6 July 2009

6 July, Day 23: Nairobi Ho!

All done, one last shower in the Most Amazing Shower in Africa and a quick huddle before we leave the Roika compound. Say goodbye to Edna and thank her again for everything. Town is busy this time of the morning, but we arrive at Luca’s offices. He meets us there and an associate arrives with the stones. We inspect each and I’m very sorry to report that they were no good. One even had a tiny crack in it. Not nearly enough of that sexy deep-blue violet with red flare. No pretty cuts. I thank him for his trouble but he’s cool with that. Snap a few pics before we go and say our goodbyes.

The others are just outside town on the Nairobi-Moshi road (so the opposite direction we went yesterday). Just before 10 we’re on our way. It’s about a 3hour stretch once we’re into Kenya, but we still need to drive another hour or so to the border.

Very, very barren hills and Masai herding cattle. And, dust storms! Basically brings the convoy to a crawl, incredible experience.

Customs time. Just a small insight on how my head works, but every time we stop at these things Men at Work’s “Safety Dance” starts playing on loop in my head. It’s Pavlovian in its beauty. I also imagine myself wearing a big yellow hardhat and doing the robot, switching up my sweet moves with some moonwalking action through the immigration bits. Come on, sing with me:

“You can dance if you wan’o, you can leave our friends behind, and your friends can’t dance and if they don’t dance well they’re no friends of mine”

Hey, don’t judge.

(ps: I got that song in your head now. And it’s gonna stay there alllll day.)

(pps: my pleasure)

Stop at the designated area, BUSY. Hawkers, hustlers and busses full of tourists (sensibly dressed, so probably not Americans). Grab the passports, the Carne’s and a fist full of dollars and start wading through red tape. Diligently fill in forms and books that no-one will ever, ever, never ever ever read. Ever. Go to the next counter, wash rinse, repeat. Fill in the forms for the Bullet, hand over the Golden Tickets (aka Carne de Passage), pay $40 for this privilege. Oh, and guess what: our COMESA insurance things we bought for a fortune when we entered Tanzania? Turns out, they’re legal! Imagine that.

Another stop just before crossing into Kenya, to fill in yet another book with useful info nobody cares about. A mere 50 minutes later and we are into Kenya.

We’re off to Karen, a town a few km’s away from Nairobi. Karen is named after Baroness Karen Christence Blixen-Finecke. The movie “Out of Africa” is based was based on her experiences on a coffee plantation in British East Africa (now Kenya). Fanie’s cousin has a house there and we will be lodging with her for a few days to plan our next move.

The road takes us through many shanty towns, varying from bad to really bad. Kenya definitely has a different vibe than the other countries, can’t quite place it yet.

We cruise through town and hang a left into a very nice neighbourhood, with large green trees and high hedges. Fanie mentions that this used to be the Bishopscourt (very posh neighbourhood in the Southern Suburbs of Cape Town) 20 years ago. Still looks pretty good to me.

One security gate later and we all park at Pat’s house. Large parking area, enough for the 4 4x4’s and at least 4 other vehicles. Large grass lawn with swings, a little house and the security building. And then of course Pat’s very large (must be at least) 12 bedroom house. She greets us as we arrive and welcomes us. House rules are simply, she has 5 dogs, 3 Jack Russels and 2 German Sheppards. So keep the doors closed, as she doesn’t like them getting out. Kenya is experiencing severe water shortages, so the taps don’t have any water. Water has to be bought and brought in with trucks each day. Scheduling for showers would be essential.

Tonight we made a ton of meat. Pork ribs, boere wors , lamb chops and Johan made his speciality stuiwe pap, met uie smoor. Baie baie Lekker! It’s Johan’s lastly evening with us, his flight out is very early, 07:00 tomorrow. So he needs to be at the airport for 04:30 or so. We all eat, drink and are merry, say our goodbyes and good nights and tuck in. Annelie and I managed to secure a room in the house, one of 3 available rooms (the others are rented out, separate apartments really). Our room is 2 single beds.

Lots of interesting trinkets, we have a Las Vegas slot machine in ours, next to a very broken old 386 PC, monitor et al.

Quirky.

Highlights: Um, not sure. No real highlight. I kinda dig the slot machine!

[G & A], out

You can dance if you wan’o...

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