The Arrival

September 30, 2009
Tonight is our first night in Africa, we arrived in Nairobi a few hours ago after three long flights. When we finally got through visas and baggage claim, we stepped out to look for the person with our names on his sign who would take us to the Milimani Backpackers Hotel. There was nobody there for us. Stressful to say the least, the emotions of being far from home with no one really to call finally hit me. We ended up finding our own taxi to the hotel. When we got there, they didn't have our reservation and we ended up paying much more than we were quoted, but we were happy to be done traveling for the day.

October 1, 2009
Today was yet another big day in our trip. We left Nairobi at 8 am after eating breakfast at the hotel. At first on the bus, we were driving through the streets of Nairobi on our way out of town. They were full of people and the buildings next to the road varied from shanties to tall, shiny highrises.

The road was long and slow. Though much of the distance was spent driving on pavement, the majority of the time was spent on horrible dirt roads. The trip was about 7 1/2 hours including the stop at the border to get our Tanzanian visas. We passed through many small towns and saw lots of countryside. In the small towns, we were amazed at the labels on the small metal shacks that lined the sides of the road. One building that had no windows and no roof was labeled "Engineering Services". (Funny aside: as we were on the shuttle the line from Blood Diamond that Leo DiCaprio often says kept running through my head, "TIA...this is Africa". When we got to Basecamp later I found out I was not the only one with that line in my head, and "TIA" is becoming a common phrase in the house when unexpected or shocking things happen :) ) It must take an amazing engineer to work under those conditions. Along the areas of the countryside, we saw Massai herding their goats and cows and some wildlife. We saw zebras and what we thought were impala, which turned out to be gazelles.

So when we finally arrived in Arusha, we got to the Impala Hotel. It was very nice, but unfortunately Moses was not there to pick us up. After paying the receptionist US $4 to make a call, our ride was on the way. On our way there, Moses kept asking all these questions about our trip; "Was anyone there when you got to the airport?", "Did you stay at the Milimani Hotel?", "Did you get picked up by the shuttle this morning?". We explained to him what we did and he told us what happened on his end: he got a call from the Milimani last night that we had never been picked up from the airport, then he got a call the next morning that we never showed up at the hotel, but he had been informed earlier that we did in fact arrive in Nairobi, based on our purchased visas. He was also told that the Impala shuttle did not pick us up. At this time, he and basecamp were panicked. Headquarters called our parents AND the US Embassy to tell them we were lost! Our first intention when we got to the house was to send an e-mail to set things straight with our surely-panicking parents. Supposedly what happened was that there are two Milimani hotels, a hostel for backpackers for $25, and the Kivi Milimani where we stayed, which
was nicer and more expensive. At the airport, we didn't see anyone with our sign, and neither did the other volunteer who arrived on our flight. By chance, we and the other volunteer ended up at the expensive Milimani, and the shuttle to Arusha picked us up there (still not sure how that worked out since it was the wrong hotel).

We are hoping to be able to write often, but our internet situation is not what we expected. We will be getting a cell phone soon, that gets free incoming calls and is cheapest to callers through a calling card. So we will give out our number as soon as possible.

Guess that's all for now. We hope our next post will be a little happier and more about life in Arusha.

Written by Whitney...more to come from Zach later :)