January 8, 2011
I was supposed to be at the airport at 10:30 for a 12:30pm flight. I think I actually caught the taxi at 10:35am. Naturally, traffic was slow. It took slightly more than hour to crawl through the narrow congested streets of Antananarivo. Still, there was time. Of course the check-in was slow. And of course the security check was slow. Once through, with barely more than ten minutes to spare, a guard flagged me down to inspect my carry-on bags. It wasn't clear what he thought he was looking for but he zeroed in on my wood carving. He lectured me about how it is illegal to export rosewood. Even a rank novice with woods like me could tell that it wasn't rose wood. It wasn't even red. But he kept carrying on until finally another official came by, glanced at my carving, at immediately pronounced: “That's not Rosewood”. I reached the gate right at the scheduled departure time. Five minutes later, boarding was announced. I yawned. Just another day in Madagascar.
I arrived in Nairobi with even less of a plan than I had for Madagascar. It was too late to do much anyway, so I settled in for the night at my expensive (by Madagascar standards) hostel.
The Kenya chapter has been a bit of puzzle from the start. I added these weeks partly because I could and partly because a “mega” trip of only three months felt unsatisfying. But the ideal wind down from Madagascar would be someplace new, cheap, and easy. Kenya is none of these things.
A straightforward solution would be to do a safari of a couple of parks that I missed so the next morning I walked into the Central Business District to see what the score was.
What I found was appalling. Prices had doubled since my last visit in 2002. Park fees in the Kenya parks exceeded what I paid for the whole safari in 2002. Hard to justify for what would be mostly be a repeat experience.
So, it took another day to get another guide book, but I settled on Uganda. There are affordable, worthwhile parks in Kenya but not enough of them. Actually, I only identified one apart from Hell's Gate, which I visited in 2002. Uganda gives me Kibale. Maybe I will do another park. Maybe Kibale + Arbuko-Sokoke and the Kenya coast will do. I will see. There isn't really that much time. Tomorrow, morning, I bus (real bus, no taxi-brousse, thank God) to Kampala.