|
|
Day
9
(September 18, 2013) Maasai Mara to Nairobi
Before
Our mission for this day is to get into the train
leaving
Nairobi station to Mombasa at 7 PM. Before, we had leave Maasai Mara,
with the chance of visiting a Maasai village early in the morning, and
driving to Nairobi to deliver the car at Rasul’s office, close to the
train station.
We will sleep in the popular lunatic train, with
dinner and breakfast included.
|
After
No rushes and we are taking our breakfast again in
an empty dining room, where we can say good bye to Jackson and the
staff at the end. We’re leaving early anyway, around 9 AM, as
we cannot forecast how many hours are going to be spent in our way to
Narok.
Everything is different at daylight and
even the broken bridge so scary when coming is looking easy to save.
We’re also driving off road as much as we can, which is where the other
cars are going too.
We can see the main
road at our right, emerging from the ground as a massive hard mud
mound. Every when and then we think about coming back to it, but when
we do, we immediately are looking for the way to leaving it, recalling
the hell we’ve been before.
This way we complete the way to the first
junction, where we stop to check the GPS, as we don’t want a mistake
here. Then a van stops at our side and asks us for a key. I don’t
understand at the beginning, but it seems they’re coming from Rhino
Tourist Camp and are asking if we took the key of the room with us. I
think we left it at door, but when checking my pockets, I give it to
them embarrassed.
 
They’re going also to Narok and are faster than
us, so we soon lose their track, but they’ve already confirmed what I
thought: Narok way is always the road at right for every junction.
We drive through huge plains so barren one would
say it is a proper desert. In Maji Moto we have no other choice but
driving on the torture tool called road, but just for a short while, as
at the end of the town the tarmac appears. It’s around noon, and we’re
celebrating the definitive good bye to these evil formations making us
tremble for so many hours that Eva has learnt wearing a bra is
indispensable for a woman in safari.
Free from the rough road we know in about two
hours we will be in Nairobi, so we’ll lunch there. We’ve taken
something more than three hours to Narok, a new record for us. We could
break the previous record by walking, though.
The road up from Rift Valley is slow as there are
a lot of trucks. I’ve already becoming one more Kenyan and I’m taking
over vehicles without hesitation between the curves and the traffic.
There are a lot of people selling grilled corn cobs along the road side.
Once up, in the Nairobi motorway, we only must
follow the road to reach the capital city. But once in it, I cannot
know where we are roundabout after roundabout. The skyscrapers are what
point me the way to downtown. I drive slowly until I found myself
stopped, I’m in Uhuru Hwy.
 
I know how to go to the rental car office from
here, but we still have to lunch and is too soon for being in the city
with our baggage and without car. So I leave the Highway to go through
the downtown streets. But it is a crowded place where, although we can
see some places to lunch, I cannot see where to park and I end coming
back to the Uhuru Hwy.
 
The solution appears at our left, just
after passing over the train railways, where we’re going to end this
day. An open exit from the highway to a rough road has a sign pointing
to restaurant “Le Vans” with secure parking.
We have no second thoughts, so we’re parking in
front of the building after greeting the guard. It looks old from
outside, but inside it looks like a strip club at daylight: all painted
in pink with no customers. It’s some minutes after 3 PM and I guess
everybody in this city has already lunched.
We use the restroom and ask for the menu, from
which we choose a sort of combination plate with goat, rice, fries… The
same for the both of us, with coke and wine, we pay less than 2000 ksh.
 
Some minutes past 4 PM we park in front of Rasul’s rental
car office to deliver the car. We explain all our adventures with the
car to the man and resigns with the 4000 ksh ticket for the tyre
change. We’ve done 1797 Kms in total and, after applying a 10% discount
-´I don’t know why – and taking the 4000 for the tyre off, we must pay
43565.90 ksh.
Somehow, the card he took the imprint from is refused and
I’m not surprised, so I take my debit card as alternative for the
payment, but they cannot use it as it is completely flat an imprint
cannot be taken from it. So, I must go to an ATM to get the cash.
It’s raining and a Rasul’s assistant takes the same car we’ve
been used these days for taking me to the closest ATM. I must use two
different ATMS because each of them has a limit of 30000 ksh for
withdrawals. Coming back I can check the chaos in the traffic.
Rasul calls a taxi to take us to the train station,
which is just two blocks from here if we go by walking. But these are
big blocks and we cannot go with all the baggage and the raining. When
saying good bye to Rasul, he gives us a card with the phone number of
his uncle in Mombasa, just in case we’ve got in any problems there.
These kinds of courtesies are difficult to find in our countries.
Taxi leaves around 5 PM, we have a lot of time as train
leaves at 7 PM and check-in is at 6 PM, but when we are stopped for 30
minutes in a line to get the first roundabout in Uhuru Hwy, even the
driver thinks we may not get it. As we still refuse going walking, our
driver leaves that motionless line and heads for an alternative way,
avoiding the Uhuru Hwy. It is a longer way, but at least we can move
forward here and we reach the station at 6:320 PM. This area is
crowded, and there are a lot of buses as well… How different from what
we see when coming to purchasing the tickets!
We do the check-in and we’re delivered two small
rectangles of hard and thick cardboard which are our tickets. We’re
explained we must look for car 1202.
We can see the trains are in the platform in the middle, so we must
join all the people in taking the underground pass way. When we’re out
in the platform, we can see a train looking as departing soon, and all
the people is going into it. It looks crowded and I ask in a man in one
door id that is the one to Mombasa and he answers it is not and point
me across the platform to the dark and empty train as the one we’re
looking for.
And it is. When the crowded train
leaves only a few tourists remain in the platform. We get in chat with
an Australian family and a German young man, in front of the car 1202,
while waiting for being allowed to get in.
It is
not going to leave at the scheduled time. It is clear when the lights
are on and we can finally occupy our cabins later than 7 PM.
 
The mission for today is accomplished and, with it,
we’ve almost accomplished the targets for the whole travel, as we only
have to rest at beach.
Train departs quite late and goes for a minute, just to stop in Nairobi
outskirts in order we can take our diner, which is good. We take some
soup, a piece of chicken, rice, etc… but the drinks are not included,
so we pay 150 ksh by a half a liter water bottle.
 
When we’re back from the diner, our seats have already
become into two beds. We leave the window almost down, but the mosquito
net up and closed as we’ve been recommended in the restaurant car.
|
|
|
|
