Back To Nairobi

Monday February 14^th. Happy Valentine's Day!

Up to catch the six o'clock shuttle back to Nairobi. On the bus with me was Zara, the lady who owns the company that GAP subcontracts their Kilimanjaro trips to. She asked me how my trip was, so I took the opportunity to tell her my concerns and complaints. She was probably sorry she asked!

Took the bus from Moshi to Arusha where I caught the Riverside Shuttle back to the Boulevard Hotel in Nairobi. The trip was the usual - long, bumpy and tiring. However, also as usual, looking out the window was fascinating. I think I've said it before, but if I could stop, there would thousands more excellent photos to show you when I get back.

Anyway, en route I saw things like:

-four giraffe standing by the side of the highway nowhere near any park I knew about

- a construction site with the most unbelievable scaffolding (see photo)

- a kilometre stretch of highway where there are lots of trucks being repaired right on both shoulders of the highway, it actually makes it very tight to get traffic through the middle

- and a multitude of scenes from the lives of Tanzanians and Kenyans that are normal to them and so different from what we are used to.

The border back into Kenya went smoothly. Immediately afterwards there was a shoe 'store' on the road that sold pieces of tires that Masai use as shoes! A couple of hours later and we entered the urban sprawl of Nairobi. This is a city that is growing very quickly, and is in transition from traditional ways and the new western ways. You see strange combinations, like a masai sheppard with his flock on a vacant plot and then a smartly dressed woman with dyed purple streaks in her hair, or a modern billboard advertising cell phone air time and a man in a wagon pulled by a donkey. They are stuck between two worlds.

I arrived at the Boulevard by 3:30, checked in and moved into my room. Found out that my Egypt tour has been cancelled, but the Intrepid trip through Jordan, Syria and Turkey is still on. So I have a couple of days to kill, before I fly to Amman, Jordan, instead of Cairo. So, I decided to book a three day trip to the Masai Mara National Reserve here in Kenya. It will be my last safari. The park is the top half of the Serengeti and is where the migration of animals originates. It contains the Mara River, which is the one that you see where the wildebeest and zebra are eaten by crocodiles as they try to cross.

The rest of the day I spent talking to my family on Skype. I actually phoned and woke both Chris and Megan up. Then I worked on the computer with e-mails and the blog until 11:00 before turning in.