Summary
- More scammers at the airport, arrival transfer booking for wrong date.
- Arrived in Nairobi in Kenya
- Overland to Arusha in Tanzania
- Tenting at Masai Campsite
- St Jude School visit
We left Dubai this morning to fly to Nairobi. Somehow I kept setting off the metal detector, but in the end they just let me through. It must have been very sensitive or something as I was going through with the same things as previously, which had not set any of the other metal detectors off. We arrived in Kenya about 4pm and had booked an arrival transfer to our hotel. We were told to look for the bright orange Geckos sign…. Impossible to miss it I thought. It turns out there was no Geckos sign. So there we were standing looking at all the different signs trying to find one that applied to us. Meanwhile all these offers for taxis are coming at us and people are asking if we want transfers. When we said we had already booked a transfer, they asked who with. Upon replying ‘Geckos’, we had 2 different people (a man and a woman) claiming to be in charge of the Geckos transfers. One of them was pointing to follow her left and the other pointing to follow him right. At this point there was no way we were letting go of our luggage and I wasn’t going to trust either of them as neither of them had an appropriate sign or badge. They were asking our names, but we weren’t willing to give them any more info at this stage. There was a lot of calling back and forth until security came over to find out what the drama was. We told the two that we would go over to the information desk to find out for ourselves, to which they both continually insisted that they were Geckos. A man out the front of the tourist desk pointed to the lady and said she was in charge of Geckos. So she told us to wait there and said she was going to call someone. I was still skeptical so wandered around looking for the appropriate transfer desk, though none of them matched what was written on our documentation. The same guy from the info desk came over again and asked what I was looking for and then told me again that the lady was the Geckos leader. When she came back, she had a reservation book with her. We gave our names and it turns out she had us down for 31st Jan, which is when we initially intended to arrive in Kenya. I was quite confident now that we had the right one. Meanwhile, the first guy was back claiming to be Geckos, so I told him to go away as we were already sorted out. The lady quite angrily shoed him off and stated that she was the genuine Geckos operator.
Everything was sorted and we arrived at our hotel about 5:30pm. We saw plenty of men with big guns and battons along the drive there. Hotel security was very strict which was reassuring, including a boom gate with guards that had mirrors to check under vehicles for explosive devices. We checked in and went upstairs to offload our stuff, then I called reception to ask where the Geckos meeting point was for the pre-departure meeting to be held at 6pm according to our documentation. She called back a few minutes later after making her enquiries and told us the location of the meeting. At about 5:55pm we got a call from Chris, the Geckos tour operator saying that the meeting was actually at 5pm, so we’d missed it. He said that only 3 people were at the meeting out of 15 who were booked for the tour. He said to meet him in reception at 8am.
Meanwhile, as I stood on the balcony of our hotel, there was screeching brakes and I looked down at the road to see a car plow into the side of a van sending it into a pole. Vans are plentiful over here, there are so many vans on the road and they are all packed with people. This van that crashed had at least 10 Africans come out of it, if not more. Feeling puckish, we went down and had dinner at the restaurant of the hotel. The atmosphere was great, and the hotel staff were extremely friendly and courteous. I had a chicken dish with veg and fries and it cost me 350 Kenyan shillings… that’s around about US$5! Now that’s value for money!
The following morning we went down for breakfast before meeting the Geckos truck outside the hotel. There were 3 other people there. We waited for an hour, but nobody else came, so we were 5. There were possibly some people meeting up in Arusha as they had not wanted to fly into Nairobi. We spent the day on the road most of the time; crossing the border into Tanzania. At the border crossing, while awaiting our Tanzanian visas, we could hear Boyz II Men, then TQ playing on the stereo in the visa office. I don’t know why I found this amusing, but I guess all I’d heard music-wise previously was Arabic rayer broadcast over loud speakers from the mosques or the African and/or Jamaican style music. We stopped off at a market and bought some souveniers; we still aren’t very good at bargaining, in hindsight we probably paid more than it was worth. Along the way the little kids are so cute, as soon as they see the tour truck going past they sprint towards us waving. We’ve seen many ladies carrying things on their heads, even one waiting at the bus stop with her suitcase on her head (no hands)!
The Tanzanian shilling exchange rate is US$1 to 1100 shillings, so we are walking around with tens of thousands of Tanzanian money… I feel rich 
I have a 10,000 shilling note!
Whenever the truck stops somewhere of tourist significance, such as the Tanzania border, old African women come from everywhere to try to sell their bangles and beadwork to you through the window of the truck. “I’m not interested” doesn’t seem to make any difference, they just linger. At one point I had about 8 of them all trying to sell me something. Upon arriving at our camp site in Arusha, another 4 people were there waiting for us, bringing our numbers to 9. We got our tent setup before going to the bar for a beer. We then had dinner and a bit of a yarn before retiring to our tents.
We got up at about 6am the following morning and enjoyed what could be our last hot shower in a while, before packing up our tents and eating some breakfast. 2 new arrivals joined today, bringing us to 11. We spent the morning at St Jude School, although it seems that tours usually go on Friday when the children have assembly and so on a Monday there wasn’t much for us to do… I have no idea why we were there on the Monday in that case! We ate lunch in Arusha, trying to escape the very persistent hawkers that continually followed us around. After lunch, we were back on the truck to our campsite at Mto Wam Bu, which means ‘river of mosquitoes’, so I had my 80% DEET repellant ready! We upgraded from our tents to a very basic room (no TV, no hot water) for an extra cost. It is probably worth mentioning for those of you unfamiliar with Africa that the beds we sleep in have mosquito nets over them to ensure you are not bitten by mosquitoes while you sleep. It is important not to leave your tent open for longer than necessary to ensure none of the buggers get inside your tent and feast on you through the night. There is a pool at the campsite, but it’s been drizzling tonight so nobody swam. Tomorrow we safari… FINALLY! So far, all we have seen is ostriches, dogs, goats, cows, a gazelle, a variety of birds and a lot of landscape.
Most of the people on the tour are Aussies; one guy, Joel, is my age and lives in Golden Grove (SA) so no doubt he knows someone I know, probably several people. We are yet to have the discussion to figure out who we know in common. Another guy who started in the initial 5, Craig (who happens to be a travel agent), we get along very well with and try to palm off the hawkers to one another whenever we can J Most of the people on the tour seem to be quite well travelled. Of the 11 people, 7 are female and 4 are male.
Eagle Above Nairobi
The Geckos Overland Truck
East African Mountain Ranges
Cheetah in the Grass
Maribu Stalk in Flight
Soccer at the School of St Jude
Hungry Baboon
