Travel to Nairobi

[Thursday, July 27, 2023]

[NOTE: This was published a day after given the later night of travel and a bit of tech issues with the blog itself]

It was an early start today as our flight out of Heathrow is scheduled to depart at 7:30 AM. That means getting up at 4:30 AM (ish) so that we can be leaving the hotel at 5:30 AM (ish). We looked up the Uber ride the evening before and it is only an 8 minute drive to Terminal 2 which is where our Lufthansa plane is due to take us to Frankfurt and then a quick plane switch on to Nairobi, Kenya. 

Sleep came quickly the night before, and waking up early still seems way too easy. Maybe it's a good thing that the jet lag is taking its time to subside. We decided to head out a little earlier than planned given the volume of flights that come in and out of Heathrow. After checking out (and triple checking that we had our cash and passports 👀) I ordered an Uber, but somehow chose the wrong Radisson hotel. Apparently there are about three of them in the vicinity. The Uber app would not let me change the destination as I think the driver had already arrived at the previous one. So, I paid a quick cancelation fee and then ordered another Uber with the right pickup location this time. In no time the driver arrived and whisked us over to the terminal.

We had to queue up at the airport as when we tried to do our checkin online, there seemed to be a problem with entering the Kenyan visas. So, we waited in a rather lengthy queue. The process with the agent was quick and uneventful. Next, we were off to security where you scan your own boarding pass in a small gate that opens once it takes your photo and validates your boarding pass info. After that was the x-ray portion where we just had to pull out any larger electronics and the usual gels/liquids. My backpack got flagged and pulled over. I'm not used to travelling with a water bottle and there was a small amount of liquid left in it. The security agent just asked me to drink it and I was good to go. Sigh - I should have caught that.

We had just enough time to grab a quick egg-sandwich style breakfast before they started to board the flight for Frankfurt which was a short hour and a bit trek.

In the Frankfurt airport, we had a bit of a walk to get to our gate. As we walked through the facility, we both noted that it felt more like a shopping mall than an airport. The Nairobi gate was down at the tarmac level and did not have all the shopping-mall like amenities that we saw in the main portion of the airport. There were three gates in the vicinity of ours which were all separated by five-foot-high glass partitions. We sat in the boarding area for our flight until a Lufthansa representative came by to staff the gate and asked everyone who was sitting in the area to leave as this was considered a “secured” area. Once we all left, we were allowed to come back in but had to scan our boarding pass to be allowed back into the glassed-in area. What was strange about this is that we were never asked to show our passport for the flight.  Not at the gate or while getting onto the airplane. 

We waited only for a short while before we were marshalled to a transport bus (in the background of the picture above) that was to take us to our plane. It was probably about a mile from the gate and sitting out amongst several similar planes. Passengers boarded through stairs that were setup for both the front and the back of the aircraft. Our seats were about mid-plane (row 23), so we entered at the back and tried to take a quick picture with the tail of the plane. Not quite successful - but enough to capture the moment.

There was more leg room in these seats that any I think I have ever been in. Laureen noted that she booked us into this location for our flight back as well.

I’m not sure how this always happens, but we appear to be magnets for parents with unruly children. This time it was two young girls, I would estimate to be just pre-kindergarten. Maybe because we raised only boys, but I’ll never understand parents who allow their young girls to scream like that. I’m certain I would have taken steps to curb that kind of activity early on in their development. Pretty thankful for earbuds and music/entertainment.

For the most part, the flight was and uneventful 9 hours. It’s about the same length of time to fly from Canada to London, England, so we were practiced up a little. We were fed a couple of meals, one hot and one a sandwich and supplemented this with our own snacks; a few of those snacks were picked up in the Windsor area as we walked around. 

After landing at the main airport in Nairobi, we exited the plane down to the tarmac and onto a bus that took us to the immigration area. There we stood in lines for what seemed like longer that it really was. That might be partially to those same two little girls (and their parents) who were about 2 or 3 groups behind us. Nothing like a shrill screech to pique the senses. After we made it through immigration with no issues, we headed to the baggage area to pick up our luggage. We knew it had arrived with us after a quick check of the Airtags that we planted inside. 

A short stop at the rest room and we headed for the exit where we needed to have our carryon items x-rayed. Not exactly sure what was being looked for coming of an international flight with high security, but hey, if you want to x-ray our carryon – knock yourself out.

Outside of the airport was a crowd of people clearly waiting for those getting off the flight. A quick scan of the pieces of paper being held by the drivers and we found one that said, “Laura Blais”. Pretty sure that was us, so off we went with our driver to the parkade. It was about a 20 Km ride from the airport to the Tamarind Tree Hotel where our tour will begin in a few days. The ride was completely in the dark – so there is little to see. We were stopped at the property entrance by a security guard who validated our stay at the hotel before we were allowed to enter. The security is most certainly welcomed.

Check-in was quick and we were escorted to our room by the bellman. We required the use of our hotel room card to operate the elevator, open the fire doors in the hallway and, of course, to enter our room. Once settled, I started the blog only to have an issue with the text before I published it. It’s going to have to wait until tomorrow as it was just about 1 AM here and we needed to be up and ready to go for 8:00 AM for our day’s activities. 

G'night all.

Curt & Laureen