Nairobi arrival

Sunday 16.01.11

The next morning we left early to drive through The Pearl which is named after its shape from aerial viewing, and has all been developed in the last 4 years.  It is a section of reclaimed land with apartment buildings and hotels and then more types of accommodation.  It is going to be used for the 2022 Soccer World Cup.  Most of the Pearl is not open yet but it is gloriously showy, and exquisite.  It reminds me of Sentosa in Singapore.  The amount of buildings in the Pearl is amazing.  They are also intricate in their designs and patterns.  We also drove past the car dealers, Maseratti, Ferrari, and Mercedes and i took some photos for James!  The whole of The Pearl just appears to be for the richest of the rich and is immaculately kept and maintained.  

Everywhere I went I kept thinking James would love it here for the amazing architecture and cars.  All of the cars appear to be only a few years old, and many still have the import stickers on them and the plastic on the leather seats.  After driving around a bit more we headed out to the airport where I was met at the car by a porter who loaded my bags and wheeled them inside, for a cost of 20 Riyals (about $AUD7), and apparently i didn’t have a choice as to whether I wanted his assistance or not!  The process of immigration was remarkably efficient and i had my bags and passport checked and myself checked-in under ten minutes.  Take that Melbourne airport and your one hour queue!

After a short wait at the gate, the bus arrived to take us to the plane.  It was a much smaller plane than the flight from Melbourne and there were only about 30 people on board, and I was the only white person!  The others were Indians, Arabs or Kenyans.  Well TIA, as they say!  Much to my delight I managed to get a whole row to myself, allowing me to stretch and walk as often as I liked.  I was also able to spread out all over the place which was great!  Unfortunately though, they didn’t have personal TVs so I spent the flight reading and snoozing.  Frustratingly, there was a man with incredibly bad breath somewhere in my vicinity and I had to spend the majority of my time with a blanket over my face! Refreshingly though, the flight was only a short 5 hours this time.

Getting through Visa Control and Customs was a breeze compared to last time!  And the Visa fee had halved from $US50 to $US25 which was nice.  Although considering the Australian dollar is trading equal to the US dollar at the moment it’s even cheaper again.  The Kenyan Shilling has lost a bit of value since I was here in 2009, so it’s definitely going to be a cheaper trip.  Previously, 100KSH was about $AU2 but now it’s only $AU1.37 which probably is a reflection of the US dollar not doing so well at the moment.

I met Tammi at the airport and we jumped in a taxi and headed to our hotel, Khweza.  It’s pretty nice and Tammi gets a big discount for advertising on her website.  Once I had settled into our room I met Tracey, from the US, a volunteer with To Kenya Forever who is also staying at the hotel.  Then we headed up to the roof top restaurant for a late dinner.  It’s a pretty funny restaurant with not much to choose from but my pasta with vegetable stew was actually pretty decent!  There is also a nice view of the city.  There don’t seem to be many mzungus staying at Khweza, and the few that are aren’t that keen to chat much.

Even though the temperature drops a fair bit at night, it’s still pretty warm in the rooms so we keep the fan running all night.  This plays havoc with the mosquito nets over the beds but being so tired it hardly bothered me and I was asleep in minutes.  The mosquitos aren’t that bad though there are a few but Nairobi doesn’t have any recorded cases of Malaria so there isn’t much need to worry about them too much.