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Published: October 4th 2011
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Nairobi
Cocktail o'clock! After our busy first week, we had a long weekend recuperating in Nairobi chez Belinda. We spent our time eating dim sum, relaxing in cafes, taking in city views from the top of the Kenyatta Conference Centre and battling through the crazy Nairobi traffic. There was some how time for an unintentional Sandra Bullock movie marathon and a night on the town with the Nairobi Capital FM crew and a Big Brother Africa winner..!
After this excitement, and a heavy dose of DVD watching, we thought it was time to leave Nairobi and headed north to Kericho, and its tea plantations. We spent a relaxing morning soaking up the Kenyan sunshine and enjoyed a local brew before setting off to Kisumu on Lake Victoria.
We thought we were in luck as the bus we jumped on was the Nairobi to Kampala sleeper, so we had big comfy reclining seats with leg rests. However, the road on this section of the journey was still under construction, so we spent the trip holding on, trying to stop our heads hitting the bus roof and keep our bums in the seats!
We reached Kisumu a little bruised, battered and tired, and
checked into our really "Sooper" guest house. The next day we checked out the local museum and its scary residents (pythons, cobras, vipers, crocodiles and tortoises - not that scary, but big). We drove out to Hippo Point to find not a hippo in sight, so we then took a boat onto Lake Victoria to watch local fisherman at work and found a family of Hippos swimming near the shore. The locals also showed us some of their catch, including a very ugly lung fish, able to live out of water for a week, and known to eat its own tail if it gets hungry...
After seeing this, we decided a trip to the smoky tin shacks on the lake's shore was in order to taste some local fish with ugali - the local staple dish made from maize flour. We were probably the only tourists in town attracting a lot of attention, and a few shouts of Mzungu!
We left for Kitale to stay with Effie and Celia again, travelling via matatu (local minibus van), after experiencing the chaotic local bus stand where we were swamped by drivers and hawkers selling their destinations or whatever goods they
Nairobi
City views from on top of the Kenyatta Conference Centre had on their arms (from food and drinks for the journey to watches, padlocks, jewellery and underwear).
We arrived in Kitale during a heavy downpour, sheltered in a petrol station with the boda-boda drivers and waited for Effie to collect us.
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Alex
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Kisumi
Great pics again. Cant get enough of them. What are boda-boda drivers? Are they the same as tuctuc drivers?