Off to Nairobi

Yellow immunization card and passport in hand, of we went to Nairobi. Kathy dropped us at Logan Airport in Boston for the 36 hour journey through London. Six hours overnight to London...change airports...wait 14 hours...overnight to Kenya.

Now Matt was getting kind of tired of his boss dressing him up like a circus monkey and showing off the animals to his "guests". An example of the types of guests...Mick Jagger...gives you an idea of the crowd we're heading into. Anyway, Matt got so tired of this that he gave his notice (unbeknownced to myself and Earl). As a result of "The Notice" the boss got some upset, and decided that we, as Matts guests, were now uninvited. Doug made the decision to advise us of this fact in the air...somewhere over Libya I believe! No shit...off to Africa for three weeks, and no place to stay or go. Now we're really having fun!

Deplaning in Nairobi, and first foot on the African continent was pretty surreal. I had to stop before we went down the grand staircase to customs and immigration to read the sign of items that "you may have in your luggage that are illegal and considered contriband in Kenya". Items like Readers Digest...you know that little magazine that you read in the doctor's office? Yup. And the list went on and on. I almost got pushed down the stairs by my fellow passengers while I read the list of items. When you go to Nairobi make sure you check out the sign...it is huge and right over your head as you hit the stairs.

Luggage in hand we were met by Matthew, Di, and Solo (short for Soloman, Matts Kenyan assistant at the ranch). We would spend the night in the Intercontinental Hotel in Nairobi, which would give us plenty of time to figure how we would handle the next three weeks with no "invited" place to go in Africa. First stop though, we were hungry. And in Nairobi you go to the "Carnivore" to eat your first night. Such delicacies as ostrich, zebra, buffalo...you get the idea.
And while on the way we drove into a ditch (and I got bloodied shins), saw a bicyclist get hit and thrown into the windshield of the car that hit him (and the driver got out and both the driver and a passerby threw him in the backseat and took off...let's assume to the hospital), and a pallet...a whole pallet... of eggs (yes chicken eggs) sitting outside, no cover in the sun on the equator. Now just the week before I watched a show on Sixty Minutes (a US news show) that went undercover in America...in grocery stores...with hidden cameras...to watch chicken eggs that had been surrepticiously tagged, to see how long they were left out of refridgeration. Imagine their dismay when Mike Walters (the shows host) popped out to ask indignantly why those eggs had been out of the 'fridge for a minute and a half! And here was a pallet...in 90 degree heat...full of eggs...in the sun. Guess I would pass on eggs for breakfast for the next three weeks.

Anyway, the trip was going to be full of adventure...I could tell. And here was the plan we concocted. Knowing that we were coming over...Matt's boss...who only came over every other month or so...was to make a visit to the ranch with his wife and some guests the first ten days of our visit. Undoubtedly this was designed to keep us away. So we would go to the coast...to Mombassa. Actually to a little known village 100km north of Mombassa called Watamu. Tomorrow we would either fly or take the train to Mombassa (the train was the one depicted in "The Ghost and The Darkness" with Michael Douglas about the man-eating lions they had to hunt down while they laid the tracks). We would stay at The Sportsman, a hotel on the coast that offered deep sea fishing on a world class scale. It was right next to a resort called Hemingways appropriately enough.

After spending the 9 days in Watamu, we would fly back to Nairobi. There we would go to Wilson Airport. Wilson Airport was a somewhat private airport. You see, Matt's boss had to leave tyhe ranch after his visit...and I forgot to mention that there is an airstrip on the ranch...big enough for those corporate jets. Bossman had one of his jets flying in to the ranch to pick him up. Ane we were going to sneak into the ranch on his jet! We would be wisked away and hidden while the plane refueled and loaded its rightful passengers. Then, with the knowledge of the pilots and all the staff at the ranch, we would have our uninvited and unbelievable visit to the Kenyan ranch...Ole Jogi.