Friday, May 23, 2003 (Nairobi - Kenya)
The bus to Nairobi and the best border crossing
yet. A quick flight to Cairo was not looking promising.
Day 72. So, here we are in a cheap and
reasonably comfortable hotel somewhere in the middle of Nairobi. After a very
dubious breakfast this morning in a setting with more flies than customers, we
loaded our backpacks and ourselves onto the twenty-one seater minibus. As it
happens, we bought the very last two available seats for the morning trip. I
couldn’t refuse a little chuckle to myself when I remembered the bus ride
to Monduli the other day in a minibus half the size but with twice the number of
people in it.
As the drive up to
Nairobi was going to take several hours, I found myself reflecting on some of
the intangible aspects of travelling in the manor in which we have chosen. In
the past, when we have been travelling whilst on holiday somewhere, we have
always been in a rush and always working against the clock. With timetables and
flight schedules to keep, it’s always been necessary to get to a given
location on time and to leave early enough to accommodate unexpected delays.
Accordingly, time has always been the unwanted companion on all of our previous
holidays. The ticking clock is the most annoying and demanding travel companion
on any trip and most people are forced to take it with them. Here in Africa,
however, it’s completely different. There are no schedules to keep, no
flights to arrive in time for, no screaming clock yelling at us at every turn.
When we were returning back from the Serengeti last night, for example, and
broke down several times, I remember feeling completely unconcerned about the
whole situation. So what if we were a couple of hours later than expected back
in Arusha? We knew would get back eventually. And even if the delay extended
from hours into days, so what? There was nothing in Arusha pressing that was
waiting for us, as we’re pretty much making up the itinerary as we go. We
just sat back, enjoyed the view and actually laughed at the experience. In fact,
it was thoroughly enjoyable. If it were a regular two-week holiday, I would
probably have been extremely annoyed and very stressed about the whole thing.
That, I think, is the single biggest difference between a ‘normal’
holiday and the trip that we are currently
on.
With the Tanzania/Kenya border
crossing fast approaching, my thoughts became less content and I remember
distinctly feeling steadily more nervous and apprehensive. We’ve not
particularly enjoyed the various border crossings that we’ve had to
navigate thus far and there is always the worry of having to deal with an irate
immigration officer who may be intent on making life difficult for us. How much
will they charge us ‘this time’ to pass through the border and how
long will the process take? You always have to go through the
‘departure’ immigration office for the country that you are leaving
before clearing the ‘arrivals’ immigration office for the country
that you are entering. Clearing the Tanzania side of the border was swift
enough. They are only interested in confirming that you have not overstayed your
visa term and quickly stamp your passport to let you through. We had been given
a tip by some overlanders in Arusha to ask for a ‘transit visa’ into
Kenya since we are not planning on staying there very long. A transit visa is
supposed to cost a lot less money and allows a shorter length of stay but they
can ask for proof of onward journey before issuing one and we had none. The only
thing that we have is our flight ticket out of Amman, Jordan but this
won’t convince anyone of our ability and intention to leave Kenya. At the
Kenya arrivals desk, I handed over our passports and asked for two transit
visas. “Certainly sir. Just fill in this form and that will be $20 each
please” was the very pleasant and unexpected reply that came back. The man
even gave me a nice smile and was quite talkative. This was by far the most
pleasant and hassle-free border crossing that we’ve experienced, not only
in Africa but anywhere else in the world. We were soon on our way to Nairobi and
I was once again in a content frame of
mind.
The minibus arrived at the
airport and dropped us off. We wasted no time in hunting down all the options
for making the next available flight to Cairo. It turns out that there are only
a couple of flight operators that fly from Nairobi to Cairo – Kenya
Airlines and Egypt Air. Since the bus had ejected us almost immediately in front
of the Kenya Airlines ticketing office, we strolled in and inquired about the
next flight out. Everything was smooth sailing and the price was also about what
we had expected at around $490 for the two of us to fly the one-way route to
Cairo. But then the bubble burst. One of the ticketing agents started to look
concerned and asked us about how our onward journey from Cairo. I explained to
him that we planned on travelling overland to Jordan, where we would pick up the
return leg of our flight ticket that we already had to Dubai and then onto
London. Since we did not have an onward flight ticket from Egypt itself (a
Middle-East country), Kenya Airlines would not sell us the ticket. Disaster!
Overland travel through the Sudan or Ethiopia is simply not an option for us.
Perhaps we would be forced to by a flight from Cairo to Amman to satisfy the
airline guidelines but this would add an unexpected and substantial expense to
our already limited and overextended budget. The only other airline that flies
to Cairo is Egypt Air but their ticketing office is in Nairobi itself and not at
the airport – how ironic is
that!?
We walked over to another
terminal building to try to find someone, a travel agent perhaps, which might be
able to help. Luckily, there is a travel agency at the international arrivals
hall and we chatted with them about our dilemma. We spent the next hour or so
walking from airline office to airline office trying to find out how to bridge
this critical gap that now appeared in our itinerary. The travel agent that we
booked our trip with gave us no indication that arranging this connecting flight
would be a problem but we booked this trip several months ago and a great deal
has happened on the world stage in that time which could have caused this
apparent change in regulations. We ultimately found someone who called Egypt Air
on our behalf to get to the bottom of it all. Curiously, they were quite willing
to sell us a one-way ticket and were bemused as to why Kenya Airlines would
impose this restriction upon us. Since they were over $60 per person more
expensive than Kenya Airlines, we were reluctant to book with them so we took
the information they gave us back to the Kenya Airlines ticketing office and
explained to them that Egypt Air had no qualms about selling us the ticket.
After a bit of cajoling, they finally agreed to print us a ticket. We would need
to show our flight tickets out of Amman during check-in but at least we would
make the flight. The next available flight departs on Sunday at five
o’clock in the afternoon. This gives us two nights here in Nairobi –
just enough to time do some curio shopping
The travel agent we dealt with did
some phoning around and arranged our hotel stay and a taxi ride into town. We
bargained hard for the price of both. Once we arrived and unloaded, we wasted no
time in hunting down the city curio markets, which were fortunately just a
couple of minutes walk from our hotel, to see just what we could get for our
dollars, pounds, traveller’s checks and any other bits of clothing we
might be able to bargain with. I seem to have developed a passion for curio
shopping and revel in the activity of searching around for the good stuff and
bargaining hard for it. I’m getting quite good at it, in fact. Contrary to
what we had been led to believe, the curios here are more expensive that we have
seen elsewhere. Perhaps because the quality is higher or the wood is different
or perhaps just because we are in a big city, but the starting prices here do
seem to be much higher in general. There are still a lot of bargains to be had,
however, and pretty much everything is still very cheap for us in the grand
scheme of things but certainly not anywhere near as cheap as Victoria Falls or
even some places in South Africa were. Perhaps the economic woes of Zimbabwe
were such that the locals there were forced to sell things at a loss to us and
we have been spoiled as a
result.
Even though the starting
prices are higher, everything here is negotiable and we spent well over an hour
in one shop, just around the corner from the main market area, bargaining hard
for a very nice and very colourful collection of masks and a set of wooden
dishes and spoons. I ended up paying a bit more than I had originally set in my
mind but we still ended up on the better end of the deal for everything that we
bought. Even Sandy had struck lucky with the purchase of some sort of stringed
instrument that they referred to as a guitar (although it looks nothing like
what we would call a guitar).
Since
it started to get dark and Nairobi is no place for two white tourists to be
wandering around too long after dark, we went back to the hotel and have now
settled in for the night. It’s still early but an early night will
certainly not do us any harm after the tumultuous past couple of
days.
Posted: Fri - May 23, 2003 at 08:21 AM