The day started with an early safari. It rained and we did not see much, except for some zebras and gazelles hiding from the rain. Our guide Joseph tried to find us some elephants as we had not seen any of them in the Mara. But apparently the elephants were hiding in the bushes. Maybe it was good to end our last day this way so that we could leave in peace.
During the day, the weather cleared. The small aircraft took us back to Wilson airport. Beautiful view of the Nairobi skyline.
And then the problems started... Our plane left the Mara an hour earlier than planned. Arriving at the Wilson airport at 5 instead of 6 pm, no taxi waiting for us although I had informed about the earlier arrival time.
The deal was that JimCab would collect my suitcase from Riverside Pearl Apartments and come to Wilson airport to pick us up and take us to Kenyatta airport. Finally after many calls and text messages, a taxi came at almost 7 pm without my other luggage... I said a very ugly word.
We got into this taxi and I started calling and texting again. Another taxi would go to the apartment, get my stuff, and drive to Kenyatta instead. I was getting stressed. Traffic was horrible and worse than we ever had before (well, except for the Friday evening it took us 2 hours to get to Carnivore). Taxidriver understood the stress and tried to get us as quickly as possible to Kenyatta airport. In the meantime, messages were sent at 8 pm to me asking where my luggage could be at Riverside. They could not find it! ARGH... I had left notes and everything at the reception!
Finally I got confirmation that the bags were in a taxi with driver Paul and on their way. Our flights were at 22:30 (Mark) and 23:25 (me). Check-in at least 2 hours in advance. Rain pouring down heavily at the airport. This is the view from my position - watching to see if a taxi would arrive with the bags:
Because of the separate flights, Mark had to go to another terminal for check-in. Luckily the Kenyan people are nice and they allowed him to come back outside to wait with me. And after a while, I also asked British Airways what to do. They told me to check-in and then I could drop my bags (if they got here on time) the latest 1 hour before take-off. All scenarios were considered: what if the bags are late? Shall I leave and request that they are sent on a next flight? Can I do that? Or should I wait and thus miss the my flight?
At almost the last second, my taxi arrived. Yeah!
I quickly had to rearrange my stuff because of the 23 kilo limit per bag and then dumped them at the drop-off point. Ran through security and just enough had time to see Mark board the KLM flight from gate 9.
Bye Kenya! It's been a real pleasure living here for a month. But now time to go home to my husband and kids.
#ibmcsc kenya
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