Chapter 13 - A few nights in Nairobi

We stayed in the Karen district of Nairobi for a few days as Mark needed to meet someone from the Colobus monkey conservation group that he was doing some work for. They kindly picked up us up from Karen Museum before taking us to their house. It was a beautiful home that was built in the 1940s with a large garden and plenty of tree cover, so it was nice and cool. Nairobi is quite a bit cooler than Kampala, so we were very happy with the breeze and the cooler temperatures. Our hosts had built a visitor’s villa just away from the main house. We had our own place for a couple of nights and the place was luxurious. The shower, presence of hot water, unlimited Wi-Fi and the general grade of the house was much more then what we had got accustomed too on the road, so we were going to enjoy our few days and nights of luxury! Mark, however, knew there would be some hard work and plenty of meetings to come. But he was happy to get his teeth into a project and learn something about the organization. We had an afternoon nap after some lunch as neither of us had barely slept during our overnight coach trip. It was amazing to finally get our heads down and rest for a bit. After a nap, Mark had to drink a few cups of tea to wake up before his first meeting. He discussed in length with our host about the projects and what they needed from him in terms of technology and mapping.

We had an early night after having diner with our hosts on their veranda overlooking their garden. We chatted with our hosts about local politics and Kenya before having an early night. Mark knew he had another day of meetings the next day.
Mark found the meetings useful and listed several tasks he would have to complete. We again were invited for dinner with our hosts, as they would be travelling the next morning, we left them to have an early night.
We very much enjoyed our stay, but we were looking forward to the next parts of our trip and getting back on the road.

We left Karen district of Nairobi and our lovely guest house and hosts.
We took a 40min taxi into the centre, which made us realise how far in the outskirts we were.
We left manicured roads with monkeys roaming freely to join the busy centre with its traffic and overcrowding. According to our hosts, we were heading to backpackers central.

We always book multiple hotel options on bookings.com and had been sure to cancel the unwanted ones to avoid cancelation charges, but about 20mins into our taxi journey, we realised we had directed our uber to one of the hotels we had cancelled!
Luckily the hotels were not too far from each other, but we could just imagine the confusion at the hotel!

Our uber obliged us and redirected his cab for the hotel we actually decided on.
By the time we got through traffic and into town, we were

both starving and looking forward to a boozy lunch and exploration of the centre.

Our plans were delayed due to the fact we couldn’t actually find the hotel!
We circled the block our hotel was supposed to be and even asked locals! It wasn’t until the 3rd time circling the block we were hailed by a security guard, who happened to work for our hotel! Don’t know if it was luck or he had just seen us lost and figured we were looking for his hotel. We finally arrived at the After 40 hotel, a tall towering building with a far more discreet hotel sign that its neighbouring hotels.

After checking in and dropping our backpacks in our room, we headed straight to Java House for carbs!
There were many options, but we wanted to go somewhere we knew that would fulfil our food cravings and get something to drink.
All Java houses are the same as the ones in UG, so we didn’t really have to look at the menu, sadly the only exception was that they didn’t sell alcohol! We were surprised since we had alcohol at one of the UG branches.

By the end of lunch, Caz was dying for a cigarette break but disappointed to learn that it was illegal to smoke in public.

She knew to check the rules as UG had a similar rule, but it seemed much more enforced in Nairobi.
Despite no street signs saying it was illegal to smoke in public, you could face a hefty fine of almost $500 or jail sentence. We thought this rule must have burned a couple tourists.

Caz's option was to go to one of the 5 smoking dens, which are just wooden sheds with no light filled with male smokers! Caz was discouraged to try them after reading that these weren’t suitable places for women, especially as she might face abuse from locals who considered women smoking as immoral. Instead we decided to head to a bar, in the hopes they’d have smoking areas and at least we could get a drink.
We made our way to bars that we had found using the JH WIFI, but once we left, we had no network and had to stop to ask for directions.
We stopped at a venue called The collective and asked the security guard at the door for directions. While Mark discussed directions, Caz was drawn in by the sign saying Art, Food and Music. It looked really quiet and posh from the outside, so it may have been why we initially disregarded it, but after Caz received a tour and learned about the place, she was happy to stop there. The restaurant & bars walls were covered by local art over 2 floors.
The art would have been enough to get Caz's vote, but the outdoor smoking area sealed the deal! She was grinning ear to ear as she

settled with her mojito and cigarette. The smoking area was empty, so it felt like our private area.
Once the craving was fed, we had to get planning for our travel to Tanzania in a couple days before we could really relax. We had been burned by Mash Bus to Nairobi, so we hoped the shuttle service to Moshi would be better...especially since we could get a pick up from our hotel.
Caz the logistic queen had already engaged some shuttle companies, so all we had to do was give them a call and confirm our seats. We had hoped to be able to top up our UG sim with data but had learned after a brief stop at the local airtel that it was harder and more expensive than we thought!
We had Caz’s father top up our phone with airtel money and After confirming our shuttle to Arusha, we made a reservation to return to The Collection for dinner and live music.
We had both been keen to catch some life music and our friendly waiter ensured us it would be a busy night and we should reserve a table. After another Mojito, we returned to our hotel to freshen up before our evening got started.
Despite promising everyone that we would return later that evening, everyone seemed pleasantly surprised to see us return!

They had reserved us a table right in front of the live band that performed a mixture of commercial and local music. We enjoyed a lovely dinner that was quite fancy and several cocktails, especially

after Caz discovered her new favourite cocktail. The Side Car!
After dinner, we set off home to have an early night, as the next day would be our last day in Nairobi. We discovered the movie channel and settled for a movie and planned our next day.

The next day we had a lie in before breakfast and exploring the city. We visited Uhuru park, which was such a rare treat as we had yet to go to a public park in East Africa.
There was a youth event that had music and was trying to encourage the youth to be more proactive in their future. It was too hot to sit out in the open sun, so we headed to a bar located by the lake in the centre of the park.

The bar was sheltered, with an open and circular in shape and gave you a 360-degree view of the area. It was frequented by locals, as we were the only tourists, which is exactly as we like it! We ordered some drinks and enjoyed the shade and relaxed environment of friends, families enjoying their Saturday before we were approached by a smiley local.
He was very friendly and apologetic for interrupting us before he invited us to a local theatre production that was taking place the following week. We informed him that we would be leaving town tomorrow, but to his delight invited him to join us.

We chatted to Brian about his work, politics, African culture and the attitude to smoking.
He commented on how beautiful he thought our relationship was and appreciated the opportunity to have an open and honest conversation with someone like Mark.
After a long chat, he thanked us for our time and told us again how beautiful it was to see people like us….an interracial couple.

We had hoped that we could have Brian show us around later that evening, but after returning to the hotel and remembering our early morning, we texted Brian our apologies and promised to reach out to him when we were back in Kenya.

The next morning our driver arrived to take us to Tanzania, we were about to get back on the road! Seeing another country so soon was both exciting and a little exhausting, it hadn’t felt that long since our last long journey! We put all our things into the back of the driver’s car and sat in a spacious vehicle, looked at each other and thought, well this is ok, its lovely and spacious. What we didn’t realize was that were just getting picked up to be taken to where the coach was loading from. A small shuttle coach with many seats and a roof rack was awaiting us, our hearts sank a little, it is going to be a long cramped and hot ride to Tanzania!