We landed in Nairobi at 9 am this morning tired and feeling very travel dirty. Despite all of this the sight of Kenya outside our approaching windows was spectacular and the smell of the air upon de-boarding really drove home the fact that I am in Africa. I had been warned that the air of Africa smelled different than I would expect. It has this earthy, tangy, wild smell that makes you breathe deeply and the hair on the back of your neck stand up (in anticipation). All you could see for miles and miles was green and brown land stretching further than the eye could see and there was a herd of something (hopefully zebras but I was not sure-we were going pretty fast) that we passed on landing. From way high up it was possible to see deep crevices where rivers cut through the flat savannah. Meeting us was a lively gentleman named Musuroo who helped us get our luggage, visas, boarding passes and convert our money. After a flurry of activity (our luggage went over land to our base camp) we had nothing to do but wait around in the airport and look through dozens of duty free shops until our 6pm flight to Kilimanjaro.
Because of weather issues the group I am traveling with is only 18 of the entire 30 people on the program. It’s a bit funny to think I know these 17 people pretty well after spending hours together on planes and in airports, yet I know only slightly more than half of my program members. Anyways to fly to Kilimanjaro we got on this small yet perfectly nice Precision Air plane that is complete with propellers on the wings. After 6 and 8 hour flights this 30 min flight went by so quickly. The best part was that we got a beautiful view of Mt. Kilimanjaro above the clouds at about 17,000 feet reflecting the light of the setting sun off its snowy top. Once we had landed we of course had to fill more forms out (I did not expect that I would memorize my passport number from writing it so much) and get through immigration. We were met by a relieved SFS staff would gave us giant bottles of water, piled us in land rovers and drove us to a hotel. The drive was interesting as my driver (Charles) taught me a few words in Swahili and narrated what we were seeing. Before it got totally dark I got to see several herds of Massai cattle complete with Massai herdsman holding his spear and short sword at his side, women walking on the shoulder with large pots and bags perfectly balanced on their heads (imagine the neck strength that must require!), and lots of creative driving. Getting to the hotel was a relief to all of us. See stuff in the dark was difficult and fighting to keep my eyes open was even harder as the hot day mellowed into a pleasantly warm evening. Lucky me I got a single room at the hotel, had a glorious cold shower and ate non-airport food with delight. So now I write from a Sakina hotel room while the local community has what sounds like a giant block party and motor bikes honk their horns from the main street. Since I’m really ready to sleep lying horizontally I have to untangle my mosquito net and sleep for many wonderful hours! Night
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