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Nicole's
Travelogues and Budget Travel Tips..
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NAIROBI, KENYA
I got into Nairobi at 10:00pm (plane was 2 hours late) and went to the LONG visa line. A woman took pity on the 5 of us at the back and ran us over to another empty visa booth around the corner. Nice! I paid $50 for single-entry visa and was off to main arrivals area. I didn't check a bag so I went searching for my ride. I was wondering if my ride was there since we were so late but the first sign I saw was 'Nairobi Backpackers.' Yipee!
The next morning, a buttload of birds woke me up at 5am. %%#$*! It sounded like there were about 1,500 outside of my window but I think there were only about 5 loud-ass storks in the trees. So I put my mp3 player on and listened to a bit of U2. I stayed in bed another hour, then decided to take shower before the rush. I actually got about 4 minutes of hot water which was heaven! We got free breakfast at the hostel, so I went to put my order in and sat at table next to a family. The woman was from Holland and her husband was from Kenya, so they had ADORABLE mixed kids (Manuk the boy was 8 and Shi the girl was 4). Ha ha leave it to me to find the only mixed kids to hand around! Breakfast came - delicious scrambled eggs and tomato and toast and fruit - so we ate and then I joined the family on a trip to the orphanage.
Lars, a Dutch guy that came to Kenya 6 months ago on holiday and never left - drove us first to Sheldrick Wildlife Trust. They take care of orphaned rhinos and elephants. At first they used to use 2 'mothers' (staff guys) per elephant calf and one would spend 12 hours with them and the other would spend 12 hours. But when one of the 'mothers' went on vacation, the calf was so stressed and missed him so much that it died. So now they have about 10 guys that rotate with all elephants 24 hours a day. They said that elephants are very similar to humans in terms of their emotions and life stages (since elephants have similar life spans). |
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So 2 of the hostel staff drove me to the hostel (Nimi and Shanga). How soon I forget about the driving here! Shanga was weaving in and out, going 85 on a street like San Pablo Ave (but with lots of curves). I had to stop myself from looking out the front and just concentrate on looking out the side windows! Weather was nice - about 65 degrees and it only took about 20 minutes.
I got to sleep about 12:30am - not before lathering myself with DEET and checking my mosquito net for holes. My window didn't close all the way, so they were buzzing around... 
