Day 123 – Back to Nairobi
We woke up early this morning as Concierge told us to try and start sorting out our flights at 8:30am, when the Kenya Airways guy would be in the Zanzibar office. S protested and said the guy would not be in by 9am. Sure enough, he wasn’t in until 9am. However, he turned out to be surprisingly helpful. He even exchanged Whatsapp details with J so we could have an open line of communication. He gave us an option to leave today at 5pm on a different airline to Nairobi, spend 22 hours in Nairobi and leave on our previously scheduled flight to Cape Town. This did not sound all that pleasant. Nairobi is having a surge in COVID, has shut down all domestic flights and this seemed to S to be a bit risky. Our only other option was the 4-stop flight on Ethiopian.
After weighing the options, we decided to roll the dice and spend 22 hours in Nairobi. We rebooked the flights, organised transit e-visas, organised our old friend, the Tamarind Tree hotel, where we previously stayed twice on this trip, and completed health declarations. We also identified a back-up plan in case the Nairobi to Cape Town flight doesn’t work.
We ordered in room service, which was fine, and packed. Dulla picked us up as planned and we headed to the airport. We joined the scrum in front of international departures and were ushered to the front of the queue and let in through a VIP line. We don’t know why. Most everyone else was Russian. We were flying Precision Air, which has no lounge, so we had to sit with all the Russians. The departures area was so packed, people were sitting next to one another and standing around. There was no social distancing, or even the possibility of social distancing and none of the Russians were wearing masks. Buying drinks at the only food counter was quite an experience as we had to fight through another scrum. Queuing is a word that does not appear to exist in the Russian language.
We almost missed our flight as there was a large group of Russians pre-queuing for a different Precision Air flight, which J mistook for our boarding queue. Thankfully, driven by a suspicion honed by millions of miles of travel, S went to the front of the queue and realised the flight was mostly boarded and these people were just standing around in front of a gate. S screamed for J to get to the gate, while they held the door.
We got on a shuttle bus that took us to our plane. The plane was a seemingly new ATR turbo prop. It was a short flight to Nairobi and pretty smooth. Surprisingly, there was even some cabin service, but no cold beer. Cashews seem to be plentiful here.
The Nairobi arrivals procedures were pretty smooth for us, but not for those people who did not complete their health forms and get their QR codes. By the time we got to baggage claim, S was again suspicious as J said the bags were coming out on carousel B, which was empty and not moving. S asked her to check carousel A, because he thought he saw one of our bags. Sure enough, there they were.
We were picked up by the hotel transport. That was much less smooth as the 20-minute trip took an hour due to heavy traffic. There was no AC and we couldn’t open the windows due to the amount of diesel fumes being produced by vehicles that wouldn’t pass US or UK emissions standards. The heavy traffic was due to the fact that everyone was trying to get home by 8pm to comply with curfew laws. Hotel check-in was smooth and they remembered us from our prior two stays on this trip. We stayed in a different room, which had the exact same layout as the prior two rooms. We were both exhausted so we tried to go to sleep. Emphasis on the word ‘try’ as J’s allergic reaction was bothering her again.
