June 22nd - London to Nairobi!

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Up early!! I drug my (now) 135 pounds of luggage down to Paddington Station at 7:00 am and got onto the Heathrow Express. After repacking everything, I again JUST made the luggage allowances. I boarded Kenyan Airlines and began the second major leg of my urney. Fortunately, I flew during the day and was able to watch the earth below.

First the English Channel, then the northern shores of France, over Paris, to Mediterranean coastline, down the Italian coastline, across Sicily ad Malta, then a stretch across the Mediterranean Sea to the coast of Tunisia. Finally, FOUR hours of sand as we crossed the great Sahara Desert. The sun had set just shortly before landing in Nairobi, arriving in the dark at about 8:45 pm (Nairobi is at the equator so it gets 12 hours of sunlight and 12 hours of darkness every day, all year long).

A I was near the front of the aircraft, I managed to disembark first. I went straight to the passport check-in and passed the long visa line (I had gotten my visa earlier in Canada). However, an obviously wealthy British-Sudanese woman (and children) had paid a bribe and gotten in front of me, even though she did not have her visa or papers in order.It took a whole 1/2 hour for the one official to deal with her case before finally skirting her away to another area. Phew. I went through without a hitch and went straight to the baggage collection area, hoping to grab my bags and make a quick dash for the doors (I had $4000 worth of "stuff" for the school, which was all legal, but didn't want to risk the potential hassle). It took and HOUR for the luggage to come in 80 feet from the front of the airport(!!). I loaded it onto a baggage cart and lorried my way toward the final customs inspectors (the ones I had to sweet-talk last year). I glided across the open polished floors making a quick assessment of each of the three "pass-through" areas. I saw one where the guard was closely interrogating a young traveler and I swerved quickly towards them, brushing past with little fanfare and made a bee-line for the exit doors. FREE!!

I zipped out the front doors and hailed a quick taxi into Nairobi.

"How much?" I inquired of one of the cabbies.

"1800 shillings, but you are my friend so I will only charge 1700!" he replied. I always knew this was a good line to turn on my warning radar, but it wasn't too far ut of range so I took it.

"Sebastian" made the trip quickly and there was little traffic confronting us on the way to the Parkland Sports Club. John Amendi was theere to meet me and I signed in for the 4100 shilling per night room, including breakfast. John gave me my ticket for the morning flight to Kisumu, and Sebastian promised to pick me up at 5:30 am in the morning. I went up to my room and to get some sleep. I was in bed by 12:30 am, and received my wake-up call at 4:30 am..... 😞

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