Safari: Kenya - to Nairobi, Friday 2022 October 28

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Oddly, I fumbled all the processes of checking in and boarding in Calgary, as if I were a newbie – perhaps that’s what staying home during the pandemic did to me. This trip still seems like a dream, not a reality. I am now in the KLM lounge at Schiphol Airport, Amsterdam, a ten-minute walk from my arrival gate. This large lounge is virtually full – takes some walking around to find a seat. The main part of the airport, down one flight of stairs, is much busier – a constant passage of discontinuous crowds. As soon as I finish drinking my tea, I am going to mask again – too many sneezes and coughs can be heard. There are three and a half hours left of my almost six-hour wait. Our flight was more than half an hour late leaving Calgary and arriving here, so that ate up some of the time. Altogether, flying and waiting takes 22 hours, not including being at the Calgary airport three hours in advance of take-off.

Although I had a window seat to Nairobi, we flew too high to see the ground well. I would have liked to have seen more of Egypt and have been sure that I saw the Nile. There were more lakes than I expected for that landscape. Then the sky darkened into night.

At Jomo Kenyatta Airport, the passport officer was as confused about my visa as I had been. I gave him the document that came from their system, printed in tiny type saying “valid”. He asked me if I had received an email, and I pulled out the screen print I had made at home at the last minute. He looked at it for a while, did something on the computer, and finally welcomed me to Kenya. The next day, I asked Marianna what she had received and she showed me her multi-paged visa document that looked similar to the Tanzanian one. Something went wrong, but thankfully my trip wasn’t ruined from the start!

In the dark outside the airport building, about twenty people were holding signs for passengers; I read most of them before seeing the Eldertreks logo. Albert took me to a safari vehicle to wait for other tour members coming in on Air France. That flight was late, so Albert drove me to the Stanley Hotel in the centre of the city. I asked him about taking a walk the next day, and he urged me to stay close to the hotel. As I checked in, all I noticed was the dark wood trim and how elegant it looked. I was in bed in under 30 minutes, including a shower.

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Photos

Stanley Hotel lobby
First hotel in Kenya and named for the journalist explorer, Stanley

Stanley Hotel
Built in 1902

Stanley Hotel
Very welcoming bed

Thorn Tree Café
Elegant, superb service, excellent food

Thorn Tree Café
Reimagination of the original practice of leaving messages pinned to the tree

Comments

[Isabel Gibson]

Fumbles aside, you got there. Hurray! Looking forward to these posts. Your hotel looks delightful, and I *bet* that bed was welcoming after a day in transit.

[beentouring]

Safari
If I do say so myself, there are some great photos coming!