Or, Giving Up Pains Me

I’ll start at the beginning with an outline of the trip. In subsequent blogs, we’ll delve into the details.

We arrived in Nairobi on Monday Feb. 19 and were escorted through immigration and to the driver who took us to the Villa Rosa Kempinski, a lovely hotel in the city. We met up with cousin Robin, but it was too late to eat at the restaurant, so we ordered room service. You may have already seen a pic of the “Nachos” we ordered. A bowl of nacho cheese Doritos with a side of Thai chili sauce and a bit of guac. OK.

Tuesday, we went on a walking tour of the central business district (CBD). Walking tour meant walking along and crossing the highway to get to the Kenyan National Museum. From there we wandered a bit, had lunch and headed back.

That night, we had dinner at the home of my friend Eileen and her husband Sean. That was a highlight. Luckily, Eileen was free the next day, so we went to a bead factory and had lunch with her at a very nice restaurant called Talisman.

Wednesday, we transferred to the Hemingway, where we would get a ride to the airport for our Thursday flight to Masai Mara for our Jeep safari. Can you say 10-seater plane and air strip? We landed on a dirt patch in a field and met Jonathan, the Masai man who would be our guide for the next three days. Sentinel Mara Camp is right along the river and there were always hippos and crocs to watch. We’ll go into detail later, but our three days there were magnificent.

Despite that, we were excited to move on to our Great Walk and meet our group of walkers. Sunday, we flew back to Nairobi and a second one-night stint at the Hemingway. We met Alex, our guide and the rest of the group. Personality issues were already brewing.

You can probably tell by the headline that we did not make it 100 miles. Felled by a faulty gut. We gave up on day 4 of the walk and were driven to the Voi Wildlife Lodge, which is in Tsavo East. I tried to take a break and go back to the walk, but my body was not cooperating. We stayed there for two nights and then headed to Malindi, since that is where the group would end up. By then, there were only 4 of the original 10 still walking.

Although I feel like a failure, the four sole survivors did not give it a ringing endorsement, so I don’t feel that I missed out on a lot. It just stings not to be able to finish a challenge we were very much looking forward to.

Instead, we had an alternate adventure, taking the “high-speed” train from Voi to Mombasa (about 2 hours to go 150km or 93 miles) and then a car service to the Ocean Beach Resort in Malindi. Pool, beach, air conditioning (2.5 hours and 130km or 80 miles) .

After three days lounging there, we met the group (except Robin who headed to Amsterdam) at the airport (more than the airstrip in Masai, but just a shed with three arches for gates) for the flight to the Peponi Hotel on Lamu Island and the last leg of our journey. It’s hard to go wrong with a view of the Indian Ocean and a sea breeze.

We swam, toured and snorkeled and were ready to head “home” on Monday. Luckily, our flights were uneventful and we arrived at our apartment in Valencia at about 1 p.m. Tuesday. Steven immediately got to work and I took great pleasure in washing our clothes in a real washing machine.

Despite the difficulties, we had a grand adventure and got to see more of Kenya than we imagined. Details of the trip (with photos and videos) will be coming in the next week or so.