Well! Africa got off to a fabulous start: I was treated to my first African sunrise as the plane landed at Jomo Kenyatta at 6.25am and within 30 seconds of leaving the airport car park I glimpsed giraffes roaming around in the wild. Then, in the hour it took to crawl the few miles though the traffic to the hotel, I saw some enormous white birds half the height of a human being perched on the tops of trees, on rooftops and at the roadside - and Kenyans strolling past without giving them as much as a glance. I've decided that these are excellent signs and am now super excited to go on all the game drives lined up over the next week.
However, Nairobi as a city...the reason I arrived a day early is because I'd read that sometimes checked bags from Heathrow don't arrive/experience delays so I wanted to give myself enough time to deal with the aftermath should this have happened to me. But now that I'm sitting in the hotel room with bag very much in tow, I'm wondering whether it was such a great idea. Despite requesting a city map and directions to the nearest supermarket from the front desk, I have still not made it beyond the hotel premises and I've been here for 9 hours. Why? For starters, the armed guard and big metal gate fencing the building off from the general public is somewhat off putting...added to the fact that I didn't see ANY tourists on my journey from the airport and that Nairobi is not deemed a safe city - by my tour company and by the FCO (kidnappings, terrorism, that sort of thing).
For someone who merrily spent 11 hours walking around Paris on their first day in the city, being cooped up and unable - albeit for safety reasons - to explore somewhere new is incredibly frustrating, especially when I know it would PROBABLY be fine. It sucks, but at least I (for once) had the foresight to go book shopping at the airport before leaving London. One evening and one very long day to go...
