We had intended getting up early but totally failed, going down for a late breakfast and then getting a hotel car to the Karura forest, which is a very large reserve in Nairobi (northwest of the town center). It was super pretty, and we did about a 5 mile hike around the area (partially due to some navigation errors on my part).

Because we were travelling in a more urban area, I was keeping my camera in its bag. I saw a Sykes’ monkey in a tree, really close, and wanted to get the shot so reached into my bag to get the camera out. The monkey just kept eyes on me. I snapped a shot, then he moved.

I assumed to run away, but nope, he came right at me.

I snapped one more shot then he jumped at me, I think trying to grab the camera out of my hand. I pulled it away (we made pretty hard contact) and this shot triggered.

He still didn’t run away, and looked like he was about to try again, so I yelled at him, and he backed off a bit. We started walking away and he stalked us for a while before giving up. Better than coffee.

We were following the 5k “yellow trail” and there was a sign that said “Waterfall only” and so we assumed the trail would do a loop and come back to the waterfall.

Another mile of hiking later and it was clear that wasn’t happening, so we doubled back to explore the waterfall.

It was super pretty, walking along the stream to the waterfall.

I got some decent time exposure of the waterfall (propping the camera on a rock) then we walked downstream to the Karura caves.

These were an important part of Kenya’s fight for independence (which culminated in 1963), as the people fighting for independence would hide and plan in the caves. Unsurprisingly, archeological exploration of the caves showed they had been used by humans for … ever.

We finished our hike up past Lilly Lake.

Then we reconnected with our driver, Patrick, who I think thought we had gotten lost in the forest and seemed relieved to see us.

I had read that Market Village was good for souvenirs (and nearby) so I asked Patrick to take us there. It was basically just a mall. A mall with some amusing security signs, like “over 900 cameras are keeping you safe!” and this gem:

We went to the grocery store to buy local potato chip flavors, and refresh our water stock, and figure out where we should go. A quick web search turned up a place called “Spinners web.” We went back to Patrick and asked him to take us there.

JACKPOT. Spinners Web has a huge, diverse collection of handmade crafts, food, antiques, etc. All if it nicely curated and beautiful. We went from “we have nothing for anyone” to pretty well fully provisioned in short order. Our carry on situation got much more complicated, but hopefully all worth it.
Goodies in hand we went back to the hotel to shower and repack.
We decided to have a nice last dinner at Inti, a peruvian/japanese hybrid restaurant at the top of a nearby office building (one of those Gherkin shaped buildings). The walk over, at rush hour, was hilarious and super chaotic and those 3 blocks felt like an achievement. We went up and had a nice (not Cultiva, nice, but nice) meal then were picked up by Wycliffe from Africa travel.

An hour later we were at the airport, going through a lot of paperwork, checkpoints, etc. Covid exit requirements vary by origin and destination and so it can all be a lot. We had had our negative test proof etc. so it wasn’t a huge deal to get through, eventually ending up in the Kenya Air lounge waiting for our flight.

8 hours in the air and we were in Amsterdam, 4 hours of layover and we boarded our 10 hour delta flight home, where I wrote all these final blogs.