Poirier-Tyler 2011 trip

Kenya, Africa – 18 july 2011
Overnight flight to Nairobi, Kenya from Bangkok via Doha. Very interesting to see all the people dressed in their muslim/arab clothes ? men in full white with the white head ?scarf? and black rings holding it in place and the women in full black with only their eyes partially visible. Had an interesting converstion with the father of a ?clan?, his wife was sitting beside him, but even when I addressed a question to her it was the man who answered. We had a group of women in black sitting behind us on the flight to Doha ? they were certainly far from reserved and often lifted their face veil and were almost the loudest on the flight!
Our arrival in Kenya was interesting! We were quite tired and then had to wait in line 1 and a half hours to get the Visa ? first introduction to the African bureaucracy. The guest house/campsite arranged for a taxi to be waiting at the airport which worked really nicely. So far our arrivals in the new countries have gone very well with a little prior organisation.
The Upper Hill Campsite in Nairobi has been a good place to start. I was (and still am a bit) nervous about the security of travelling here, especially in Nairobi. There are lots of stories of people getting mugged and worse and it is very dangerous to walk around after dark, even by taxi you must be sure of the driver. The people here have been very helpful and friendly and a super added bonus ! ? they have children about the same age as Alex and Heidi so the kids are having a great time playing. We spent a day organising trekking, etc, while the kids had a lot of fun playing. The temperature is really cool, almost cold, long pants and sweater during the day while sitting in the shade. The sun if very strong so it can still be quite hot when walking. The camp ground has a beautiful garden with many different fruit trees and other huge trees, some with nice flowers. There are some little ?cottages? and a bunch of canvas tents and a few rooms in the main building (we have one of these ? it is quite small without a bathroom and more expensive than most of what we paid in Asia).
I am taking a few minutes to update the Blog and write some emails (something I haven?t often taken time to do), it is nice to relax a bit more and I imagine that having the kids happily playing helps me to have some time off. ** It has been really wonderful to spend all these months with the kids 24 hours a day, to get to know them even better and live through all their daily emotions (and obviously them having to deal with ours!). They are really super to be around and on the odd occasion when we are not all together for a little while it feels strange and lonely.**
We have planned to do a 3 day safari in the Masai mara area since the big yearly migration is happening there now. We couldn?t have had a better timing on our trip for this ? hopefully we will be able to see some exciting river crossings! After the safari we will do a trek for 5 days with the masi people staying in their small villages ? should be quite interesting (we even have to take our own water on the trek ? we?ll see!)
2nd bureaucracy fun ? trying to get money ? Andre has spent half the day running around to all the banks and waiting in many lines ? and wow, 3 hours later he managed to get $500!!
We hope that everyone is having an excellent summer and enjoying some vacation time. Hugs to all!

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