Drooling and too heavy: A day in Nairobi

After the safari, we returned to Nairobi, where we arrived around 2 pm. Näthu suffered a major loss the day before: his Pocketbook (E-Reader) broke. Considering that we don't have internet most of the time and there are quite a few waiting times as well as a vacation in the mountains and at the seaside ahead of us, it's not ideal to not have any reading material (of course, we didn't bring any books since we have the E-Reader). At the same time, the afternoon was the last chance to fulfill Bara's long-awaited wish: feeding and getting a close look at giraffes (I LOVE giraffes!!!). The two goals of the day were clear.

First, we ordered an Uber to the Giraffe Park. By the way, there are actually no taxis in Kenya. There are only organized transports from the hotel and Uber. For comparison: The same route with Uber costs about 10% of the price of a hotel transport. Of course, it is always difficult to find Wi-Fi somewhere in order to be able to order an Uber, but that worked too. Uber works great. The only disadvantage: Sometimes the space in the small cars is a bit tight (see picture).

Back to the giraffes. Although it is a very touristy attraction, it was still super cool! Interestingly, the giants are very gentle and try with a lot of skill and gently (okay, I admit also with a lot of drool) to take the food from your hand.

After the giraffe park, we drove to the city center, where Näthu found a bookstore. When we arrived at the location, there was only a dirty graffiti wall. So we asked the driver to take us to one of the nearby shopping centers at least. There we might be able to connect to Wi-Fi and look for a new solution. As luck would have it, the bookstore was exactly in this shopping center: We lucky ones! A very happy Näthu could breathe a sigh of relief. When we had a cappuccino in a western café, we were once again reminded of the absurdity of the large gap between rich and poor in Nairobi. We are sitting in a highly guarded western shopping center, while people live next to us in massive slums (see picture). This feeling never leaves you in Nairobi.

At the end of the day, there was a shocking moment. We found out that we can only take 15kg of luggage including hand luggage on the flight to Tanzania. Problematic when you consider that Näthu's backpack alone weighs over 20kg. In the best case, we have to pay an additional 50-100 dollars, in the worst case, we are not even allowed to fly. The panic (which of course only one of us felt - you can guess who) turned out to be unnecessary. Here is a short guide on how to proceed if you find yourself in the same situation: 1. Throw away some unimportant things (for example, I don't think we need five mosquito sprays anymore...). 2. Wear all heavy things and of course too many jackets. 3. Fill all jacket and pants pockets with the heaviest things (see picture). 4. Transfer weight from main luggage to hand luggage and 5. Create some chaos by not understanding what all the staff is saying and explaining that you are hard of hearing (that was real: with an African accent and airplane noise in the background, it's difficult). We actually managed to get down to an incredible 12.5kg (main baggage) and 3.5kg (hand luggage) in Bara's case, and 16kg and 7kg in Näthu's case. The visibly stressed staff didn't want to add it all up, and we didn't even have to pay an additional charge. We are already looking forward to repeating this procedure when we fly to Zanzibar with a propeller plane.

The airport was very small and only small propeller planes (e.g. Doctors without Borders, UN and safari planes) flew from there. About 10 other people were in the plane with us. The planes are pulled by tractors. The whole organization was also interesting. We were simply led from place to place and didn't really know what was happening - very different from a regular airport. We were lucky and sat in the front. The view during the flight was great - among other things, we actually saw Mount Kilimanjaro above the clouds.

When we arrived at the airport in Tanzania, we immediately bought a local SIM card so that we could use Uber. After installing the card, we realized that Uber is not really a thing in Tanzania... too bad! So we had another eternal negotiation about the taxi price, including dramatic running away and then coming back and forth. Thank God Näthu already knows how to handle that from his time in Uganda. The taxi for tomorrow is already ordered. We are leaving the hustle and bustle of the city and driving to the mountains.