My Kenyan Dream Comes True

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When I was in 4^th grade I wrote a paper about Kenya for Mr. Ketchum’s history class. When I was in college I studied the independence movement and read books like Jomo Kenyatta’s Facing Mt. Kenya and Oginga Odinga’s Not Yet Uhuru. I had studied and dreamed about the original East African democracy since I was literally a child, as had Alysa, but neither of us had ever been close to it before, and that was about to change.

After we limped back into Addis Ababa at the end of June, Alysa and I spent three days recovering and preparing for our flight to Nairobi. Some people don’t think of long nights of drinking and dining with fellow travelers from Holland and Ireland as recovering, but after long days and nights on unforgiving bus seats, that is most certainly how it felt to us. We visited the Olde Mile House, a Dutch bar perched atop a downtown highrise apartment building where the views of Addis are the only thing better than the pizzas. We ate Italian food at the old Italian Social Club behind Meskele Square with a bunch of Irish non-profit workers (www.camara.ie – check it out) and we took one nice long last look at the city, then we headed to the airport and boarded a flight to Nairobi.

Some people don’t think of long nights of drinking and dining with fellow travelers from Holland and Ireland as recovering, but after long days and nights on unforgiving bus seats, that is most certainly how it felt to us.

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We had given a lot of consideration to doing this leg of the trip overland, a four or more day process that involves a bus to the southern Ethiopian border town of Moyale, a walk across the border into Kenya and then a combination of trucks and buses from Moyale through Marsabit and Isiolo until you reach Nairobi. Some friends in Addis had come up that way with only limited horror stories about tire punctures and slow moving cattle trucks, so we contemplated staying with overland transport. But a fortuitous email from my friend in Nairobi informed us that there were frequent shootings along the way as local bandits known as ‘shiftas’ terrorize along the road and raid for cattle and products needed by their tribes along the Kenya/Somalia border to the east. The most recent shootings his news organization had heard about were 5 days before, and that just didn’t seem like a good risk to us, so we booked tickets on Kenya Airways and were very happy in the end. Kenya Airways bills itself as The Pride of Africa and our flight gave us every reason to believe that – excellent food and service, an interesting and informative inflight magazine and on time departure and arrival – what more can you ask for from an airline?

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And the best part of it all was that we were going to see a friend. Matt Lee is the Nairobi Bureau Chief for the French Press Agency and is also an old college friend of mine, so we were excited to be visiting with him upon our arrival in Nairobi. Once again we had a car waiting at the airport for us, for only the second time in about 10 flights, and we headed off to his place in Spring Valley, Westlands in his Trooper happy as could be – a new country, a new day and an old friend. Matt’s pad was idyllic, a three bedroom ranch house set atop a hilly lot in a totally secluded area at the end of the upscale Spring Valley neighborhood. To us, it was paradise, with hot and cold running water, a couch and satellite television and the nicest dog in the world, Pasqua. We unpacked our backpacks fully for the first time in months, we bathed and sat on the back porch with Matt shooting the breeze and we headed out to an excellent new hotel Matt recommended, which happened to have been mentioned in our inflight magazine – Mercury Lounge. Matt has always been a pleasure to share food and wine with, a bright and expansive mind and an excellent conversationalist. Combine that with the facts that he was an old friend, knew his way around town and had a car, well we just felt pretty damned happy to be enjoying his hospitality and company.

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Our plans for Kenya were pretty fluid and I will be the first to admit that in the end we spent more time than expected chilling on the couch with some old movies (Matt’s collection doesn’t really go past 1965) and even the occasional soccer game – the World Cup was finally winding down, but we were looking forward to the big finale coming up soon after our arrival. In the event we watched the final at a funky casbah themed bar called Casablanca, lounging on Lamu beds under the stars and sharing the big screen with a decidedly pro-Italia crowd. The bizarre ending of Zidane’s last minute headbut of Matarazzi was somehow appropriate after our series of bizarre (though decidedly less violent) viewing experiences, and since we had decided to route for Italy in honor of our impending wedding there, the night ended happily with a throbbing dance floor back inside the main bar building and a DJ’s occasional shouts of “Viva Italia!!!” over wild international rhythms.

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After a while even the most dedicated period of vegging out must come to an end, and there were many adventures awaiting us outside Nairobi, which most will agree is not the highlight of Kenya. We had visited the Giraffe sanctuary where I was able to feed full grown Rothschild giraffes from my mouth and we had also visited the Sheldrake Wildlife Sanctuary, where orphan elephants and rhinos are taken in and cared for until they are able to safely survive in the wilderness. We had eaten at Talisman in the outlying neighborhood, and I would highly recommend this stylish and sophisticated restaurant to anyone looking for brunch in the area. We had even hit the late night casino action for some blackjack and some poker. Now it was time to get out of the city and see what else Kenya had to offer.