Transit: NAI - DAR

We get into Nairobi at 6:30 a.m. The Nairobi International Airport is about the same speed as the one in Dar. It is nice and cool in the early morning. I enjoy the stroll to the terminal as I know this will be the last of the cool temperatures for quite some time. The outside smell doesn’t have the typical sub-saharan tang that I remember. Inside the airport is a different story. Now I feel better. There is some strange juggling with gate we are leaving from. They finally move us along a winding route to a different gate, displacing the passengers for another flight.

Have a quick hour and a half hop down to Dar es Salaam. I know the customs drill from last time, so I high-tail it to the front of the line. The clerk is much pickier about the landing card being filled out in detail. They also don’t like the first $50 I hand to them. The bill is not going through their validation machine. I make it through the line in much better time than the trip in July.

I have a happy reunion with all my bags. A cursory glance shows everything to be in order. The only thing that seems amiss is a bottle of shampoo has exploded through the plastic bags it was in. Not too much damage, just a bit on the edges of the books in the bag.

A driver from the DTP office and Gabriel from San Francisco are at the gate to pick me up. It is already decidedly balmy at 9 a.m. We have a short ride back to the DTP office on some freshly paved road. Maina is at the office and happy to see that I have arrived. Get the unexpected suprise of seeing Hanif. He was supposed to have left for Holland the previous evening but his visa doesn’t start until the 12th so he wasn’t able to leave.

Gabriel and I head over to the K Tea shop for some breakfast. Everything is so close in the downtown area. We enjoy some vegetable samosas and potato chops. We then wander around the downtown area for a bit, zig-zagging through the side streets. I bring us by the bookshop down on Samora Road, but unfortunately it is closed. We wind our way back over to the DTP office. I get online for the first time in two days. Mwanga comes by the office and we all head out for lunch. I am starting to fade very fast. I barely make it through the meal before I start to nod off. I make it back to the office and crash for 5 hours.

Up at 7 p.m. to catch the tail end of Star Wars Episode I and get some communication taken care of. The folks in Los Angeles are just coming online at 9 a.m. Maina and Gabriel are anxious to get over to Micocheni for the night, so I have to cut my iChat sessions short. We get back over to Hanif’s house to find Geannie, Alex and Peter Fox. It is nice to catch up with them over a bite to eat. Finally get a shower and into bed around midnight.