Stuck in Nairobi

We left Arusha at the crack of dawn, or rather we attempted to leave at the crack of dawn. There was something wrong with the tyre and we had to change it at the last minute. Nothing like a last minute delay first thing in the morning, perhaps I should have taken this as a sign of things to come.

We finally left at about 8::30am and hit the long bumpy road out of Tanzania, when I say long and bumpy I mean long and bumpy! I have never been on such a bad road in all my life, not that it was really a road at all, rather a dirt track with trucks driving along it.

We got to the Kenyan border and went through formalities there, it seemed to take forever to get our visas processed. We then took the short bumpy road into Nairobi, this road actually beat the road in Tanzania, this was actually a road, a road with more pot holes than could be counted. It was a wonder we didnt loose the truck!

We finally pulled into the hotel, at which we were dropping off Phil and the Incredibles (Alex and Russ) and said goodbye. It was really sad having to say goodbye to people who I had been in such close quarters with over the last 40 or so days, I can only imagine how I'm going to feel when I have to say goodbye to Siobhan (my tent mate) in Cairo in two month's time.

After dropping the people doing the Gorilla loop at the hotel the rest of us went out to the campsite, where we were all supposed to have dorm rooms. We pulled into a truck yard and at first I thought this was just where we were changing trucks, I was wrong, this was the campsite. We unpacked Helena and had a quick look at Gertie, our new truck and then were shown to our room.

The room was in the truck yard on top of a shipping container. I thought, this can't possibly be as bad as it looks. Wrong. There were eight beds in the shipping container/room and it couldn't be locked. It was also being used as a thorough fare area to get into another room behind. The bunk beds were all on top of each other and they only had flat pillows with no blankets. I went into the reception to ask for a blanket only to be told, they did not provide any linen. This made me quite angry, as the shipping container had not come cheaply.

At this point Rachel and David told me they were going to stay down the road at another campsite, whos private rooms were cheaper than this make shift dorm. Siobhan and I decided to stay one night in the shipping container and then move on with Rachel and David.

I had a horror of a nights sleep without a blanket and woke up grumpy. I watched movies all morning with a cat on my lap in to common room which was nice after such a long journey. Siobhan, Rachel, David, Shannon and I then moved onto the other hostel.

The rooms were nice and we dumped our stuff and then went off to the movies at Junction shopping centre. We met some of the others who had elected to stay at the other campsite, as well as Jasper and George, our eighteen year old menaces who were also leaving the trip. We watched Up in the Air and then the new Alice in Wonderland movie straight afterwards. It finished late and we had a bit of dinner at a restaurant outside before calling our driver Felix to take us home.

The next day Siobhan and I decided to attempt to knock all our errands off so we could spend the next day resting. Neither of us needed to get any visas so we only had a few things to do. We got Felix to pick us up and drive us into Nairobi. We managed to get passport photos pretty easily and I bought a phone, which seemed easier than attempting to get my current phones SIM unlocked. We went on the internet, at local prices, but the power kept cutting out. We had lunch at WIMPY's and then hunted down the Hilton as there was supposed to be a respectable place to change traveller cheques in there. There was no such place and I suggested we have coffee and cake in the hotel coffee shop, before descending back into the cities chaos.

We managed to find somewhere to change the traveller cheques on the outside and I waited patiently for Siobhan on a bench in the Bureau de Change. I did notice one thing about the locals while I was in there, people in Nairobi can't seem to just sit next to you, they have to sit on top of you. This got quite annoying as it took rather a long time to get Siobhan's travellers cheques changed.

The next day the real trouble started. Siobhan got a message on her phone saying we all needed letters of introduction from our embassies to get into Sudan. So much for sitting around and doing nothing. Lucky for me Rachel and David also had to go to the British High Commission, we all trouped off and the process was pretty painless, apart from being forced to pay over $100 US for a stinking letter!

After we got the letters Rachel and David wanted to put their Egyptian visa applications in, so we went off to the Egyptian Embassy. I already have my Egyptian visa, so I elected to stay in the cab and wait. *sigh* I had been sitting in the cab for about half an hour when this large jeep pulled up in front of my taxi. I thought nothing of this, but my driver slammed the cab into reverse, backed into the car behind us, damaging the cab and tried to take off. At that moment about five men got out of the jeep dressed in khaki green and physically grabbed the cab and pointed machine guns at my driver. More wheel spinning, at that point I decided I wasn't willing to hang around to find out the outcome of this and did a flying leap from the moving cab.

When the men saw me, their attention changed, "We didn't know he had a passenger" the tallest one said. Now me knowing that in these countries, fear is the last thing you show, managed to summon up the courage to confront the man and say in a more than stern voice "What the hell is going on?!" "He cannot park here" said the man. I was incredulous, waiting for a better explanation. When I realised it wasn't coming I said, "Well that's fine we'll move".

At this point David came out of the embassy and told me they were going to be ages and that they were getting completely jerked around, a statement which later turned out the be a huge understatement. I told the driver to take me to the Yahyah shopping centre and we sheepishly drove around the armed men and their jeeps and sped off. On the way the driver told me these men are like corrupt vigilantes who just want bribes, this more than worried me and I decided that going out in Nairobi was a bad idea unless absolutely necessary.

I met Cate and Breda in the shopping centre and they told me of the fun and games going on at the Ethiopian embassy, which had made a snap decision to not issue any more three month visas. We had Chinese food and managed to get camping mats and then bumped back into David and Rachel who were absolutely livid.

They had been at the Egyptian embassy for about three hours and were finally told they could have their visas on Thursday, the day before we were leaving, giving them no time to get their Ethiopian visas. Shannon and Siobhan joined us, and then it was my turn to be angry. They had paid nothing for their letters at the Australian embassy and I had been charged a small fortune. We all then went back to the other campsite to wish Dave a happy birthday. After that little social gathering, we went back to our own camp and got pizza for dinner. I ordered a mushroom pizza, which turned out to just have on it, mushrooms and cheese, no tomato base, or any base sauce.So it was like a flat piece of bread with mushrooms and cheese. Boring. Why can't they get any food right here? Nothing tastes like it's supposed to, even baked beans, I mean how can you screw up backed beans.

I was determined the next day to do nothing and nothing is exactly what I did. I stayed in my room and read the next twilight book all day, only coming out for lunch. Poor Siobhan had to go back to the embassy, she had a typo on her letter. I would have been angry enough to kill if it was me.

After our day of leisure, we transferred ourselves back to the other camp and Sarah told us the new plan as a few people had not managed to get all their visas.We were to stay in Nairobi another night and then head to Naivasha.We waited for Dave to get back with the truck and then drove out to the hotel.It was really nice to stay in a proper hotel and I managed to get my blog completely up to date again.We had a nice dinner and met the new people and had our group briefing.I slept in a nice bed with clean sheets and big pillows, it was heaven.

The next morning we all went to the elephant orphanage and watched the baby elephants get fed which was really cute.We then went back to the hotel and I had lunch with Krystal.We then went and did our group shop for the next few days, our group were given $35 for 19 people for one breakfast and one lunch. Insane.We managed it and it was quite a challenge, we then drove back to shipping container camp and put up our new tents, which are really easy, thank god.Tomorrow we are finally getting the hell out of here.Happy Days.