Day 1: BARCELONA - NAIROBI
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Today's the big day. After months of waiting, the day has finally come to make our way to African lands. We have the flight Barcelona Nairobi with a stopover in London at 7.15 in the morning, so around 2.30 noon we left home.
After an unsuccessful attempt at the “Aparca i Vola” car park (we should have booked in advance) we go to the Express, which will cost us a little cheaper, although parking is discovered.
The flight Barcelona Nairobi leaves more than half an hour late and counting that the link to Nairobi It is 1 hour 40 minutes, we are waiting for what will happen to us. We believe that we will have to run, as always when we stop in London and have been late from Barcelona.
Just when we landed we met a couple who will also travel with us on this circuit and we are not only glad to start meeting people, but we think that at least we already have 2 more people to run.
The transit from Terminal 3 to Terminal 5 in London is at least 1 hour, counting that everything goes quite fast.
We arrive when almost everyone is on the plane, so we leave our backpacks quickly, we sit down and with a book in our hands, we hope that the 8.40 hours of flight ahead of us will pass quickly.
The flight does not get anything heavy, between the movies, reading and sleeping, the hours go by quite quickly and when we realize we are landing in Nairobi, it is 9.30 at night and as soon as we leave the plane, we go straight to get the visa.
Here we begin to feel the cultural "shock", the words "pole, pole" (slowly, slowly) we see that they are more than true.
Imagine that taking the visa takes us more than an hour, queuing and having a horrible heat. Here they have not yet put the air conditioning.
We are also struck by the airport facilities. It is a bit confusing moment in which we try to stay with every detail, but we believe that what attracts us most is the feeling of feeling that we are already in Africa.
Once we have the bags (one of the whole group has been lost), we go out to look for the guide who is waiting for us at the door of the Nairobi airport.
Once you make the presentations and a brief conversation leads us to a parking lot near the airport exit, where we find what will be our transport and "half-house" for the next 11 days: our truck.
Once put in the truck and placed the backpacks in the area "chill out", the guide gives us some references of Nairobi and the planning of the next day.
The first thing he tells us is that the agency recommends not leaving the hotel, but that he would leave.
(Telling that we have not had dinner, that we are in Kenya and that we have been involved with the airplanes for more than 10 hours, what can we do? How could it be otherwise, stay with a few of the group and go to dinner outside.)
We arrive at Nairobi hotel, the Hotel Meridien, after about 40 minutes, we unload the backpacks and go to the rooms to accommodate us, but before we were a few at the reception, after 15 minutes, to explore the night of Nairobi and have dinner.
The rooms are quite correct, but the concept of cleanliness is not entirely successful. Although for us it is worth it. The important thing is that we are here, we are in Kenya.
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We went out to dinner for some potatoes and fried chicken at a place near the hotel, which the guide recommends after confirming that despite the warnings a few of the group will go out to dinner.
The first thing that catches our attention is that everything is with bars: local television, radio, even workers are behind bars. They have explained to us that it is a rather conflictive city and that this type of security is the usual way to avoid robberies and armed robberies.
We are not going to deceive you, the truth is that we do not have much sense of security and being our first hours, that does not help much.
So the whole group decides to eat fast and go to the hotel to rest. Nor should we forget that it is late and we have a most complete and tired day.
Tomorrow the alarm will ring at 5.30 in the morning. We have met at 6 in the morning at the reception to start our route.
Now it's time to dream. Our first night in Kenya.
Day 2NAIROBI - LAKE NAKURU
