15 April 2005

I arrived in Nairobi after what seemed a rather long flight from London to Amsterdam and then on down here. Right before landing here we were taken to Mombasa where we landed and were held on the runway for over an hour due to "weather". Not sure what the hold up was as it was clear enough to see Mt. Kilimanjaro, but nonetheless... I was so out of it, I didn't really care. We eventually made it to Nairobi and I was pleased as it had taken an extra two hours off my 6 1/2 hr. layover. As I stepped off the plane and even at 8am, I could feel the thickness and warmth in the morning air. You are NOT going to hear me complain about that, I promise. A bit of a nice change from good ol' Edinburgh.

I met some people in the airport trying to get to Malawi only to arrive from California (Newport Beach, actually) to Nairobi and find their flight had been cancelled. Welcome to Africa. I just smiled and kept them company 'til they got things figured out. They were from a church back home who is affiliated with World Vision and they had come to do 10 days of volunteer work. They had planned to accomplish more in their 10 days then I have in my 6 1/2 weeks. I wish them the best.

The craziness to this whole day is my flight schedule: from Nairobi to Kigali, 40 minutes later BACK to Nairobi, then Nairobi to Kilimanjaro and a car to Arusha. Two tickets which they wouldn't combine and said if I skipped any part of any connection, I would lose the entire flight. I was NOT happy about this, but did as I was told. The guys in Kigali though had a hard time with this. For the life of them they could not understand WHY I would want to come to Kigali for 40 minutes and then go back. I hadn't even seen the city yet!!!!
"Pourquoi?"
Well you see....

I did my best in French until finally true explanations had to come out in English. After talking to most of the airport officials, getting two phone numbers from guys that work at the airport (for upon my return of course), being able to retrieve my luggage, board the same exact plane BACK to Nairobi, the guys there told me they would see me in a week and help me more then. While it was quite a mess, I, at least, made some friends out of the whole insane process.

So back to Nairobi and then jumping on a little 18 seater (with only 12 of us on there) down to Kilimanjaro airport. It was a BEAUTIFUL and peaceful flight down. A perfect end to the madness of getting to my FIRST destination: Arusha, Tanzania. We flew over the Masai Highlands and while the clouds were out, we were still able to see everything below and beyond. Mt. Kilimanjaro, Mt. Kenya, etc. 55 minutes later we touched down at Kilimanjaro airport. With the driver arriving a few minutes later, I headed off to Shannon and Chile's for the next few days.

A bit of rest and recovery before heading back to Kigali and over to Goma, Congo.