What kind of geographer would I be if I didn't travel? Up until this point, I was the type that was full of excuses: No time, no money, or a combination of the two which is still the case, but I'm going anyway.
This morning I went to church with Peter. We were late because Peter allowed me to sleep in. Of course, this made me feel terrible, but he seemed OK with our 15 minutes of tardiness. We sat in the back row, off to the side behind a congregation of several hundred worshipers. A lot of people were out of town on a mission to the United States.
The pastor spoke in English, and was echoed by a Swahili speaking interpreter. Sections were read verbatim from the Bible, and the rest was built around praises, analogies, and music. Football (soccer) is definitely a national pastime in Kenya, and the pastor had an interesting way of weaving it into the message for the day. He described the fervent enthusiasm Kenyans have for football; how the excitement and strong interest in the game is enough to get you standing on your chair, shouting with all intensity, fully and completely engaged. The pastor went on to explain, that God shares that same interest; that same enthusiasm in you. He too is standing on the edge of his chair, cheering wildly for your success, believing in you, fully and completely engaged.
There were so many familiar rituals with this church. If I had to assign it a denomination, I would lean towards Pentecostal. There was a band and choir, the pastor spoke in tongues along with half the congregation, the preaching was tempered with bouts of yelling and jumping, an offering was taken, and the sermon ended with the sinners prayer and call to alter.
The choir sang a few songs from a hymnal allowing the congregation to follow along, and you could sense joy in the room, but nothing compared to the overwhelming response to the man who came up to lead a traditional tribal song. That’s what really got everyone on their feet, raising up their hands in praise. Everyone was dancing and singing. I don’t understand why they would ever sing the western songs. Clearly they are not as moved by them.
After church, we went to lunch and then to Bomas of Kenya. I had reservations about this place because I’m sensitive to indigenous persons who are exploited in the name of tourism. Bomas of Kenya showcases traditional African dancers, and also has an area of reconstructed traditional African villages. Bomas means homestead, so Bomas Kenya loosely translates to Houses of Kenya.
When I have a better Internet connection, I'll post some video of the dances, but for now, here are some pictures.
Peter had never been here, and I'm not sure if he'll take other tourists there. There wasn't much information to guide you through the reconstructed bomas. Luckily Peter was able to describe many of the tribes.
Peter is from the Kamba tribe.
And this picture really really wants to be sideways, so tilt your head please:
As if this wasn't enough for one day, we went into the city that night. Of course, I have no pictures to show for that interesting excursion.
Most days here feel more like two, and today was definitely one of those days. Peter let me sleep in this morning, which was good. I was pretty happy for a hot shower too. We had a quick breakfast and headed out the door. "Twindai" I hollared as we rushed out to get to the elephant orphanage in time to see the little ones.
There were so many interesting things to take pictures of on the way, but Peter wouldn't let me take pictures while we were driving. It's too dangerous to draw attention to ourselves. For instance, we had to stop at the Shell gas station to get fuel for the car, but a small herd of cattle had the right away so we couldn't turn in right away. It would have made a great photograph of contrasting imagery.
We reached the orphanage at 11:15. It's run by the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust. From 11am to 12pm, they provide an elephant viewing and discuss the work of the organization. These baby elephants were so cute, it was really hard to pay attention to the keeper there to explain the plight of these intelligent animals. I took a lot of pictures. Here are some of the cutest ones.
Sadly, these little elephants lost their mothers and would not survive in the wild without protection. This organization rescues these orphans and assigns each animal a keeper who acts as a surrogate mother. Eventually the elephants are released into the wild, and the keeper continues to stay in the wild with the newly released elephant until it is comfortable and able to join the herd.
After we left the orphanage, we went to the Kenya National Park to go explore the Nairobi Safari Walk.
It just so happened that a cake festival was scheduled for today inside the park. There were lots of vendors, and even a stage with singers.
Small tents along the path housed bakeries serving samples of their best cakes. It was sugar heaven. Unfortunately, the excess crowds and noise scared most of the animals away.
My friend Kate back home would love this artistic cake decoration, so I snapped this photo just for her:
Peter's niece and nephew live very close to the park, so he went to pick them up so they could try all of these cakes. There truly is such a thing as "too much of a good thing" and you know it when two children throw away their plates because they don't want any more frosting, sugar, and chocolate concoctions.
I got a chance to meet Peter's aunt, uncle, and older niece when we dropped the kids off after the cake festival. We headed to the city afterwards to pick up his friend Jim who works at Safaricom and go to the Nairobi Arboretum. The arboretum is right next to the state house.
Lots of trails...
... and some interesting trees I've never seen before.
To end the day, we went to eat at Kula Korner. I had the "Juicy Mbuzi Strips" which was awesome grilled goat, rice, and greens. Speaking of food, it's awesome here, and I'll be fat when I return to the states. No kidding.
I was up pretty early, and had breakfast with Peter before he left for the office for a few hours. While he was gone I had the excitement of an extremely cold shower because I forgot how to turn the hot water on! There's a switch right outside the door for that. Next time I won't forget.
Later we went to lunch at the Swahili Plate restaurant. We ate there last night too. The food is great and they have an awesome chopped pepper condiment made with oil and whole cardamon seeds. Today I had the chicken biriani.
We also stopped by Peter's Green Belt Movement office to meet a few people and take a few photos. Peter's staff member Ben may take me out to one of the communities when I return from Tanzania to plant some trees while he's mapping the area. Here is one of the small tree nurseries:
Afterwards, we drove through the wealthy area of Karen over to the Giraffe Center. We arrived at 5:45, thinking we had 15 minutes until close, but actually they closed at 5:30. No worries. Peter offered the park staff something (150 Shillings) to get them to offer me an opportunity to feed the giraffes from outside the park. After all, they're certainly tall enough to reach me from the outside the fence.
My Swahili is getting better because I understood a little of what they told Peter, so I asked why we were instructed to go slowly and it was because we might see giraffes from the road just a few minutes from the gate. This is kind of hilarious because you could be going 80 miles an hour down that road and there is NO way you wouldn't see those giraffes. They are massive. Especially Jock, the bull that is separated from the females. I dont even know what keeps them in there.
Since we were in the neighborhood, we stopped by the other Greenbelt Movement office on our way out of Karen. Everyone was gone (this is a three day weekend), but I took some pictures of the grounds. It's beautiful here.
Looks like the macro setting on my camera works just fine. What do you think?
After the office, we went to downtown Nairobi... at night. Needless to say, I don't have a single photo of that experience. It was surreal. So many people everywhere! I wish I could have snapped a picture, but it was too dangerous. Loads of students were flooding out of the university, and all of the restaurants were packed. It was interesting to find many restaurants blaring loud dance music. We parked at the parking lot of Peter's downtown office and walked around for a couple hours. Everything was packed, so we left the city to eat at a restaurant closer to home. I had curry goat. So delicious. So fattening...
Finally arrived in Nairobi and so far it's been nothing less than surreal. Walking to immigration, the first sounds I hear aren't those of Kenyan singers, but rather Dolly Parton belting out a cheerful country song. The line for passport check and Visa went quickly. It helps to be seated near the font of the plane in order to beat the rush.
After purchasing a Visa and filling out a Swine Flu form, I headed downstairs to collect my giant duffel bag with the sounds of "Islands in the Stream" playing prominently throughout the terminal. Just outside the baggage area, I saw the biggest crowd of hired drivers I've ever seen! Here's a picture of JUST HALF of them:
One of those drivers was there for me, but I wasn't aware of it. Shortly after taking this photograph, a flood of passengers from my flight came streaming out and I passed through the line of drivers to the back to get out of the way.
After a few hours, I figured perhaps I had typed 6pm instead of 6am in my correspondence with Peter. An information officer directed me to the Internet cafe across the parking lot and I was able to email Peter and see that he had also emailed me yesterday to let me know that his driver was going to pick me up. Of course, I didn't have Internet access then.
We found each other, and were finally on our way. The drive over from the airport was about 30 to 40 minutes and there's a lot here that reminds me of my trip to Trinidad 10 years ago. Same beautiful lush green flora, same Nestle plastered fence advertisements...
Weather: the temperature here is perfect, and surprisingly doesn't feel nearly as humid as Santa Barbara. It's raining at the moment, but this is the first downpour since my arrival.
Peter went to the office leaving me with his Internet card that I'm quickly burning through with all the image uploads. When he returns, we'll be off for dinner somewhere in town. I had a quick nap earlier and feel refreshed.
You know that saying about "the best-laid plans..."
Some months ago, I was all set to climb Kilimanjaro with Destination Tanzania Safaris. They were incredibly informative with all of their timely communications and they had outstanding references. I had planned to climb with a couple from the US on a route that takes longer than other routes and has a camp at 18,500 ft the night before the summit attempt. Unfortunately, the couple canceled and Destination Tanzania Safaris could not offer the trip to just one client. To be cost effective, we needed at least one other person to join me. Unfortunately, we were unsuccessful.
I began looking for other companies following a similar route with a group I could join, but it seemed nearly impossible to find treks so early in the season. This is the tail end of the rainy season, and also the tail end of the academic year. Never the less, this is a full moon week. Surely someone wants to go.
I didn't have the time to begin a full search all over again, but I certainly tried. After talking to several Sierra Club friends, I was finally getting comfortable with just winging it. I was going to show up in Moshi, and shop around for a group to join. I'd end up paying a fraction of the prices I as being quoted here in the US, and I'd get up that mountain one way or another.
Late one evening I found an incredible set of Kilimanjaro videos on Youtube. Check out this fantastic website with links to a documentary style account of the Lemosho route: http://www.grundlefly.com/mount_kilimanjaro
I began bouncing around from related video to related video, watching the porters sing the Kilimanjaro song to trekkers on the last day. That's when I got the idea to contact one of the Youtube posters to ask which company they booked with and if they were interested in giving a recommendation.
I only had to contact one to make my decision. Kristy and her boyfriend did the trek in February with Godfrey as their guide. Here is their Kilimanjaro song video that prompted me to contact them:
They were so impressed with the trip and level of care they received. They ended up offering their web design expertise free of charge to develop a website for Godfrey and his company. You can visit it here: www.kilimanjarosunrise.com
Godfrey has one booking assistant in San Diego, and she was very helpful. She even arranged for me to pay for the trip via Paypal which was greatly appreciated because wiring money to a Tanzanian bank account was beyond my comfort level.
The best part: Booking directly (or mostly directly) with the guide has saved me about a grand. Everything is arranged, and I head for Moshi on June 2nd!
Yesterday was a long day. I probably got back to the hotel around 11pm which equals roughly 8 hours of walking, so I didn't notice the Marriott turn-down service until this morning. The curtains were drawn to block out the morning sun and overwhelming view of the London Eye I failed to notice yesterday.
All my trash had been taken away, towels replenished, and tea service with chocolates and cookies were brought in for the morning.
The ground outside was wet and the rain was still coming down lightly. Even at 6:00am, a few people were outside rushing around with brightly colored umbrellas.
Surprisingly, I was able to open the windows. It was relatively cold out, but not unbearable. If it was bright and sunny, I probably would have went out exploring right away, but the early rise (courtesy of a Marriott wake-up call) was really to get a few hours of work done.
Just when I was trying to get up the energy to go out into the gloom, I got a special call all the way from the states. Mind you, it was after 2:00am there. Needless to say, I felt bright and cheery for the rest of the day regardless of the weather.
I didn't have much of a plan for today. I just headed out of the hotel and tried going the opposite direction from yesterday. First stop was one of the free entry buildings that is part of the Westminster Abbey. I took a few photos inside before I saw the "no photography" sign. No flash of course.
The main sanctuary costs tourists 15 pounds to enter, but it's free for worshipers. I thought about an attempt to get in for free, but I figured it wasn't a good time to piss God off with Kilimanjaro in my immediate future. From there, I walked to Westminster to see what the namesake of my hometown in Orange County was like. There were lots of amazing buildings everywhere. (Buildings that were not doubt older than my entire country.)
I took a loop around London and had a curry lunch at a little restaurant with a kitchen that appeared to be underground. All the food was brought up on a dumb waiter. The food server asked me where I'd been when he saw the map out on the table. He recommended I make my way to Buckingham Palace; "the Queen's house" as he described it. I found my way to the "red road" which lead right to the palace. The following three photographs were taken along the way:
The palace is definitely worth seeing. You can't get very close, but there are lots of great vantage points to snap pictures from.
The marble steps up to enormous statues in front of the palace are definitely a sight to behold.
There were two sets of guards. I only snapped pictures of the ones tourists love to see. The others had rifles and were clearly without humor, so I spared them the flash of my camera.
On the way back, I took a few photos of the beautiful landscaping along Birdcage Walk adjacent from St James's Park before it was time to head back to my hotel to pick up my bag and head to the airport.
The foliage on this particular tree was so beautiful.
I've never seen anything like it. London was very green everywhere I went.
Here's a picture of me on the train heading back to Heathrow. Notice the map above.
I'm on the plane now, pre-typing up this blog post so it's ready when I arrive in Nairobi. Dinner was just served.
I didn't reserve a special meal for this leg of the trip, but I'm on for a special meal on the flight back to London. Getting served early is totally worth it. Tonight on the plane I had a curry meal. Not too bad, but certainly not anything to write home about.
We're just now reaching the northern edge of Africa, still 3,200 miles to Nairobi.
A little over 5 hours to go! Now's my chance to finally see Slumdog Millionaire.
I made it to London yesterday after the crush of last minute shopping packing and "ride to LAX" planning. Special thanks to Sean, Reggie, and Alan who snapped this photo as I was carrying down my gear to the car:
It's too bad you can't see how big that bag really is...
The flight was LONG and fairly uncomfortable. I elected to try out the Hindu meal which wasn't all that appetizing, but special meals are served first which is worth taking advantage of.
Virgin-Atlantic has a pretty cool flight map application that shows the progress of your flight:
Looks like we definitely took the great circle path (or very close to it). A little after 9pm, I got a twitter message from Sean letting me know I was 35,000 feet over Ontario, Canada going 644mph. Nice to know someone was tracking my flight while I was trying to force myself to fall asleep... (Twitter account is IndyMapper; without a phone (that works here) I can only send tweets when I have Internet access.)
Just before landing, I decided to try out the "aerial photo" setting on my new camera. Not bad:
I arrived in Heathrow at noon, and it took me about an hour and a half to leave the airport. I had to find a place to leave my giant bag, and figure out which trains to take to get to London. Of course I was looking out for spatial references in the airport: Getting around London is relatively easy on foot, so I did quite a bit of walking yesterday. It took me quite a few blocks (in the wrong direction) before I finally figured out where the street names were. They are posted on the corners of the buildings, not on the traffic signals.
I got to UCL around 6:00, and caught Paul Longely just in time for a pint at the pub. His grad students took me to Agra for curry, and Paul and Mike are totally right: Curry in London beats the pants off Santa Barbara.
I could write a lot more, but it's time to for some tea and biscuits before heading out to take more pictures before my flight to Nairobi tonight.
