The Kenya Journals, Ch. 3: Despite Passport Problems and Assault Weapons, We Finally Get to the Masai Mara

Jambo, Jambo, Bwana

(Hello, hello, sir—Kenyan pop song)

Despite Passport problems and assault weapons, we finally get to the Masai Mara

“When did you come into Germany?” asks the passport control agent.

“Yesterday.”   I know what he’s looking for.   My passport is brand new and there’s only one stamp in it—the one from Iceland where I landed and changed planes yesterday.

Obviously, because I’m standing in front of him, I got into Germany and he’s wondering HOW I got into Germany without the necessary stamp in my passport.   Can’t help him there.   I explain that I never saw passport control, nor was any customs agent visible after I picked up my luggage.  I sailed right on through, following the crowd.

He’s confused.   Finally, he stamps my passport allowing me to leave Germany (which, officially, I never entered) and I head for the gate where my Lufthansa flight will board for the next leg—to Kenya.

Greg finds me at our gate; I spot Mary and then Charlie.   They are all strangers to me but I recognize them from their Facebook profile photos.  To make things easier for Jimmy, Greg’s expediter on the Nairobi end, we all selected this particular flight to Kenya.   Marg and Barbara arrived in Kenya earlier and are at the Fairview Hotel where we will overnight.

It’s an eight-hour flight and the flight path on the little TV screen in front of my fascinates me.   So does the geology of northern Africa.   From the air, the land appears to have been brushed with giant comb, all the topographical landmarks laid out in parallel north-south rows.

 

When you sit in the back of a large airliner, you get what's left.   In this case, a tasty cheese tortellini.

For Americans, who need to be careful where we go, this was an interesting flight path.   Yes, I looked for pyramids.   No, I didn't see them.

It's dark when we arrive in Nairobi.   And late.   It’s even later after we wait in a hot room for our individual turn at passport control.   Whatever wait time I was spared at passport control entering Germany, was more than made up for in Nairobi. 

An hour and a half later, Jimmy and his friend stuff all our luggage into two vehicles and drive us to the Fairview Hotel.  It’s surrounded by walls and has some serious security measures at the driveway entrance.  Mary and I are sharing a room and by the time we crawl into our beds and turn off our lights, it’s past midnight.

 

 

We’re up at 5:45 A.M. and find Marg in the dining room.  By 8, we’re checked out and loaded up.

Marg and Mary in the dining room of the Fairview Hotel in Nairobi

And then SOMEONE causes an international incident that almost lands us in the hoosegow.  

The front vehicle in our two-vehicle caravan is pulled over to the side of the road not a block from the hotel, automatic weapons and all.   IDs and passports are checked, phone calls are made.   It’s a long process before we are allowed to leave.

Those of us in the second car are clueless.  It turns out that SOMEONE in the front car (who shall remain nameless) received a GoPro for Christmas and had attached it to the windshield to film the route through Nairobi to a small plane airfield.   SOMEONE was unaware the Israeli embassy is located in the neighborhood.

SOMEONE was unwittingly very naughty and lucky not to be in jail, but for the rest of us, it’s a good story to recount.

I was fascinated with the intricate hair styles in Nairobi.

At the small plane airfield, a gorgeous hunk of eye candy named Adam escorts us to the Governor’s Aviation Cessna Caravan that is chartered just for our group.   Photographers carry a lot of heavy equipment, and they needed the extra baggage allowance.   

 Except me.   I’m still feeling smug about how little baggage I have.  But then, I’m not a real photographer like the rest of these guys.

Adam left, Greg right.

 

The looks, the tousled hair, the job--Adam has it all going.   I asked him if he knew of Beryl Markham, author of West with the Night.   He smiled and his eyes lit  up and  he said he did.   Markham was also a pilot in Kenya.

Another lovely lady with a striking hair do.

An hour later, we land on a dirt airstrip on the Masai Mara National Reserve.   The reserve covers some 583 square miles in south-western Kenya and is the northern-most section of the Mara-Serengeti ecosystem, which includes some 9,700 square miles in Tanzania and Kenya.

Our class photo.   For the next two weeks, this bunch will be my companions.   Minus Adam, of course.   (Sigh.)

Finally.   Seems to me I’ve been traveling for four days—drive to Anchorage and overnight,  fly all night, overnight in Frankfurt, fly all day, overnight in Nairobi.  

And then I learn my first word in Swahili:    Jambo!  

Land Rover safari vehicles.  My gray suitcase with the orange duct tape stripe in visible in the cart at right.   Glad it made it.

 More photos of the Fairview Hotel grounds.

 

I take photos of brooms around the world.   I have no idea why.   Also padlocks, intricate doorknobs, and beautiful doors.

YES!  YES!  YES!  Or rhino horns.

The Kenya Journals, Ch. 2: Falling Prey in Frankfurt

Perhaps the world’s second-worst crime is boredom; the first is being a bore.—Cecil Beaton

Chapter TWO

Falling Prey in Frankfurt

I have discovered how to negotiate large airport terminals:   ask questions frequently.   Like, about every hundred feet, around every corner, on each level, until someone takes pity on an old gray-haired woman and walks you to your destination.   Sometimes that person will carry your luggage, too.   Gray hair rocks!

It works.   It works in the immense air terminal in Frankfurt, Germany, which is how I find myself in the right place, but way too early.   Terminal 1, Level 1, where the hotel courtesy shuttles pick up their guests.

I use a courtesy phone to let the Holiday Inn Express know I am there, ready for pick-up.   Forty-five minutes, is the response, so I go back into the terminal and people-watch for a while until my imagination gets the best of me and drives me outside again.

I admit I am not street smart.   I haven’t had to be, considering where I grew up (Anchorage in the 1950s.) After that, I moved to smaller and smaller towns until I settled six miles out of a very small town.   Even after all my international travels, I remain decidedly unaware of potential traps and pitfalls.

So, on this day when I will overnight in Frankfurt and catch the next day’s flight to Nairobi, Kenya, I’m inside the terminal people-watching and what comes to mind but the guy from Alaska who recently shot up a terminal in Florida after getting his pistol and ammo out of his luggage.   I was thinking about how diabolically clever he was while I’m watching people enter the terminal.

I know there are terrorism problems in Europe.  I know there are terrorism problems in Kenya.    I know the person in the long coat who just came through the doors could be carrying an assault weapon.    Or the woman who is fully covered could be wearing a suicide vest.    Any one of the suitcases could contain a bomb.

I look around for something to hide behind should someone start shooting.

There’s nothing close enough.   I figure I have better chances outside behind the waist-high concrete walls where I waited for the hotel shuttle, so I go outside.

My shuttle doesn’t arrive and it’s a few minutes past the time they said it would be there.  I watch the same shuttles come and go, but not mine.

A tall black man approaches and says, “Are you waiting for….   What hotel are you going to?”

Before I can catch myself, I say, “Holiday Inn Express.”  

“Come with me.   I’ll take you there.”

Alarm bells.   Should I or should I not?  “What van is yours?” I manage to ask.   He points to a brown one with an indecipherable name painted on it.   Or is it?   Is it a removable decal?

“My colleague asked me to pick you up.   He had a break down.”   I follow, reluctantly.

He loads my two bags and heads out.   I don’t say anything and neither does he.   I don’t know the route to the HIE because the only time I’ve been there, I was leaving Frankfurt.   I don’t remember it being this far away.   Why is he taking this little, remote off-ramp?   Will someone find my body before it becomes a toxic waste site?

I recall that he didn’t name the hotel but asked me its name.  Not good.   I should have made him tell me the name.   Too late now.

And on and on it goes, until he turns a corner in a forested area and there’s the familiar hotel.  I look across the road and there’s the German restaurant where I had a great dinner with Bruce, Betsey, Holly, and Andy.   Where Andy played Israel “IZ” Kamakawiwo’ole’s version of Over the Rainbow on his ukulele.  

I’m safe.

 

My room at the Holiday Inn Express

 

I check in, ask for a 9 AM wake up just in case, and take a hot shower.   It's mid-afternoon when I go to bed and sleep 'round the clock, erasing 18 hours of travel time and any jet lag that might have come my way.

Good thing I left that wake-up call, because I needed it.   Packed, down to the lobby, check out and ready to go to the airport.

And guess who my driver is this morning?!!!   This time, he's in the Holiday Inn bus and not the suspicious brown one.   We have a great chat on the way to the airport.  His parents emigrated from Ethiopia and he was born in Germany.

So nice not to be kidnapped and robbed.

 

 

 Complimentary breakfast at the Holiday Inn Express, Frankfurt.