First day

We flew KLM/Kenya Airways from Amsterdam to Nairobi, and to say the atmosphere was "relaxed" might be an understatement ... our introduction to the culture change we were heading into. We were picked up at the airport by Samuel and Nelson, who probably had to wait quite a while for us as I couldn't find my suitcase - that was unnerving!

Getting out of Nairobi was a novel experience too - I have never experienced traffic like that before, nor the resulting back up that apparently occurs daily between 6am-9am; gave us good opportunity to learn some African words like thank you (asanti) and bus (matato (as opposed to matata which is "problem")). Right alongside the hundreds of cars were just as many pedestrians walking to work along the very narrow shoulders on either side of the road. How the drivers managed to avoid them all is beyond me ... and I did wonder how many fatalities occur every year (but didn't ask). Men selling daily papers darted in and around vehicles, as did motorbikes - who would defiinitely have the best luck getting where they were going on time! The smell of exhaust was pretty overpowering at times, but it was too hot to close the windows in the jeep.

Obviously we did eventually make it out of the traffic and reach our destination, Rock House, which is about 30 minutes outside of Nairobi and a short walk from a giraffe project / sanctuary(?) that Amy and I are going to see tomorrow. We'll also head back into Nairobi tomorrow to see some of the city sights - with our trusty guide leading us the entire way. I get the feeling it's not entirely safe for two white women to wander around the city unattended!

Rock House is exactly what the name suggests ... a bed and breakfast made of rock! It's surrounded by all types of greenery (sorry, don't know any of the names except for the banana trees, which do have green bunches of bananas in them) and ponds. Many of the trees at Rock House look like the ones we have in Canada, so looking out the window here I could be sitting at A. Phyl's house. However, there's also Acacia trees, which are really cool and look exactly like they do in the documentaries. There's also Africa's version of the crow somewhere around here and it's been voicing itself all day long, along with the neighborhood rooster ... ah the sounds of home!

Apparently most African's eat only 2 meals a day, tea and bread or toast for breakfast and supper around 8:00 that night ... with mostly fruit snacks in between (oh ya, and donuts). Boy were we surprised when our driver told us that! Of course, any place that caters to the North American diet serves 3 meals, but supper is later in the evening. The food is made daily from fresh ingredients and our lunch was de-ricious. Supper is apparently soup with fish, or maybe fish soup. I decided that, in spite of my dislike of fish I wanted to try everything and really try to like it and so didn't mention that fish was not on my repertoire of acceptable foods!

So, that brings me up to now ... looking forward to going to bed but is only 6:00 here so still way too early. I can hear the gals cooking supper and something smells goooood! The safari starts Sunday morning and then we will be out of computer range for awhile ... check the blog tomorrow though cause there should be a post and pics by then.

Vivian