Hell's Bells and a Glass of Champagne

It was after a full day of traveling that I finally arrived in Kenya. I was starting to sober up after my plane trip booze up and the heat was like something out of a scary campfire story, but at least I was surrounded by the people I love. That said, I was now tired of travelling, I wanted a shower and I either needed a glass of wine or some pretty strong Panado. But, unbeknownst to me, getting from the airport to Michelle’s house was to be the most stressful journey of my life.

You see, in Kenya you need a drivers licence to drive on the roads but Michelle achieved hers by driving out of the traffic department, turning left, entering a roundabout, first exit out and then driving another hundred meters. That’s it! That is all that she had to do to be given a licence. So you can imagine then that, what seemed like a billion Kenyans all on the roads at once would be a nightmare.

Well, Hell's Bells!!! The word ‘nightmare’ has got to be the biggest understatement of the century. I’m pretty sure that at one stage I was wishing that I was at least 300 kilograms heavier just so that when we did come to our inevitable stop in the rear end of another 4x4 I would have some extra padding to protect me. And more than once I wished that we had just decided to walk to literally the other side of Nairobi.

It seemed to me that the roads were fairly good, and all the signs were in the correct places and they even had countdown timers for their robots but after about five minutes in Nairobi traffic I had worked out that NOBODY, and I mean nobody, bothered to pay attention to any of that and to make matters worse at one of the intersections the traffic officer was directing traffic in the complete opposite way to the robots and it occurred to me that no one listened to him anyway.

Yes, my only unhappy memories of Kenya will be those that we spent on the road with me digging holes into the arms of whoever was sitting next to me at the time in the hopes of staying upright. The good news is though, that the Kenyan traffic scared off any hangover that I might have had and by the time we got home I was ready for a much needed glass of champagne. 

Arriving in Kenya

On wobbly legs that had been liquored up on free gin and tonics, I made my way down the center

isle of the plane. The amazingly good-looking boy who had been sitting next to me was chuckling behind me as I tried with all my might to get my hand luggage and I out of the plane and onto the bus.

At some point Rob managed to find me and the three of us found a seat right at the back of the bus. By now, because the gin had set in, I was thoroughly enjoying staring at this guy’s arms, however I managed to pull my eyes away for long enough to notice the string of people waiting to get into the airport arrivals building and groaned in absolute pain. Did we have to join that queue? I thought back to Michelle telling me that it sometimes took her hours to clear customs and I was filled with dread.

Suddenly the fact that I had been awake since four o’clock that morning, and had already caught two separate planes, caught up with me and exhaustion mixed with gin and over-excitement, nearly resulted in a tantrum.

I think Rob realised that a tantrum of epic proportions was about to come his way because he was searching desperately for a different entrance into the airport terminal, and to my utter relief he managed to find the correct entrance which didn’t have a queue at all. We got through quickly and grabbed the forms that needed to be filled in and while I scrambled in my handbag for some pens Rob managed to get me into the correct aisle.

Clearing passport control went smoothly and before long I was searching for my bag while Rob dealt with his passport. I saw a HUGE red bag circling one of the carousels and instantly knew that it had to be mine. I ran to it and grabbed it off the carousel. It was at this point that I realised that none of the carousels were labelled. Turns out that in Kenya they put your bag onto the closest carousel regardless of where your flight came from. This made searching for Rob’s plan blue bag rather a mission but even that, in comparison to the travel horror stories I have heard, was easy (although this could be due to the fact that I was completely drunk and had no concept of time).

Anyways, with our bags at our sides we made our way through to the airport exit (well we followed the mass of people and hoped that it was heading in the same direction as we were). It was at this point when I saw Michelle and finally I was seeing a face filled with nearly as much excitement as mine. I considered running but then realised that drunk Kat plus heavy bag would result in a fail but it seemed Michelle had no such reservations and before long I was cuddling up to my adopted sister who I hadn’t seen in what felt like forever and a half.

It was then that it dawned on me; I was in Kenya! 

Get Me To The Plane On Time!!!

We were running late. In fact, we had been running late all day. The day was finally here and the thought was so surreal that it resulted in a deep confusion. Today was the day; we were finally en route to Kenya. But we were going to miss our plane if we had to wait in the queue for passport control much longer. After what felt like a million lifetimes we finally made it to the front of the queue and I rushed over to the counter with my passport leaving Rob to wait for the next opening.

I don’t know what it is about speaking to officials but every time I do it I get super nervous. I know for a fact that my passport is legitimate, and I have triple checked every single Kenyan website I could find to make sure that I have the correct documentation and yet as I walked up to that counter my stomach did a backflip and I felt my knees wanting desperately to give way or flee in the opposite direction. I pushed on and made it to the counter where the woman barely looked at me and merely glanced over my passport before stamping the page and calling out urgently to the queue behind me; “Next!”

I was through. I was in No Man’s Land. I was in the beautiful world of DUTY FREE and I sure as hell wasn’t going to miss up this opportunity, no matter how late I was. Rob and I made a beeline for the booze section and made our selection as quickly as possible before rushing through to our gate and to my utter relief the gate was still open. I breathed for the first time in about ten minutes and was just about to make it through to the gate when I realised that Rob had disappeared to find a toilet.

The woman at the gate (I’m sure she has an official title but I can’t for the life of me imagine what it could be) was staring at me and finally said; “If you’re planning on getting onto this plane you better get through here. We’re busy throwing people off the plane.”

“I’m waiting for a friend.”

“Well, you better call him. He has thirty seconds.”

Well, I faced a bit of a dilemma. I could wait for him and we both might miss our flight or I could just abandon him. Oh, who am I kidding? There was no dilemma. I wasn’t risking my holiday because of some guy with a full bladder. Once I’d made it through the gate however I thought it would only be fair of me to give him a call and rush him. I didn’t consider the nasty effects that a phone call half way through a pee could have on a public toilet and as the thought dawned on me I noticed with relief that Rob was actually already on his way back to the plane.

Finally we had made it onto the plane. Now all we could do was wait (and drink).