The Weekend

SATURDAY
I rode my first matatu to the David Shedrick wildlife trust where they have orphaned baby elephants and rhinos. This place is like a sad Disney movie. They bring out a baby animal and everyone 'awwwwww' and then they tell you about how it watched its mother get murdered by heyenas, or how it got abandoned by its mother as it sank in a mud pit. Place is depressing! There was an awesome baby black rhino who was about the size of a labrador and decided to charge the crowd. Hilarious!
After that we went to the Masai Markets which is a street market where the locals sell their wares and crafts and what not. They all tell you that they hand carve everything, and you should pay top rate for it because its an original, but you can see the exact same stuff one spot over. Plus, if you're white, you're getting ripped off. I was trying to buy some souvenirs and this guy started me out at $40. HA by the end I got him down to 450 shillings and then walked away because $40 is an absurd start. Yah. Then I spent the night with some people from work and some British visitors.

SUNDAY
My first safari. It was sort of a mini-safari, five-ish hours through Nairobi national park We had essentially a matatu with a removable roof and took it off-roading to scope some wildlife.





Safari status. This was my view hanging out of the window. The pop-out opening in the roof was crowded so I found my own good view.





Members of the Masai Mara warrior tribe, native to kenya. Here they stand in traditional dress, and near the traditional Masai Mara Jungle Bounce and Landcruiser. It's wild to see people of these ancient tribes who remain so untouched by modernity. In actuality these are just Kikuyu dressed as Masai to charge tourists photographs. This tourist was not fooled! They did manage to charge me for a go on the Jungle Bounce. It was worth every last shilling.





Here is where in 1989 President Moi burned 12 tons of elephant tusks, valued at $3mil, to protest the global trade of ivory.




I think this is a cape buffalo. If it is the it is the first that I have seen of the big five. Technically I saw baby elephants and rhinos on Saturday, but I'm not counting them. The big five are supposed to be the most difficult game in Africa to hunt and I suspect a baby elephant would be really easy to hunt.





Look, it's an ostrich. What are these all about? I am genuinely confused by their existence. Google image search 'ostrich' and look at the second picture. They seriously look like that.





Baboons, chilling out and maxing in
the shade.




This one needs to simmer down. He charged our van, but you don't step to this. He's lucky I had my seatbelt on.





There's a hippo down there somewhere, I promise.





Caterpillar





Some scenery. There was a house built into a cliff that was overlooking all of this.





View of Nairobi from the park.





Zebras! FACT: If you are from the UK you call them zeh-bras. I was overwhelmed by the amount of Zehbras


and here, the winners of the day,





GIRAFFES!


On our way out we saw two black rhinos in the distance on a hill, but they were too far away to photograph. Luckily one of the guys in the van with us spotted some military binocs hanging out on the side of the road which allowed us some good views of them. It was great that we were able to see them, they are super rare.
Didn't get to see any cats though, which was a bummer. Thats what Masai Mara in two weeks is for!

Sunday night we went to a bar to watch the USA in the Confederation Cup finals and left disappointed. It's about time to catch my ride home so I'll have to update about the awesome people I met last night, and the plans for this weekend (Rwandaaaaaa).

I'm trying out a new way to get these pictures up here, so if they aren't making it, let me know!

Pictures from Safari Sevens

Check out this camel that almost walked into me on the sidewalk.



A view of Nairobi from Uhuru Park, walking back from Safari Sevens





People going off for the Kenyan sevens team, who went on to win the tournament.





This is the French team after they got eliminated. They are entertaining the crowd with their antics since their athletics weren't sufficient.





The Kenyan Prime Minister, Raila Odinga was at the game. This is not the Prime Minister, but I think we can all agree that it would be awesome if he was.

Try to sneak in a quick update

I leave work in 10 minutes, so I have a little bit of time to try to sneak in a quick blog. It's tougher to update than I thought it would be. The only place with a reliable internet connection that's fast enough to upload any pictures is here at work, but while I'm here I need to spend my time working. That is quite the conundrum, no?

Well, first up, I found the Amsterdam pictures and those along with several others from this last week will be put up soon. Maybe right now, depending on the time. It's 6:30 pm and the van that takes employees home leaves in half an hour.

So really quickly, I'm finally settling in to my daily routine through the week. Wake up, eat breakfast, talk to people, go to work, get back to the Y, then its dinner and some sort of entertainment for the night before bed. Lately the nightly entertainment has been soccer, much to my surprise it is actually entertaining. Its crazy how big football is here, last night when I got back to the Y and saw 40 guys all crowded into the tiny lobby watching Brazil v RSA on a tiny 20" screen. They ended up sitting there for 88 minutes of play before anyone even scored a goal! That is dedication.

Weekends are when the fun starts. Last weekend was when I first met the Y group, and they took me in town to see the old site of the bombed U.S. Embassy. Then we went to lunch and yah. Sunday we rode the bus out to an all day rugby sevens tournament called The Tusker Safari Sevens where we watched rugby and drank warm African beer in the hot sun for 6 hours. I have a lot of pictures of all this but no time to upload them now.

Now I just finished the work week and I'm looking forward to my first time at a Nairobi club tonight, my second time tomorrow night and then Sunday will be a safari and the finals with US v Spain. BOOM.

I need to schedule more time to update this but I'm trying to stay busy. I just wanted to let any interested parties know that I'm still alive and trying to make the most of my trip!

I have arrived!

Finally in Kenya, I wouldn't recommend the cross-global travel to anyone though. I started out at 10:00 am MST on a Monday and was wide awake until 4:00 pm EAT on Wednesday. Aside from a 4 hour nap on the flight from Amsterdam, I went about 36 hours without sleep. I would have slept on the flight from Cinci to Amsterdam, but have you been on a 777 these days? There was a whole entertainment portal on the seat in front of me. With a touch screen I could navigate around a selection of music, movies, television and games. One of the games, inflight trivia challenge, kept me busy competing against other passengers for several hours. seat 2A dominated me, all flight, but I held my own. And when that got boring, the French lady next to me was more than happy to explain why Kansas is her favorite state and why the best french fries don't come from France.
Eight hours later i got into Amsterdam, and after taking 30 minutes to navigate my way out of their mall-airport-metropolis, I found the train to take me in to the city. Walking out of Centraal station and into the city I was awestruck. It opened up to a huge square with trains buzzing, a canal flowing through it and impressive buildings all around. Also, to my direct right was a huge parking garage for bikes, quite a sight. It became evident very quickly that bikes rule the streets. Every road had a complimentary bike lane and the cyclists weaved through the trains and cars with reckless abandon on the narrow city streets. Every street was filled to capacity with clothing stores, restaurants, coffee shops, real coffee shops, and book stores, and every store front was covered with bikes parked up against them. I had 10 hours to kill so I traipsed around, no real destination in mind. I walked passed Madam Tussauds, the Amsterdam Dungeon, some huge fountain, and a bajillion coffee shops that seemed to be growing plants in their windows, coffee beans maybe? I'm not sure. I met a Canadian while I was buying lunch, he pinned me as an American after I mocked coin money. We ate some Wok to Walk across the street in a park, right in front of a statue of Rembrandt. Compared to the Blue Horse of Death statue that we have in Denver, I wasn't too impressed with their public art. The icing on the amsterdam space-cake --- gorgeous blonde girls on bikes, everywhere. it boggled my mind, I still think i may have been hallucinating. I took pictures all of this, of course, but unfortunately their were some issues with the SD card when I changed the batteries and all the photos were lost. By the time I realized what had happened, I was too exhausted to go recreate them. I had barely enough energy to get back to the airport. when I did get back I had 4 hours before the flight to Kenya and still needed to navigate customs, security and the monstrosity that is Schipol, so I downed a few cappuccinos and trekked on to my gate, feeling tired and miserable.  

the interior of the train station, it was huge

The bike parking garage, you can see a little bit of Centraal Station on the far right.  I'm still bummed I lost all of the pictures of the buildings

Waiting for my flight

The flight to Kenya was pretty smooth. I had some chatty seat mates, a man from Malawi and a cab driver from Minneapolis who was going home to see family in Somalia. They gave me some safety tips and the Malawian man even suggested some clubs for me to visit. He promised I would have a great time, and with a wink and a chuckle said I knew what he meant. Probably will be staying away from those clubs, but I appreciated the suggestions nonetheless. I got about 4 hours of rest on this flight, in between a showing of Yes Man and a breakfast consisting of yoghurt and a croissant. then finally, I was in nairobi.
At the airport getting my visa was a hassle and my luggage didnt appear until I asked a baggage attendant to please go look for a big orange duffel bag. several duffel bags later I was ready to go. Just outside among a sea of white signs was a taxi driver and a woman named joan, waiting to greet me. With Joan's tremendous help I got set up at my room which ended up being in a YMCA. Then she went with me to a mall where I got a local mobile phone, some lunch and some KES. Then she brought me back to the Y and I crashed, hard. I dont think I've ever enjoyed sleep more than the sleep I had last night.
This morning I woke up at 630, feeling refreshed. I grabbed some breakfast at the Y, read a little and met Steve, the driver who brought me to the office, where I have been all day, meeting, greeting etc...

We love to stay at the Y-M-C-A

tl;dr
flying sucks, amsterdam is cool, i got to kenya, I was tired, now I'm not

First impressions of kenya will come later, after I am able to do some exploring, but so far it is great. The people are very friendly, and the energy coming from the city and even from this office I'm sitting in is incredible.

Don't worry, in the future I'll start compressing these blogs into smaller, more manageable bits, but after so many hours of being unconnected it feels great to blab to anyone who cares.

Rough Start

According to my itinerary I should be halfway to MPS right now, so why am I writing the first post in my blog from my parents' living room?  Freaking Delta.  If anyone wants to hear a long, twisted tale of corporate incompetence feel free to inquire.  The short version is that although they managed to approve the credit card purchase they never got around to actually taking the funds, leaving me unticketed for tonight's flight.  After spending hours weaving through endless holds and transfers on the phone someone finally admitted, "We authorized the charge, but never purchased the tickets."  Now I'm set up to leave tomorrow at noon and arrive in Nairobi 12 hours later than anticipated, and luckily, all for the same price I originally purchased the tickets for. Tomorrow I leave at 2pm and the route takes me through Cincinnati instead of Minneapolis, and only affords me 12 hours in Amsterdam to explore.  All in all, though, I am just grateful to have it all worked out after a long and frustrating afternoon at DIA.

The lesson we learned?  Confirm, confirm, confirm, make sure all your ducks are in a row before showing up at the airport, bags packed and ready to go.

I was sure there could be nothing more stressful than trying to get a new pair of glasses on a Sunday morning 2 hours before my flight, but today was full of surprises.  Tomorrow is looking like it will be a much smoother day to start my travels, and I can take tonight to relax, I don't even have to unpack.

LV DENVER        220P     F M   *S$ AR AMSTERDAM     1015A# 

LV AMSTERDAM     900P     M     ** AR NAIROBI       635A#