From The Land of a Thousand Hills to The Cradle of Mankind
It was another early morning as we had to catch our flight to Nairobi. Even though we were only 20 minutes from the airport, we were told we should be picked up at 6 AM. It only made sense once we got to the airport as to why we needed to be there three hours ahead of time. What unfolded was a first for us, even with the multiple trips through the Middle East.
As you pull up to the airport, there is a checkpoint where all passengers exit the car leaving all their belongings behind. You then walk to a building where you go through a metal detector. Meanwhile, the driver stays with the car opens the hood, the trunk, the glove box the arm console all the doors, and then the police bring over a sniffer dog, who then goes through the entire vehicle, including the engine. After that, you reach the main terminal where you go through a second security checkpoint. Quite the set up, but always happy for the added security.
The one hour and 10 minute flight to Nairobi was smooth – the highlights being flying over Lake Victoria, the second largest fresh lake in the world, and a view of Mount Kilimanjaro off to our right; it’s peak sticking up above the cloud layer with the famous snows on top completely visible -quite a sight!
I had been told that arrival into Nairobi airport was something to behold, but it was completely uneventful, quite simple, and really very civilized compared to many other airports we’ve come into. Our driver Max was waiting for us on the other side where he picked us up, drove us to our hotel so we could drop our bags.
Arrival here was also met with strict security, but we didn’t have to open the hood and we stayed in the car as the “happy” sniffer dog checked everything out.
After dropping our bags we grabbed our duffel full of school supplies and soccer balls then proceeded to the main office of the camp company that we will be staying with for our eight nights in Kenya. After dropping the duffel bag at the headquarters Max took us to fill our grumbling bellies. He couldn’t have chosen a more perfect place- a local artists gallery and restaurant set in park like grounds. The pieces in the gallery were fantastic – Jenny and I were thrilled to each get our own hand forged Masai warrior.
From there, we proceeded onto another local craft market where we did a little bit more damage, including a nice canvas for Jenny, a couple of note cards, some small pottery pieces, and Billy was thrilled to find a rollup backgammon board handmade in Kenya with some beautiful Kenyan bead work.
The next and last stop for the afternoon was at Kobe Tough, a women’s empowerment co-op, bead factory and shop (this was actually Billy’s pick for a tour choice). This place was different from the one that we went to in Rwanda in that it only dealt with beads – all handmade from scratch there. The ladies welcomed us with a dance in which they quickly included Jenny supplying her with a handheld shaker. similar to a maraca.
We were then taken through the process of how the ceramic beads are made starting with the stone dust they mixed with water, then drain to form a clay. It is then formed into various bead shapes and sizes using molds, then hand finished with a knitting needle to form the hole and finally kiln dried again.
They are then hand painted and kiln dried again, then assembled by various artists to create their own piece of jewelry. A really interesting process and one in which I never would have realized the amount of work that what went into each piece. Of course we felt the need to support them as well and picked up a few items.
We arrived back in the hotel in time to enjoy drinks and dinner up on the rooftop bar before calling it a day.
Tomorrow we can sleep in till 7:45 or so before we are picked up for our transfer to the local airport for our flight to the first of the three Safari camps we will be staying in.
And a few funny pics from the trip so far;
Wandering Amerrickans 