2 january 2006

1 January 2006
Arrived at Ottawa airport at 10am and managed to get an earlier flight to Toronto. When we arrived in Toronto we ate! We bought paperbacks to read! And we chatted with various people. We met a Nigerian priest/minister who was leaving his studies in Canada to fly back home to bury his mother. Asked him about his thoughts of the differing cultures, he said the main thing was that for Africans, family is Number One, whereas in Western cultures, YOU are number one, and everything else comes in much later. He’s right!
We also met 2 girls, students from Calgary, who were on their way to Paris to study for a semester. We followed them (or did they follow us?????) and kept running into them. Airports, even busy ones, can be quite a small world after all.
Finally got on the plane to London and it was a full flight – the only saving grace was they were showing The Constant Gardener, which is a great movie, a thriller set in Kenya. Mum watched it for the first time.
At Heathrow in London, we……..ate again! Spent all our Euros and a few pounds sterling as well.
The flight to Nairobi was a lot of fun actually, plenty of empty seats, so we all managed to find lots of room to lie down and sleep. Shane, of course, was chatting up the flight attendants (male AND female!!) and finding out about Nairobi from those ‘in the know’. I chatted with 2 girls who work for UNICEF in Kenya and Somalia, they were very interesting. They advised to be very careful in Nairobi, that robbery and carjackings are commonplace. Not to go out at night. Be very careful with valuables etc. They love Nairobi but are quite upset that the criminal element is so prevalent. One of them was robbed recently, at Java Hut, an ‘American’ type coffee shop. Also had a good conversation with a granny who has visited her grandchildren, daughter and son-in-law in Nairobi about 8 times before. She had some good tips on things to see and do.
Shane was busy videoing out the window – we passed over the Sahara Desert for ages, and you could see the rippling sand dunes (no vegetation at all – to me, a REAL desert!) below, it was fantastic.
He also spoke at length to a flight attendant who was planning her wedding in Rome – he gave her lots of tips about the photography. Who knows, maybe she’ll book him for her wedding and fly him over there! It was mentioned……. Here’s hoping…..
2 January 2006
The time has changed an awful lot! We finally arrived in Nairobi, 9pm local time.
Alfred, a young fellow from the tour company (see image) (born and bred in Nairobi), met us and escorted us back to the Stanley Hotel downtown. First impressions of Kenya: hot! After cold Canada it was a nice change. We passed by lots of industrial areas, and recognised a lot of Western names like Toyota, Daikin, Hewlett Packard, etc. The hotel is very British colonial looking, very luxurious. We are stuffed! So after showers and washing some clothes in the bathtub (I can see that getting old very quick! but necessary) we are heading for bed. Big day tomorrow, going to do some fun stuff. We are arranging a private guide for the 3 of us to take us to: (hopefully!) the baby elephant orphanage, a giraffe rescue place, Carnivore’s restaurant, Karen Blixen’s museum (‘Out of Africa’), and maybe a bead/pottery co-op. I’ll write more tomorrow………I think internet access may be okay- here they have wireless internet for $6.50USD/hour, which is pretty cheap (not that we need it for an hour though!), although Nairobi is a large major city of 3 million, and we are ‘going bush’ on safari, so we’ll see how we go.
By the way, we are so excited to be here! Looks like we are only 3 on the safari leaving Wednesday morning so we’ll have a great time………….