KENYA: LAX TO NAIROBI

I am embarking on a month in Kenya followed by three nights in Istanbul. My husband Scotty took a pass on this trip as he developed an "allergy" to third world countries after our trip to Egypt last year. Mind you it is not his lack of interest in the history and uniqueness which we strive for with each of our vacations, but the poverty and conditions in Cairo were profound and he feared he would encounter the same here in Kenya. I am traveling with my friend Lauren who is an old neighbor from San Francisco and the added bonus is that she has a home in Kenya. Lauren is a very smart person and is an expert in lots of things African so she is my walking Wikipedia when it comes to the flora and fauna of which there is no shortage here in Kenya.

But speaking of Wikipedia, let me share of a few facts about Kenya. There are about 51 million people who live here. The demographics of the population is 99% are from racial tribes of Africa including Bantu, Cushitic and Nilotic; the remaining 1% are from Asian or European heritage. At around 1500 AD, it became part of the Portuguese Empire. The Masai people moved into Kenya. during the 18th and 19th century.  It was briefly a German Protectorate from 1885-1890. Modern day Kenya was colonized by the British in 1895 and was made independent in 1963; it remains part of the Commonwealth. Kenya is a democratic republic. The current president is William Ruto, who narrowly won the election in 2022; he has quickly become unpopular due to his attempt tax basic day of life necessities such as bread, gas, baby diapers, etc. The economy is dominated by agriculture, specifically coffee and tea, flowers and tourism is also a major economic driver. Homosexual acts are illegal in Kenya and punishable by up to 145 years in prison, but apparently the government avoids prosecuting gay people

Back to my trip, I took off out of LAX on Turkish Airlines. It is a long trip to get to Kenya.  We flew direct from LA to Istanbul which was about 11 hours and then on to Nairobi, which was another 7 hours. For my San Diegan friends, I used a shuttle called LINQ out of San Diego which was very convenient and cheap; $59 one way with only one stop in Oceanside. It is a 9 seat Mercedes Sprinter and the key word here is sprinter, as our driver made it to the airport in just under two hours. Coming back though, my hubs will pick me up as it is a bit more dicey not knowing if my flight will be on time and I expect I will be quite exhausted, plus he will have missed me!!! This month away is the longest period of time we have been apart in our 32 years!!!

If you may recall, on our last trip, we were on Lufthansa, and I thought the lounge in Munich was much better than British Air lounge in Heathrow, but I liked the business class experience with British Air better. For this trip, I flew on a Boeing 777 to Istanbul which was a 2-3-2 configuration and again, no pods (like Lufthansa), whereas Lauren flew out of SFO on a Turkish Air Airbus 350, and her business class had pods, so go figure? The food service on Turkish Air is over the top with chefs on board and they have a rolling cart with a variety of salads to start your meal. The business class lounge in Istanbul was enormous, not packed and full service; truly the best of the lounges that I have experienced. Oh, and while I am on the topic of lounges, as I arrived earlier than expected to LAX, I was able to do some lounge hopping and first went to the Amex Centurion Lounge and then to the Star Alliance Lounge; the Star Alliance Lounge was much nicer, better food and a more relaxing environment. Digressing a bit again back to our trip back from Munich last May, I need to bitch because when we flew through Denver on Lufthansa, and booked the trip with United and United was our last left of the trip to San Diego, United would not let us into their lounge because we had flown Lufthansa. I was pretty irate and exhausted by their pettiness over this given we bought business class tickets through them, but now I can see the answer is that they should have more Star Alliance Lounges and that would make it a better experience.

SUPER MOON AS SEEN WAITING TO BOARD OUR FLIGHT TO NAIROBI

After traveling for more than a day to get to Nairobi, we checked into our hotel at 3am and crashed. Lauren had to see her lawyer the next day for her residency card and I had to stop at a pharmacy as I stupidly left behind one of the few meds I take on a regular basis to see if they would fill it. We walked from our hotel to the pharmacy which was about a half mile away and passed some street vendors and guys washing their cars, which apparently is a local obsession, and while it was not exactly like cruising down Madison Avenue, it was safe and there was no garbage in the streets. The “dudes” washing their car were super polite when Lauren needed to step off the curb to get around them and actually apologized for blocking access on the sidewalk. Crossing streets is a bit of playing chicken, but after a couple of crossings, we found the pharmacy and the pharmacist looked at what I needed and was able to dispense it without any fuss. Tip #1 here is if you are planning on bringing any prescription meds, either have a print out of your prescriptions or a photo of the bottles. We then took an Uber, yes, they have Uber, to Lauren’s attorney which was located in a high-rise high security tower downtown. Once she got her updated residency card, we grabbed another Uber to get lunch and wander a mall. While wandering a mall may not sound that interesting, when you are in jet lag fog, it was about all we were up to. We went into a Carrefour grocery store which is a big chain here and it was truly enlightening, as it is a French company, and it had every item you would expect in a well-stocked very modern store with prices that were about a tenth of what we might pay except for the fresh salmon, which was about the same price. Dinner that night was Ethiopian.  Everything was eaten with our fingers using a bread called injera, a fermented pancake that is like a tortilla, but lighter, and used to grab the various lentil and vegetable dishes, as well as some tasty chicken. We crashed after dinner as we had to work our way through the ten time zone changes from California to Kenya.