June 3-7: Nairobi

I am back in Nairobi (see the map above to remind yourself where Nairobi and Kenya are located) right where I ended last year’s trip in September, only this time I have Nancy and Caitlin with me – hooray! Feels great to be back in Africa again and with my two best girls and my baby brother and wife – Mark and Kirsten.

First, a note on this year’s blog protocol. Last year, and this year’s opening blog, I posted my reply to each subscriber’s comment after their comment in the blog itself. However, to view my reply you had/have to go back to that post and read my reply at the bottom in the comments section since the software doesn’t send you an email notification of my reply, which is unfortunate. It has come to my attention that most followers that comment don’t actually go back to the post after reading it and commenting, so my replies largely go unread and thus are ineffectual. Therefore, from this point on I am simply going to reply via email directly to the person commenting, since I do get an email notice when you comment, which makes it easy for me to know if you commented and then simply reply via email. SO, from now on only you will see my reply to your comment and my reply will not be posted on the blog itself. Hopefully this makes more sense.

Next, I am going to try hard not to be redundant with last year’s posts, so for this first in-country post I won’t give an introduction to Kenya and report on interesting factoids about the country in this year’s blog, but if you are new to this blog or want a reminder, I direct you to last year’s post titled “Welcome to Kenya”. Note, if you are viewing this blog on your phone, you may have to scroll to the bottom to see the listing of old posts.

Now on to this year’s first in-country report. Our travel to Nairobi was relatively uneventful and surprisingly not too uncomfortable. We had a 3 hour flight from Denver to Toronto, then a 7 hour flight to Brussels, and finally an 8 hour flight to Nairobi, but all were comfortable and Nancy’s restless legs cooperated. The only thing of note to report was that, unknown to us, our flight from Brussels to Nairobi on Brussels Airlines was the inaugural flight between these cities and there was alot of fanfare, including ambassadors and CEOs giving speeches to the news media, free food and drinks, and music. Most of the fanfare was in Brussels, but in Nairobi there was some celebration as well, including a Maasai musical performance (short clip below). It was a nice way to re-renter the country and remind us of the great cultural experience that awaits.

First priority after arriving in Nairobi was reuniting with Mark and Kirsten and picking up Caitlin at the airport:

Beyond reunions, the focus of these several days in Nairobi was giving Nancy a little taste of Nairobi and preparing the Green Dragon for our overland journey. Speaking of the Green Dragon, here’s a short story on “the beast”. Mark and the mechanic were driving it to test it out after having some work done it and got rear-ended by an Uber driver in one of the crazy roundabouts. The beast got thrown several feet forward by the impact but had almost no damage other than very minor cosmetics to the bumper. The Uber car on the other hand was totalled! Here’s what it looked like:

Otherwise, the Green Dragon was mostly in tip top shape and ready for another journey. However, I decided to get a new set of off-road tires for the Dragon so as to minimize the risk of flats and other tire problems while overlanding. There is nothing worse than having to deal with ruptured tires when in the backcountry- a problem I avoided last year by running on good tires. I worked the tires pretty hard last year and while they could probably last the duration of this year’s journey, I decided not to take the risk. I would rather travel with confidence knowing that the tires are up to the task. While I was busy getting new tires (most of a day), Nancy took the opportunity to get on a tour of Mark and Kirsten’s amazing school campus (better than most college campuses) and all the incredible nature projects Mark and his students have done to green-up the campus.

Other tasks included getting a sim card for my mobile hotspot so that I can post to this blog, installing mounting clips on the rooftop rack for my recovery shovel to make it more readily accessible in case of need, filling the Dragon’s 40 liter water tank with potable water, and purchasing the many necessary camping supplies, including cooking fuel, food and drink for several days.

OK, we are off on our first adventure to Samatian Island in Lake Boringo. See you there!