Into the Wild

Time to wake up the blog for our next travels. We're not in Europe this time, but in Africa, more specifically Kenya and Tanzania.

It's a bloody long way - as far and as long as a trip to Paris. 24 hours after leaving Melbourne we touched down in Nairobi. Long, slow queues as we went through immigration. Don't know what it was about us, but everyone else had to do fingerprints, and for us it was stamp the passport and welcome to Kenya.

Our hotel is well and truly way above our normal French digs. I have a desk to sit at while doing my blog. We opted for dinner in the hotel last night as we were too tired to think about where else to go. 

Our first day and we decided to go to the Masai market in the city. This involved a taxi from the hotel, I don't think public transport was even considered as a real option for these European tourists.

The market was an interesting experience. Charles nabbed us as soon as we got out of the car and became our 'guide' and 'personal shopper' for the morning. (Along with 3 other guys who followed us around.) He picked up what he called a 'maybe' bag and as we looked at stuff and expressed interest,  into the maybe bag it went. We had maybes, definite maybes, maybe maybes, and possible maybes. Was actually a fun experience with Rob laughing and joking with our entourage. I think we were the only 'white' men at the market (though we did see another couple later in the restaurant.) The masai are beautiful looking people and all seemed to have a lovely friendly nature. Sad though to see mothers with babies on hips begging for food. 

And finally came the 'bargaining' time. Needless to say it was far too expensive and some stuff just had to become definite nos. Spent far too much but we're still happy with our purchases.

We bought this painting.

The middle row of fabric is reversible -
they call them Monday/Tuesday shawls.
Tempted but maybe next shopping time. 

Stoneware - beautiful.

Hard at work.

Nairobi Nike's (thongs).

Beautiful beading everywhere.

This lady was the artist who painted the picture we bought.

Our entourage - main man, Charles, on the right.
Rob is holding our 'maybe' bag.

Left the market to go to CJs restaurant, just around the corner in a street behind the market. Well, it wasn't just around the corner, but about 1k away around a few corners. Was a great restaurant though and we were able to sit on the balcony upstairs and watch the traffic and people in the main street. This was right in the city and in no way did the behaviour reflect what we would see in Collins Street - double/triple parking, people just wandering aimlessly across the street, sort of keeping left on the street, but using whatever space there was. 

We were too full from lunch to even consider these.
I like sweet stuff but tried some of the desserts last night
and they were a bit too sickly sweet.

Looking at the Kenyan women - how long does it take them to braid their hair; I presume they don't do it every day, how often do they wash it? So many different styles. I also commented in a previous blog post from Africa about the women having large sticky outy bums. Seems to be more widespread than just Zimbabwe and Botswana.