Bye bye Mexico, hello Nairobi! The trip from CDMX was very long, about 48 hours total. It included a one night stopover in Atlanta, where I got to have like my 8th going away party with the boys over some steaks, From there I caught an early morning flight to New York, and then on to Jeddah Saudi Arabia before finally getting to Nairobi. I’m well aware this is a very strange routing. As previously mentioned, I thought I found a great last minute deal, only 90k Delta miles to fly from Atlanta to Nairobi in business class! There were a couple things I didn’t really consider though. Firstly, the unnecessary amount of travel time to fly all the way to Saudi Arabia and then backtrack to Nairobi. Secondly, because it was Saudi Arabia airlines, the flight was dry and I really needed a drink by about the 16 hour mark of the journey. They also had the worst selection of in-flight entertainment I’ve ever seen, with the best options being American Auto and Mr. Mayor. I was so stir crazy by the end I thought I was losing my mind. Like the travel version of solitary confinement. Oh well, live and learn haha.
Anyway, I landed in Nairobi at about 6 pm and pretty much immediately passed out for 12 hours. The next day I went on a tour through Nairobi National Park. Nairobi National Park is the only national park on earth located within the limits of a major city (like 6 miles outside the city) and provided a very interesting perspective with safari style wildlife and the city skyline behind them. I did not have big expectations for this park, given it’s proximity to the city, but it was actually really cool. We saw rhinos, elephants, lions, cape buffalo, crocodiles, giraffes, and so many impalas/zebras. We also saw some lions feasting a zebra, which was a great way to kick off this wildlife adventure.
My guide, Clement, was also great. I lucked out and was the only one who booked the tour that afternoon so it was just the 2 of us in the van. He was a Nairobi native and it was interesting talking to him about the impacts COVID had on him the past couple years and how tourism is now finally coming back. He was actually hospitalized with COVID last year and was grateful to be ok now and that life was returning to normal.
Nairobi was a cool city to experience for a couple days as well. It’s a pretty massive city of about 5 million people. While their primary language is Swahili, most people spoke English as well which made it pretty easy to get around, other than the fact that traffic was hell. I found some great bars and restaurants during my short time there as well. When I landed I was very determined to find some real Kenyan food but that turned out to be a challenge as every time I asked someone where to get good Kenyan food they directed me to restaurants with either American/European or Indian food. The Indian food in East Africa was bomb though. Later on my safari, I did get the opportunity to try more traditional ugali and kind of understood why they didn’t direct me to a Kenyan place, ugali literally tastes like nothing haha.
One other thing I didn’t anticipate was the weather this time of year in Kenya. As is typical, I didn’t do any research and just assumed June in Africa would be blazing hot. However it is the southern hemisphere and at a pretty high altitude so the temperatures were very pleasant and bordered on cold at night (down into the 60s-70s).
