Sweetwaters
Apologies for not posting for a while. No excuses, as I haven't been traveling and things around Nairobi have been pretty quiet. Bhargavi was up here last week from South Africa, although both of us spent the week working. I was finishing up a piece on China's investment in Africa and reporting an update on the Islamists' takeover in Somalia.
B's trip got off to a rough start because she flew Kenya Airways, which means a roughly 50-50 chance that her luggage would be lost. (I know that lost luggage is usually due to the airport ground staff, not an airline, but it's just easier to blame the airline, and I have lots of other grievances with Kenya Airways anyway - a topic for a future post.) Naturally, her bag didn't come, but as there are two flights daily from Johannesburg we figured the it would arrive on the evening flight. They promised to call us after the flight left Joburg to say whether the bag made it aboard, but they didn't. When we called them, we were told they couldn't make outgoing calls. That should give you an idea of the kind of operation we're dealing with.
We headed for the airport anyway, but the bag hadn't arrived. When B complained, the woman at the lost luggage counter tried to scold her for coming despite not receiving a phone call. "Your colleague told me you couldn't make outgoing calls," B said, and that seemed to shut her up.
That night, B had to wear the same clothes she had flown overnight in. Too bad, because I had planned Nairobi's version of a big night out - dinner at Alan Bobbe's Bistro (my new favorite restaurant, and not because it's 100 yards from my house) followed by blackjack at the Intercontinental Hotel casino. Her mood perked up considerably when, between the two of us, we took home $200 at the tables - especially good considering the minimum bet was 200 shillings, or about $3. It was her first time ever at a casino, and I'm afraid I may have created a monster.
This past weekend we drove up to Mount Kenya to a private game reserve called Sweetwaters. This is one of those places where you sleep in "luxury" tents - basically simple hotel rooms under canvas, but the amazing thing about Sweetwaters is that the tents sit at the edge of a waterhole. This might not sound that amazing, but what it means is that you have animals walking up to within a few dozen feet of your tent to drink and bathe. From your tent you could be looking at a herd of zebras, giraffes, or the scene B and I saw one night at dinner - a family of elephants drinking quietly under the moonlight. It was incredible.
The other great thing about Sweetwaters is it's home to a chimpanzee sanctuary. There are a few dozen chimps there, most of them orphans or rescued from captivity in places like Rwanda and Congo. It's also home to perhaps the world's only tame black rhino, Murani, who you can touch and take pictures with and he won't gore out your eyes like other rhinos. Besides that we basically drove around the 22,000-acre sanctuary in my battered LandCruiser, feeling very much like Safari Joe and Jane.
We mostly drove by ourselves, but one time we took a local guide, who was great except for (or perhaps because of) a few quirks of English. He kept pointing out various species of birds that were named buzzards, only he pronounced it more like "bastards." Hence he kept making me slow down to point out a "yellow-bellied bastard" - sounding a bit like a gangster in a black-and-white film.
We returned on Sunday and B took off early Monday. Before she left I hosted my first semi-proper preparty Sunday evening. It was long overdue, as I just hit my one-year mark here. We were eight people, which is just the right amount for a chill happy hour before dinner, especially in my average-sized living room. It was me, Bhargavi, two expat friends of mine, two visiting American photographers and two Kenyan friends of B's from Boston. I had just enough glassware to go around. The mixed group made for a good time, one of those nights where the conversation flows easily from drinks to dinner. I need to do that more often.
Other than that, I'm thinking of redecorating - or actually just decorating - my apartment. Not exactly sure what has brought this on, but I think it's partly that the one-year milestone has made me realize my Nairobi life isn't temporary, and partly that they've just installed wireless Internet in my apartment complex. That was the tipping point. I've often thought that eventually I'd move into a big house with a big garden like most of the other expats here, but that frankly sounds like a lot of work, and what would I do with five bedrooms? I'd have to hire a lot more people to take care of the place, and I can barely manage my own life. So stay tuned for my forays into furniture selection. And for some pictures from Sweetwaters.
B's trip got off to a rough start because she flew Kenya Airways, which means a roughly 50-50 chance that her luggage would be lost. (I know that lost luggage is usually due to the airport ground staff, not an airline, but it's just easier to blame the airline, and I have lots of other grievances with Kenya Airways anyway - a topic for a future post.) Naturally, her bag didn't come, but as there are two flights daily from Johannesburg we figured the it would arrive on the evening flight. They promised to call us after the flight left Joburg to say whether the bag made it aboard, but they didn't. When we called them, we were told they couldn't make outgoing calls. That should give you an idea of the kind of operation we're dealing with.
We headed for the airport anyway, but the bag hadn't arrived. When B complained, the woman at the lost luggage counter tried to scold her for coming despite not receiving a phone call. "Your colleague told me you couldn't make outgoing calls," B said, and that seemed to shut her up.
That night, B had to wear the same clothes she had flown overnight in. Too bad, because I had planned Nairobi's version of a big night out - dinner at Alan Bobbe's Bistro (my new favorite restaurant, and not because it's 100 yards from my house) followed by blackjack at the Intercontinental Hotel casino. Her mood perked up considerably when, between the two of us, we took home $200 at the tables - especially good considering the minimum bet was 200 shillings, or about $3. It was her first time ever at a casino, and I'm afraid I may have created a monster.
This past weekend we drove up to Mount Kenya to a private game reserve called Sweetwaters. This is one of those places where you sleep in "luxury" tents - basically simple hotel rooms under canvas, but the amazing thing about Sweetwaters is that the tents sit at the edge of a waterhole. This might not sound that amazing, but what it means is that you have animals walking up to within a few dozen feet of your tent to drink and bathe. From your tent you could be looking at a herd of zebras, giraffes, or the scene B and I saw one night at dinner - a family of elephants drinking quietly under the moonlight. It was incredible.
The other great thing about Sweetwaters is it's home to a chimpanzee sanctuary. There are a few dozen chimps there, most of them orphans or rescued from captivity in places like Rwanda and Congo. It's also home to perhaps the world's only tame black rhino, Murani, who you can touch and take pictures with and he won't gore out your eyes like other rhinos. Besides that we basically drove around the 22,000-acre sanctuary in my battered LandCruiser, feeling very much like Safari Joe and Jane.
We mostly drove by ourselves, but one time we took a local guide, who was great except for (or perhaps because of) a few quirks of English. He kept pointing out various species of birds that were named buzzards, only he pronounced it more like "bastards." Hence he kept making me slow down to point out a "yellow-bellied bastard" - sounding a bit like a gangster in a black-and-white film.
We returned on Sunday and B took off early Monday. Before she left I hosted my first semi-proper preparty Sunday evening. It was long overdue, as I just hit my one-year mark here. We were eight people, which is just the right amount for a chill happy hour before dinner, especially in my average-sized living room. It was me, Bhargavi, two expat friends of mine, two visiting American photographers and two Kenyan friends of B's from Boston. I had just enough glassware to go around. The mixed group made for a good time, one of those nights where the conversation flows easily from drinks to dinner. I need to do that more often.
Other than that, I'm thinking of redecorating - or actually just decorating - my apartment. Not exactly sure what has brought this on, but I think it's partly that the one-year milestone has made me realize my Nairobi life isn't temporary, and partly that they've just installed wireless Internet in my apartment complex. That was the tipping point. I've often thought that eventually I'd move into a big house with a big garden like most of the other expats here, but that frankly sounds like a lot of work, and what would I do with five bedrooms? I'd have to hire a lot more people to take care of the place, and I can barely manage my own life. So stay tuned for my forays into furniture selection. And for some pictures from Sweetwaters.
Labels: Travels
posted by Shashank @ 12:53 AM
2 Comments:
At 10:24 PM, September 21, 2006,
yat said…
wireless internet, pre-parties, restaurants 100 yards from your apt, you actually being in nairobi - once again i came too early
At 9:02 AM, September 26, 2006,
bhargavi said…
Its no wonder KQ ranks even lower than Ethiopian airways in Africa ... their charming habit of luggage-losing along with the quaint "open-seating" policy with hordes of screaming kids, people who think seatbelts are for fun and oversized hand luggage in the aisles .... the truly African airline experience ...
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