Safari Begins – Late Wednesday 25 April early Thursday 26 April

Well tonight it begins… we spent today packing and getting organized. It took me for bloody ever! In the end Wesley had to come and help me rationalise my packing – he told me I wasn’t opening a hospital and therefore didn’t need to take so many bandages :) In the afternoon we spent a few hours on the felucca then came home and we were ready to go.

I was a little nervous. I had to keep reminding myself that I’ve been on a few adventures now, so this one shouldn’t be any scarier. I couldn’t decide if I was more scared coz I was worried about Aidan and Colin or less scared coz I wasn’t going by myself. This is only the second time I’ve set off on adventure not by myself. Normally it’s just me on my own and this time I had two travelling companions – albeit two people who were on their first real adventure…

Anyways, so we leave Ma’adi at 8pm. Wesley had arranged a car and ‘expediator’. The ‘expediator’s’ job is to deal with all the counter people at the airport, avoid the baggage scammers and generally get us checked in and sorted with the minimum amount of fuss.

We were lucky – there was hardly anyone there so we raced through – could have done it easy on our own, but was nice not to have to think about it.

The plane was a little delayed which wouldn’t have been so bad except it was scheduled to leave about 11:30pm and we were all really tired. We didn’t know how long it had been delayed so we couldn’t snooze unless one of us stayed awake and there wasn’t anywhere to really snooze.

We finally boarded around midnight and discovered the flight had one stop on the way to Nairobi – at Khartoum. We were lucky though, for that 3 hour stretch we got to have 3 seats each so I had a little snooze. Aidan couldn’t get comfortable – he was sitting behind me and looked over and couldn’t work out how I’d curled up so I fitted in the 3 seats – I guess I’m just clever and maybe a little flexible!

Unfortunately the next leg we all had to sit together so snoozing wasn’t as easy.

When we got to Nairobi we were a little nervous. We managed to make it though customs with minimal fuss – in fact it was a well oiled machine! And then we went to get some money changed. This is when the ‘adventure’ part of our trip began.

We’d all received the same trip information, all claimed to have read it, but still we managed to get to Nairobi with pre-2000 series US currency. I’d made sure I had the right series for the first batch of currency I’d got, but in all the excitement of trading LE for US from Wesley’s rotators I forgot to check it. Plus the boys hadn’t checked theirs because they got them from the Travelex currency exchange and assumed they’d be ok. We’re not 100% sure what the problem is but all through Kenya and Tanzania they only accept post-2000 series US currency – we assume it’s a forgery issue of some sort. Our problem of course was that here we were with nearly $2000 in US currency and we haven’t even got the $1200 we need for local payment in post-2000 series notes.

The Travelex lady gave us nothing. She had no suggestions, options or helpful advice whatsoever.

So there we were, stood just behind the glass with 50 Nairobian’s just through the glass watching us take out our US currency and review it and count it all up and show off just how wealthy we looked in the land of muggings! – real happy.

Anyway we worked out we had almost enough for the local payments and so we decide to go to an ATM to get some local currency.

I couldn’t get my ATM card to work. I’ve had real trouble with my stupid National ATM card the whole time I’ve been here. I thought part of it was the Egyptian ATMs but I think most of the problem is the stupid National bank! Aidan had a special Travelex card thing and it worked at the ATM so he got some Kenyan currency (shillings).

A few weeks ago I got an email about the BCA saying something had been cancelled coz Derek (the main Mohandiseen BCA man) was in Nairobi and wouldn’t be back for a few weeks to run it. I sent him an email saying I was coming to Nairobi and could he recommend a taxi company for me to arrange an airport transfer. He sent me a bunch of info and then said if I wanted he could arrange a pick up for me. I said YES PLEASE!! So once we got the money thing sorted and went through the customs gate there was a guy with a sign with my name on it J It cost us 1500 shillings (about AUD$30). It was suppose to be 1200 but coz of an issue with the car he said 1500 instead.

I’m not sure what happened but for some reason the transfer man couldn’t get the car he was supposed to so instead he had Derek’s car – a little Rav4. So we piled into the back of that and got taken to the hotel. It took quite a while to get into the city but the driver man said we were right in the middle of peak hour so it was to be expected.

It was still pretty early when we arrived at the hotel so there were a few people checking out. We kinda just piled our stuff up on the bench and waited to check in. I couldn’t find the booking information so I was a bit concerned that we’d have some issue with our rooms but it was fine. The best bit of the check in was that while I was filling in the form I heard a women say to the receptionist that she had a tour meeting at 6pm that night and whereabouts was it? I quickly turned and said are you guys on the Gecko tour and she said yes and I said so were we. We went back to filling in our forms then when we had our room key the women introduced them at Dee and Aubrey. They said they had hired a mini bus and were planning to go to the Elephant orphanage and a few other places and did we want to join them. We had a quick discussion and said yes please.

After dumping our stuff in our room (a triple share), a quick snack and organising our day packs we met them in the lobby. Turns out they’d been in Rwanda helping build a missionary church and they’d arrived in Nairobi yesterday. They’d spent the day before at a nature walk, but the rain had made a few things too muddy to do.

We told them that we were having US currency issues and they said they had planned to go to a money exchanger so we went there with them. We traded USD$300 in old notes and I told the women I was prepared to trade $300 as if it were $280 just to get some post-2000 series US dollars. Once she understood what I meant she agreed to change it. I reckon she kept the USD$20 – pocketed it I bet.

We’d heard of a few things to do in Nairobi – like that the elephant orphanage and the giraffe feeding park but we were happy to go wherever they had planned. Lucky for us they wanted to go to the elephant orphanage and were happy to go to the giraffe feeding park again so we got to do that. The elephant orphanage was SOOOOOO cute. There were all sizes from tiny little babies (still up to the middle of my thigh!) to ones up to my shoulders. They take in orphaned babies, raise them slowing making them more self sufficient and then release them back into the wild.

The funny thing at the orphanage was that the sign said entry was by ‘donation’ but when we went to pay we were told it was a 300 shilling donation – so basically an entry price, but then 300 shillings is only about AUD$6.

A guy gave the story of what they do and how they raise the elephants. He explained how they make them self sufficient in the wild and how they track them once they are released. It was really interesting and so sad to think that $6 per tourist keeps the place ticking over, but they are operating so close to the bread line. They also had a merchandise stall – Colin bought a t-shirt. There was some cute stuff, but we were light on shillings and usable US currency so we didn’t get too much.

Next stop was the Giraffe feeding park. It was very cool. They gave you handfuls of pellets and the giraffes took them right out of you hands. They have big teeth – I thought I was going to loose a finger, but they knew how to separate the inedible people fingers from the tasty little pellets.

We got a bunch of photos taken feeding the giraffes. They also do a giraffe kiss – that’s where you hold the pellet in your lips and the giraffe takes it off your lips. We declined. One of the staff showed us, Aidan got a good pic and we said, no that’s ok. I learnt a new fact - Giraffes have antiseptic spit. They eat acacia seeds which are spiky. So the spikes cut the mouths of the giraffes but then their antiseptic saliva means they don’t get infected… but even knowing they were antiseptic didn’t make me want to kiss a giraffe!

After the giraffes we went to a place call ‘The Veranda’ for lunch. I had the nicest passionfruit juice in the universe. It was delish!

After lunch we went to a pottery place. They hand make beads and some crockery. It was set up to provide women with paid employment in the area and is now exporting the beads all over the world. It was weird. The women sit at massive tables making beads out of black clay and drinking cups of tea. They must be paid by the bead because they all made different shapes in little piles. Then there were other tables of women glazing them and some other women in charge of the kilns. The beads and pottery were quite expensive but the biggest problem with buying it was that we were about to spend the next 8 days bouncing around on safari.

After this we went back to the hotel and got cleaned up and then we met the rest of the tour.

Our guide’s name was Alex – a maasi. The rest of the tour group was a bit of an eclectic group – 8 Aussies Felicity & Sarah, Hugo & Fiona, Matt and us three plus Dee and Aubrey (Canadian) and Heidi (English).

Only Dee, Aubrey, Heidi and us were there to start with because the others were waiting for lost bags. They arrived just as the meeting was breaking up and we discovered that Matt had lost his bags on his way from Jo-berg. He’d gone from Australia to Jo’berg to Nairobi and his bags didn’t follow him. He was remarkably calm. I’d have got back on the plane and gone home… ok I might not have been that bad, but I’d definitely have cried!!

Colin took him to the supermarket (that we’d found earlier) and he bought a sleeping bag. He decided that if his bag didn’t show up by the morning he could get by with very few clothes but he’d need a sleeping bag.

It was good that everyone eventually ended up at the tour meeting because we went and had a drink and then had dinner together. It was a good opportunity to get to know one and other.

We wrapped up pretty early but it was a very nice start to the tour…