Kenya

 

 

Nairobi

We were pleasantly surprised by the Akamba Bus service to Nairobi. We had heard some horror stories about buses in Tanzania and Kenya and we also heard that the route between Mombasa and Nairobi was particularly dangerous and had the highest death rate in Africa. Great news! In fact the bus was very comfortable with loads of leg room and the roads were not as bad as I expected. We arrived into Nairobi at 9pm, another fact I had worried about alot due to the amount of robberies in Nairobi at bus stations at night. Luckily we got straight into a cab and headed to our digs, Wildebeest Camp.

This place is run by an Australian couple and at £8 each per night, was the cheapest we could find. It had lovely gardens, two resident tortoise, a big dining room, dorms, private luxury tents and two man tents set up for hire. The food was very good and very expensive but we ventured out and found two good places to eat. One was a filthy shack in the middle of a fruit market where you can get fed for 20p, the other was a restaurant catered by a variety of different food stalls where we ate awesome tandori chicken meals for a quid each. We were in Nairobi for 10 days to obtain our Indian Visas and during that time we went to an elephant orphanage which was fantastic! The orphanage rescues elephants that have somehow become separated from their mothers and cannot survive in the wild. When they are ready, they are released back into national parks to reintegrate with other elephants. In light of this people who visit the orphanage can only do so between 11am and 12pm because the staff do not want the elephants to become too used to human contact. The highlight of the day was a baby elephant covered in mud charging at a group of British chavs and covering them in shit!

As soon as we could we headed to the Indian Embassy to apply for visas. This was pretty straight forward to do and we were told to come back in 5 working days to collect our passports. I asked when and where we should pay and the lady muttered something we couldn’t catch and nodded when I asked if we paid on collection. 5 days later we returned at 2pm as instructed to be told that we couldn’t collect our passports because we hadn’t paid the Bank of India!!! We were then told that The Bank of India closes at 2.30pm so we pegged it to the bank and arrived at exactly half past just as the security guard was closing the door. I stood there begging with my hands together but he said to leave. I continued to beg for mercy and eventually he took pity on me and let us in. This angel of a man also sorted out our payment and I gave him 500 shillings for his help. Therefore we got our visas that day and were all set to head to the Ahmadland!!

Before I get carried away I should finish our Kenyan experience first! We booked a safari based on a recommendation from Eliza and Natessa. It ended up costing roughly £190 each for three days which is the cheapest I have ever heard of. Big Mike picked us up at 8am and drove us to the Masai Mara. We had a problem with the exhaust half way there which had to be replaced and delayed us for an hour but Mike was conscious of this and made sure we had a great evening safari that night. During our three day safari we saw lions, cheetahs, giraffes, baboons, hippos, buffalo, various types of deer, warthogs (my personal favourite!), meercats, wilder beasts , elephants and rhino. It was truly an amazing experience heightened by the fact that Mike was super friendly and absolutely hilarious! As the name suggests we also got to the see the Masai communities living their day to day lives which was interesting and made the experience even more memorable.

We met some more great people at Wildebeest Camp namely Mara from Germany (who reminded me of Mel alot!), Vivek from India who was super nice and invited us to stay with him in Bangalore and Louise from South Africa to name a few. We also met a guy called Russell from South Africa who was a lovely bloke most of the time but also a tool on occasion! He was very friendly and generous but it was difficult to have a conversation with him that didn’t focus on his life. He had obtained a stalker in Tanzania who kept ringing him insisting that they should get married and we regularly heard him yelling down the phone at her. In our first week there we all met a woman from South Africa (we’ll call her Jane because I can’t remember her name!) and Russell was there like a rat up a drain pipe! He ploughed her with alcohol and then persuaded her to go for a meal with him at a fancy restaurant. She agreed because quite frankly, Russell didn’t give her much of a choice and off they went leaving Mara, Ahmad and I grimacing for poor Jane! They returned a few hours later and it was clear that Russell was smitten, so much so that he had bought her a bunch of flowers and refused to let her pay for anything at the restaurant. Jane had disappeared back to her tent and it didn’t look like she was due to return so Russell went to call on her and returned with a face like a slapped arse. Turns out she was a lesbian and her girlfriend was due to arrive the following day! Russell then proceeded to get very drunk and began moaning about how much money he has spent and how she lead him on and how he was sick of using his right hand! About an hour later Barney (the resident dog) started humping the other dog Fatty who was not impressed. Barney was pretty agitated and as he’s a huge animal, most people were steering clear. Russell decided to intervene in the humping and Barney went to bite him. Russell stuck his fist in the dog’s mouth as you are supposed to do but then removed it and Barney bit his arm. There was blood everywhere and Russell was making a pretty bad scene of everything. The owners were really worried because they have small children staying at the hostel but they were soon reassured when Mara explained that Russell was very hammered and it was his fault for aggravating Barney.

Mara left a few days later and rather generously gave me some deet, cosmetics, three tops and some disgusting titanic playing cards in a cigarette pack with a personalised message inscribed! We promised to see Vivek in Bangalore if we could and then flew out ourselves a few days later to Mumbai. Thus marks the end of our African adventure! It’s funny because I am writing this 2 months later and although I was ready to leave Africa when we did, I missed it straight away. The countries we visited were amazing and so incredibly beautiful. We met some wonderful people (backpackers and locals) and had some amazing experiences. We are writing this months later so I know I have missed so many funny little titbits but clearly my memory is not what it used to be!

It took Ahmad and I two months to get used to being together 24/7. We’ve had some cracking rows – the worst being in Dar – but these were definitely teething issues! As I write this we are getting on really well and I am really enjoying sharing these experiences with somebody I care about so much. HOWEVER!!!! Ahmad has surprised me over the last two months in several ways. I have discovered that he is addicted to shopping. He has dragged me around mall after mall looking for the following items: hair dye, shorts exactly the same as the ones he bought from H&M 6 years ago, a laptop, a 3G modem and t-shirts. Although these tasks should be simple, they have been the bain of my life for two months and I told Ahmad that in India, he would be shopping by himself. Also, Ahmad doesn’t like to go anywhere by himself because he gets lonely! Ahmads response to these accusations will be available next week.

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One Reply to “Kenya”

  1. Jo

    You guys sound like your having amazing adventures! be safe and love you both. Love Jo (and Billy)xxxxx

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