Thursday, August 9, 2012

Travel Days to Africa

Travel Day(s)
Well our first travel day(s) are done now and we are safe and sound in our first hotel in Nairobi. I had forgotten how friendly everyone is here. The pace is much more layed back than in Europe or North America. Before getting to our cab at the airport, I heard "jambo" and "karibu" at least twice just in the airport. Jambo is a friendly greeting and Karibu means welcome. Those are two words that tourists will hear frequently on a daily basis here in Kenya. The Kenyans are a very warm, hospitable people.

The traveling went pretty smoothly. A short flight to Calgary, a short layover, then an 8.5 hour flight to Amsterdam, a couple hours of layover, then a 7.5 hour flight to Nairobi. Poor Gaye, she isn't fond of different foods than she isn't used to. She normally loves airplane food because it is normally quite plain. Plain chicken and pasta, or chicken and rice etc. Well this afternoon (or evening? On our way to Nairobi anyway) our first meal was a choice of either rice and curry or  salmon and pasta in cheese sauce. Well she didn't like either of those options, so we ordered one meal of each and she tried to pick at each of  them a little bit but really wasn't enjoying herself. I think she figured she would eat a bun and savour the next meal. A movie and a sleep later, the second meal came and Gaye was famished. The next meal was fish in a curry sauce and there weren't any choices this time. Gaye doesn't like fish or curry!. The look on her face was priceless. I think I heard something that rhymes with truck, under her breath, but I can't be sure. :)

Tomorrow morning we will be flying out to the Olare Orok Conservancy for the first three days of our safari. This conservancy is relatively new. In fact I don't know that it was even set up when we were here in 2010. A friend on facebook referred me to this camp. I loved her pictures. She said there were very few tourists (our entire camp will only have 12 people as opposed to the normal 50-150. She said that guides are really hard working, so I'm looking forward to it.

A house cat has befriended Gaye and I. He doesn't really want attention, he's just content to sleep at my feet in the lobby outside our hotel room. The funny thing is he isn't even a hotel mascot. They don't know where he lives, but he looks healthy and they don't seem to mind that he's here, so it's all good.

I had better call it a night. We have to get up in six hours to catch our plane and Gaye just opened the door to give me the old "stink eye", so I had better shut the computer down and call it a night.

Lala Salama (sleep well)

1 comment:

  1. I hacked Gaye! I love u guys and look foreword to reading more. I really need my autie though so have un and get home safe. Soon.

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