Flights to Nairobi went well, on time and only 1/3 full. Received nearly $150 VAT refund leaving South Africa. For some unknown reason I got into Kenya without needing a visa. Everyone else paid $50!! Will be in a group of 14 on the 1st tour. Have met 9 so far. The rest join us here in Arusha. There are 3 Canadian couples, with one couple being the daughter and partner of another couple. There is also a single French Canadian from Montreal. They have already done a week trip in Kenya together. My room -mate and I joined in Nairobi. Harri is 1/2 way through a 1 year sabbatical from his job as a music teacher as well he turns 50 soon. He has a wife and 3 children back home in Finland. Seems a good guy.
Last night all the Canadians went out for dinner with the guide from their previous trip so it was just Harri & I and our new tour leader, a 35yr old Tanzanian. Went to Carnavores, a vegetarian restaurant.... no only joking. It was a bit of a tourist trap where you consumed all the meat you could eat. Mostly the regular meats with some osterich meatballs ( good ) and crocodile ( awful ). Quite expensive so not a good start as far as our tour leader is concerned.
Today's trip by a 24 seater bus was really just a postioning drive as we get proper safari vehicles tomorrow. The 268kM drive was over some terrible roads though there was much road reconstruction as well as new roads being built . I think the cycle this time is being " donated" by the Chinese who will be extracting their pound of flesh or more accurately tons of minerals from the deal. I say cycle as I suspect aid donors build new roads but nobody pays for maintenance so they disintegrate and the cycle starts all over again.
Got brief glimps of the massive massif Kili today. From afar, it's huge!!!
Many of the local people in the area we drove through wear their colourful traditional clothes, mainly red colours in Kenya and purple here. You know these if you have seen pictures of the Maasai people. Both sexs wear flowing blankets and with lots of earrings and necklaces.
The wet season has lasted longer than normal this year, after devastating droughts in recent years, so the countryside is green with lots of acacia trees.
Will not have internet access for about a week.
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