Day in Nairobi

Today, after sleeping off some of our jetlag and waking up at 10:30am, we headed for the foreign exchange bureau where we became thousandaires in Kenya shillings, then to get lunch at a coffee and sandwich spot in the Sarit Center mall. After lingering for a while there, we perused the aisles of a nearby supermarket, one of my favorite things to do in a foreign country. Then we headed for downtown in a taxi to buy our bus tickets for our trip to Moshi, Tanzania (we leave tomorrow morning). Along the way we got to see a lot of the city which is intensely crowded with people and vehicles. Most locals get around in buses called matatus, and some of them are brightly painted by the owners as a form of street art. We had several close encounters with these while we were in the taxi. After getting our bus tickets, we headed for the Kenyatta Conference Center, the 2nd tallest building in Nairobi, where we received an unexpected and very insightful tour from a guide who gave us a brief but informative overview of Nairobi's history. Photos were taken, then we got back down to street level and walked around Uhuru park, checking out some monuments and taking a little break from walking around. We decided it was time to head back to Gina's apartment and found a taxi. For a while we ended up behind what may be the stinkiest garbage truck I have ever smelled, and our driver wisely pulled a U-turn and took us another way. The drive took us about an hour though we weren't going very far. Traffic in Nairobi is infamous and would put anything in New York or LA to shame. Emission control on vehicles also seems to be unheard of. Overall impressions of Nairobi: Crowded, smelly, vibrant, exciting, pulsing, noisy. Tonight we eat at Carnivore, a famous Nairobi restaurant. Tomorrow we are off to Moshi, Tanzania.