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Published: August 18th 2009
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In Flight
Here we all are enjoying to luxury of a Kenya Airways 777 Well the flight was comfortable enough, we were all grouped together which was nice and after 8 hours we made it safe and sound to Nairobi. First job was to queue up and get ourselves Safaricom SIM cards. Then it was off to a shambolic immigration process and on to collect our bags. We then made our way to the carpark where we met up with our driver Elias and his sidekick Anthony. Elias drives a nice distinctive aqua blue minibus. It was a bit tight but we squeezed everyone in, prayed and we were off on our second long bus ride hoping it would be a bit more interesting than our bus trip to Heathrow.
Well we weren't dissapointed as the strange sites started almost straight away as we saw Maribu Storks nesting in the trees above the main road through Nairobi. We slowly made our way out of town and it became apparent just how hilly Nairobi is. Another thing you couldn't help but notice was people. Everywhere you look there are people, walking, driving donkey carts, chatting, selling stuff at the side of the road, or just relaxing, in fact it was a rare sight to not
Packed in!
Sardines anyone? see anybody, even when we were apparently in the middle of nowhere!
The bus journey itself took almost 9 hours! Rather a lot more than the 4 we were told but as it turns out not far from the +-100% margin for error kenyans seem to work too. This morning could easily mean this afternoon and today may well mean tomorrow!
The journey itself was variously described as interesting, scary, teriffiying, ridiculous, incredible, tiresome, and amazing at different points along the way. Ill list some experiences and leave the reader to match them with their descriptions!
* Zebras, baboons, and warthogs at the side of the road.
* The panorama of the rift valley from a few thousand feet up.
* An incomplete road bridge with no sides and half the carrigeway missing.
* Holes in the road almost as big as the bus.
* Weaver birds nesting.
* The Lazarus funeral home.
* Nearly running out of diesel beacause every station we went to had run out!
After all that we arrived safely, ate what seemed to us to be a veritable feast and then proceeded to unpack and get some sleep. All of us looking
The rift valley
Especially for Angela! forward to starting work properly tomorrow.
Andrew Wood
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ruth hanson
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what a jourey
daddy (Hanson) wow no wonder you were tired. miss you lots. ruth hanson xx