We are in AFRICA!!!

May 27th, Day 2

Somehow the second redeye in a row was easier than the first. Or at least I felt relatively less terrible when I got off the plane this morning than yesterday morning. So we deplaned via stairway and got to see a great sunrise from the doorway of the plane. Despite the pollution, the sky here is the bluest I can remember seeing anywhere (yes, even bluer than NC). We headed over to get our visas, which we somehow didn't screw up, and man that is one of the cooler visas I've seen - all official looking and colorful. We then went to pick up my bag, which we were hoping had made it to Nairobi. The staff at Heathrow had not exactly given any reasons to have confidence that it would. We looked on one conveyor belt and then the other, and then at the stacks of luggage off to the side, and I finally gave up and went to talk to luggage services. As Eric put it, "Yeah, I saw you walking back and forth from the luggage to baggage services looking angrier each time you went by. I figured that wasn't good." As I finally gave up and filled out the luggage claim form, Sharon emerged from the bowels of Jomo Kenyatta International Airport with my bag. Big sigh of relief.

Eric led us out to his car and we started driving to camp. This was some of the craziest driving I've seen, and it explains why Eric is now considered a maniac driver when he comes back to the states. I was first thrown off because they drive on the wrong side of the road here, which I'm pretty sure I won't get used to before we leave. There are also no police cars here. That's right, the cops have neither cars nor guns, so even if they tried to enforce traffic laws, they can really only yell at you.

A big part of what Eric does here is to run a camp for kids who's parents are expatriates of America and other countries, mostly with missionary parents, along with some Kenyan kids. It's a Christian camp that offers activities such as a high ropes course, rock climbing, etc. The kids don't arrive until the weekend, but the staff are training, so Sharon and I kindly volunteered to serve as climbers for the staff to practice belaying.

There was another part of the mountain that you could hike up, so Sharon and I decided to do that. We went up probably 1000 feet and then got to the point where we decided there was no shame in not having a machete, so we didn't quite make the top.

We also got a mini-safari on our first day. Eric drove us around the camp and took us to see some Giraffe and Zebra, and we caught a glimpse of some Gazelle. The giraffe were very calm and let us walk up to within a hundred feet or so before sauntering off (yeah that's the best word I can use to describe their gait. Picture the way a bird bobs its head as it walks and then picture that motion being made by a Giraffe).

We stayed awake as long as we could, which was until about 9:30 or so, and then we crashed. A pretty amazing day for our first one in country.