Karibu Kenya

Greetings from Mombasa. After spending three days in the bustle of Nairobi, I'm now in Mombasa, on my way to the beaches of the Indian Ocean. Cars, tall buildings, people, matatus, and surprisingly few (in fact, barely any) motos...Kenya has already started to grow on me. If only it weren't so cold.

I got my first taste of the cold in Addis-Ababa, Ethiopia. My flight had an overnight layover, so the airlines put me up in a hotel. Nice. But my room's windows were all open, and there was no heater. I had to turn on the hot shower for ten minutes to let the steam heat up the room. Then I huddled under the blankets to sleep. It was probably 65 degrees.

I got to Nairobi around noon on Thursday. The lodge I'm staying at sent a taxi for me, and I met the driver after going through customs. The ride to the lodge was probably less than 15 miles, but it took just over an hour because of...traffic! Nairobi has mad amounts of cars. I couldn't believe it. And narrow, windy streets made it impossible to move at times. Also, they drive on the left side of the road (which threw me off while crossing the street on more than one occasion). But the craziest thing is that there are no motorcycles. We're not in Ouaga anymore.

Friday morning I went over to the National Museum. They had several neat exhibits, but my favorite was the hall of mammals. A stuffed elephant, zebra, and giraffe were the main display. All around them the animals were grouped by eating habits. They had everything from a lion to a flying squirrel, all nicely annotated and explained. And the bathrooms were crazy clean. I spent the rest of Friday afternoon wandering around central Nairobi. I saw the House of Parliment, the National Arhives, the Vice President's office. I just could not get over the number of people, all well-dressed and rushing around on their lunch break.

Saturday I hung out with Patrick, a friend of my brother Nick's. Patrick works with a group that helps AIDS-affected children stay in school, and on Saturdays they have group activities. I spent the afternoon reading books, playing frisbee, and tossing a football. Lots of fun. We then had a birthday party for one of his co-workers. Grilled goat...yum! Just like Burkina.

And now I'm in Mombasa. I took a seven-hour ride on one of the "not so nice" buses yesterday. It was actually pretty nice. No AC, but we got Kenyan music videos for about half of the trip, and the rest stop at the halfway point was clean and had several restaurants with no hawkers. It's pretty clear that tourism is an important part of the Kenyan economy.

Hope all is well. Pictures soon...hopefully. Viva Espana!