July 12 - Kenya: Nairobi

OK so sleeping at the Terminal Hotel wasn't quite as easy as I thought.  The Dove Cage Restaurant singer shut down at about 1:00am or so, but there does seem to be a dance club somewhere nearby.  We know this because the bass of the dance music was going until about 4:00.

We also has issues with our little double bed.  Jon and I have gotten used to sleeping in a king-sized bed, and are MISERABLE in double beds because neither of us are willing to give up the mattress real estate.  Compound this with the fact that the mattress was definitely sloping toward the middle, and the fact that the sheet was the size of a twin bed - and we have the makings of a bumpy night.  We spent half the night bumping into each other and the other half apologizing for it.  I can't believe I'm actually going to say this, but from now on we'll probably ask for two twin beds.  So much for the romantic trip!  A good night's rest is much more important now.

More errands today - none of which are very exciting.  We went to the Post Office to mail home our clean Kili clothes and to look for a lost package that Shannon had sent us a few weeks ago.  We also went to get water and snacks and picked up some Diamox from a pharmacist for our trip to Tibet in August.  The funny thing about this pharmacy is that we basically walked in and said "We need 30 tablets of 250mg Diamox", and the pharmacist gave it to us with no problem.  No prescription, no nothing.  Piece of cake!

We did do some sight-seeing today.  Nairobi has a Railway Museum that we'd heard about.  The railway system was a huge undertaking in the 1900s, and is also the subject of a mediocre movie called "The Ghost In the Darkness".  The claws of the lion are on display in the museum, as are a bunch of pretty cool artifacts and pictures.  Outside the museum is a railway graveyard where we climbed on engines and cabooses and cars from different time periods.  It was pretty cool!

Gotta love that camera timer!

Nairobi

After the railway museum we had a long walk back through town.  Nairobi really isn't as bad as we've heard - it's just not that exciting.  The entire city seemed to pop up in the 1960s, and none of the buildings have changed much since then.  The beggars are a bit tiresome, but they can be avoided if you choose to.  And the guys that try to sell us on safaris are just doing their jobs.  Even though they're persistent they do respond to logic such as "Sorry, we've already been".  

But even though I say Nairobi isn't all that bad, I'm glad we're leaving tomorrow and I don't think I'll ever care to come back.