Day 1
5 flights later and we’re here.
We roll out of the Nairobi airport at 10:30. Julius, our arranged driver is awaiting our arrival. To say we’re groggy from lack of sleep is putting it lightly. Leaning towards delusional. I can barely keep my eyes open, my ankles are swollen and my hair is a grease ball. But we made it!

Nairobi is a gong show. Dusty, indescribable chaos. Our driver has a stop to make before leaving the city, and brings us along, consent not necessary. We wait with the van, in the crowded parking lot, catching our fair share of curious glances.

Soon enough we’re making our way out of city. Traffic is a mess. As expected. Not so expected is the monkeys on the road shoulder and barefoot children carrying/hawking dead chickens. In my sleep deprived delirium it all goes by quite quickly. I come to as we descend into the Great Rift Valley, in a line of trucks as far as the eye can see, truly awe inspiring. Everyone’s gearing down, breaks are warming up. Locals are selling goods on the roadside pullouts. I’d take a sheep skin if customs wouldn’t have a fit.
We reach the bottom and head out in the direction of our tour truck. Just an hour or so ahead of us.
Until our van craps out and rolls to a stop. It’s hot. We get out, and see the rad streaming onto the ground. Our driver seems to think it just needs a drink, but no. The van died relatively close to a small truck stop area, coincidence? So a mechanic and a few other guys come to help. As they unscrew a lid hot liquid sprays them… and the fuel pump is broken. Julious is slightly concerned, but not too fazed. He had tried to get the van to do a rolling start, which didn’t work, so now we’re 100m from the truck stop area. A few scrounging kids menacingly ask us for sweets, then our watches. Julious scares them away. He heads back to find us someone else to drive us while we wait with our belongings and the van, trying to not get robbed in our first 2 hours in Kenya.

Our new ride is an upgrade. The old busted van was pretty rickety. This new truck zips right along and we’ve caught the group within an hour.

They’re hilarious.

We’re exhausted.

The first thing someone says is “You’ve missed the gorillas! They were great!”.

The group is quite small. Ten including us. A honeymooning American couple (Bay Area), an older British Couple (dubbed tour parents), another British couple (childless, so appearing 10 years younger than they are), one Aussie woman and one Dutch woman.  Everyone’s funny, chill, and sleeps sitting up.

Before getting into camp we succeeded in spotting giraffes, olive baboons, elephants, dikdiks and zebras. Our camping situation was upgraded due to our after dark arrival.  Canvas tents equipped with beds was the gist of it, but after that long of a day anything would do. We went to bed on full stomachs and  had no idea how epic the following day would be.