Travel with JoY

It was supposed to be a two day trip not four plus.  But when we arrived in Brussels, our connection to the flight to Nairobi, I went to the ticket agent to see about a seat upgrade due to the long flight and she said, " we may not be flying to Nairobi, there's been a fire in the airport terminal".  i was shocked.  An hour or so later, after I scrambled to use the internet and communicate with Ella in Nairobi and as luck would have it, Alex from the US Consulate in Kenya who happened to be on Google chat at the moment, I decided to take the one of two options offered to me.  Brussels airlines either offered to put us up for up to two days in Brussels but warned that there would likely be no open flights to Nairobi for much longer than that.  The other option I chose was to fly to Entebbe, Uganda from which it was my responsibility to find my way to Nairobi.  It didn't look too far on the map and I didn't think the Brussels hotel option sounded good.  ...

We couldn't have chosen a much worse timing for this trip.  The day we leave Kenya is the first election in about six or seven years.  One of the leading candidates Uhuru and his deputy are both going before the Hague in April on charges of Human Rights violations as a result of the last election. They are charged with inciting violence and taking advantage of tribal tensions.  There was a lot of violence as a result of that election and already violence this time.  We do have a friend of a friend at the US Embassy who's been giving us personal advice on where to go and not go. Kenya is already one of the most crime ridden and corrupt countries in the world.  Expats, including Ella and Ken, live in a double gated community.  There is a gate at the entrance to their neighborhood, low security actually. Then there is a high security gate at the entrance to their apartment compound. Strangers are vetted through the phones to be sure they really are deliverin...

I While it's still fresh, I need to note the highlights of an amazing day.  Some of the highlights were a family of lions with two young cubs, a couple of cheetahs, many elephants, gazelles, hippos, bat-earred fox; but Yata and I both really enjoyed the giraffes.  After a full day of driving the most spectular landscape;probably the furthest panorama ever, over rolling grasslands; we then visited a Masai village.  The young men did a welcome dance with song for us. They demonstrate some of their native skills and took us into a dung and stick home.  It was very dark and cramped. They say the whole village leaves and builds a new one every nine years because the termites cause their homes to fall down.  There are large termite mounds around, in fact one of the cheetahs was sunning himself on one this morning. We are doing the safari with an international group: Paul, Ukrainian world traveler (fifty countries so far), Slim and wife from Tun...

We finally got out of Nairobi. Ella and Ken's place is so luxurious that it got quite  comfortable and made it literally hard to get out of our comfort zone. Last night we took the big coach overnight bus to the Indian Ocean coast town of Mombasa.  We were picked up by a reserved taxi driver who took us to a short ferry ride and then down the south coast a short distnace to the town of Tiwi.  Ella and Ken have stayed at this little resort, the Swahili House and recommended it so  we landed here this morning at 7:30 am.  The roomrate  includes your own private chef so after a quick coffee we made up a grocery list, encouraging him to cook in the local style which is Swahili-coastal seafood with Arab flavoring. Lunch made us realize that we had hit it big.  Calamari salad and fruit. Humphrey the chef, said he cleans the whole calamari, retaining the 'wings' for flavor, salts and peppers and cuts up.  He pan sears which releases liquid.  ...

Over the weekend the four of us took a tour of the Nairobi National Park, our own little Safari.  We weren't in the best car for the wet rutted roads and once we got stuck but we  used our snow driving tricks of rocking the car while another pushed and we managed to get out, meanwhile keeping one eye peeled for a lion.  We also lost a bumper and a tail light.  It was a rental and cars in general aren't in the best of condition to begin with, so it was not a big issue in the end. But, to the wildlife.  Entering the gate we immediately faced a pack of Yellow Baboons. They are known to be aggressive and we kept our windows tightly closed.  There was an abundance of bird life but the most exciting sighting for me was the Serval, (picture above).  The Serval is about twice the size of a house cat with a cute little face.  I posted the photo of the back due to the interesting identifiable white bars on the back of the ears.  First we saw her an...

Well after about 30 hours in transit we arrived five minutes ahead of shedule Tues. night in Nairobi to the Kenyata airport. Yata thinks that is a well named airport since it combines his name and Ken's, our new son-in-law. The newlyweds met us at the airport and as we drove to their apt. in the night  it felt as if we could have been at any urban airport complex but as it turns out we were skirting the Nairobi National Game Park. We haven't left  their roomy three bedroom apartment since we've been recoverring from jetlag. I think we've slept about 20 hours in last 36. But we flew British Airways on some pretty new planes and we had nearly unlimited  movies and TV. The new movie Sapphires was really good. Great music!

We depart next Monday, Jan 28th. We plan to stay in Nairobi and work with our daughter's and son-in-law's new businesses: SasaAfrica and mSurvey. We will also be touring and taking a short Safari in one of the national parks.                                              It'll be nice to get out of this Wisconsin deep freeze!                                                                Jean or Yata (JoY)