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Day
1
(September 10, 2013) Flight to Nairobi
Before
This first day is entirely spent on the flight to
Nairobi.
We must be at airport with time enough for
boarding in the Turkish airlines flight to Istanbul at 12:25 PM.
After a flight of 3 hours and a half we would
arrive to Istanbul, but only for a three hours of transit to our flight
to Nairobi, scheduled for 7:50 PM. This is a night flight and will take
us to the Kenya capital in around 6 hours and a half.
As we will arrive so late, at 2:25 AM, a driver
will be waiting for us to take us directly to the hotel. Our tasks in
the airport are just getting our visas and some cash from an ATM.
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After
The day goes by in airports and planes. The
Turkish
airlines ones have the individual screen, although it’s only the one in
the 6 hours flight to Nairobi which allows choosing contents between a
long list of movies.
 
When we land in Kenya’s capital, at 2:20 AM, we
meet the
chaos which, by the moment, we don’t know if it is endemic to the whole
country or it is just due to the big fire which destroyed this
international airport one month ago.
We expected some tracks from that fire but we didn’t expect such
destruction as per the whole arrivals part of the airport be set in a
tented camp.
This way, when leaving the plane a
school bus is waiting for us – the name of the school is at both sides
of the bus – to take us to a big tent with some small canopies around,
all in white. Inside, some tables have been set to attend people
incoming to the country.
As use to happen to us, our queue is the
slowest and we will be one of the last on leaving the place with our
visas and entry stamps, which are get now in a single procedure by the
man in the table.
In the short walk to the baggage area, there is one table with a
blackboard showing the money exchange rates where we only exchange 80€
for our first expenses as it is quite pricy. We can guess now we’re not
going to find an ATM here.
 Once
with our baggage we must pass through a small customs area where an
officer is forced to decide so often who can leave without being
checked. We’re one of those.
Outside we can see a
group of local people after a police cordon. These are there to pick up
people or getting some money for any service. Our name is not in the
several signs standing drivers are showing, so we come back to the safe
area after the cordon.
Through it we accept the
help of one man who uses his cell phone to call our hotel. When I can
talk to them I’m relief of hearing my name, in a confirmation they were
the hotel indeed.
He takes us to the parking with
the idea of driving us to the hotel, but then he receives a call from
our driver who seems to be close and ask the man to wait for him.
We spend some strange time there, in the middle of a parking area, with
the company of a stranger who calls every when and then to our driver
and with a continuous walking of people. We’re concerned about being
there, so late at night in a city which can be dangerous. We’re
recalling of this point seeing some of the men walking around are
military armed men who are there for our protection.
Finally,
our driver arrives and our desired meeting with our bed is closer. We
give a tip to our friend for the calls and the support and get into the
car. Our driver shows us the cause of the problem: we can see big white
tents and a big parking too in a different side of the airport, so it
seems there are various arrivals areas and everyone have the exit on a
different place, so, not knowing where we’re going to arrive, the best
option is waiting in the biggest area, used by the most. It’s just a
matter of odds.
So that is the reason we’re at bed at 5 AM, under
our first mosquito net and over a big bed in the middle of a spicy
room.
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