take me around a bit. I felt a bit entitled/ uncomfortable hiring a driver for the day but Nairobi has a pretty dodgy reputation and the STEP program has sent a few warnings about threats in Kenya and I figured I'd be a bit discombobulated after my travels so I would spring for it. 

The jet lag allowed me to check in with Russ via Skype and spend some time reading and reflecting on the interesting people you meet when you travel abroad. My DC to Zurich flight neighbor was a guy I'm guessing about my age who was going to visit his wife in Tanzania - he lives in DC and she is on assignment for an NGO in Tanzania and they see each other every three weeks! This made the bi-coastal distance Russ and I dealt with look like nothing. My middle row on the Zurich to Nairobi leg included a very sweet and patient Tanzanian man who had to sit next to an American preacher who made me want to crawl under the chair. You know those moments when you're trying to blend in and be considerate and you observe someone being every bit the stereotype of an ugly American and you're completely horrified and for a moment wish you were from somewhere else or at least were somewhere else? Preacher man lacked an indoor voice, perhaps because he was used to preaching to a big room, but it made avoiding his ignorance all the more difficult. He reviewed a printed powerpoint deck about religion with the kind Tanzanian man for about the full length of the movie. I tried desperately not to overhear their conversation, I didn't want these snarky judgmental thoughts sneaking into my head. "But the problem we're having in 'Murica is that girls don't get married until they are 25 or 26 and they sleep around with different people and get cancer." For reals people. "All there is to life is to get married and have children." Children are amazing, no doubt, but I'd be hard pressed to find someone in my social circle who believes that children are the meaning of life. I later realized why he thought it was so important to breed when he stated, "What if you only have two and one get sick and dies?" and then "who will take care of you when you're old?" Ahhhh.  I see. It's all clear now. I'm sure he is a nice man, clearly deluded, but means well and traveled a long way to spread the word of the bible to the people of Kenya. (NB: Please forgive my rant - I am fortunate that I'm not often confronted with these situations often. However, that makes them all the more shocking when I do.)

Fortunately my neighbor across the aisle was an Aussie who has spent the last seven months traveling with his girlfriend and is heading to Tanzania to climb Kilimanjaro. They meet up in two weeks and continue on to South Africa for four more months of travel before they head back to Australia. Fantastic. Amazing. He didn't even take his hiking boots off for the entire 7+ hour flight. A part of me can't help wondering how they do it, resource-wise, but then realize that it's not so much about how one does it but that one does. I love meeting other people driven by their wanderlust and their desire to see more than the cocoon we can all easily slip into. A year would be bliss, but even a week or two, perhaps a month when feasible, is all it takes to get away.