Friday, January 25, 2008

First Impressions of Kenya

Seven and a half hours later, the Swiss A-330 landed in Nairobi. It was the first time I set foot on the African continent.

After we came out of the airplane, everything seemed to be calm with no signs of conflict. It was 9 pm and the airport was nearly empty. The terminal was designed in a circular shape, just like I had seen in the guide book. There were a few European tourists waiting for their flights home.

As we were coming out of the gate, I saw a commercial about the Serengeti National Park, which only sounded familiar at the time and I was wondering where it was located and if we were going to visit it. I would later find out that The Serengeti was a Tanzanian park, the biggest one of the country, and it had a section that extended in Kenya: the Masai Mara that we would visit.

We took our luggage and went outside the airport to be greeted by Albert, our guide in Kenya. He was a calm and smiley man that spoke French very well. He had safari hats for Joumana and for me that he gave us.

Albert was to drive us to our hotel. He briefed us on Kenya’s political news. Things have seemed to calm down compared to a few weeks before, but the tension was still felt, and tourism in Kenya has suffered greatly.

It was dark outside so it was hard for me to see what Kenya looked like. There was a warm tropical sent in the air that wasn’t too familiar. I did notice that people drove on the other side of the road, just like in the UK. There were also a lot of nids de poule on the roads. Albert called them nids d’autruche, because some were very big!

Picture taken from: Fotolia.

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