Nairobi

 I arrived at Nairobi airport early in the evening with lot of foreigners ready for their safari games. A local friend took me to Marble Arch Hotel where my Kenyan experience started. The hotel was just in downtown and although the sound of a near music was enticing me a lot, the scary reputation of this big city along with the heavy security measures, south-African style, discouraged me to go out and enjoy my first African night...such a pity!
Nairobi, as most of African capitals, has many interesting things to see and do but you really need a local guide who take you to the most interesting spots. We only visited the Karen Blixen Museum which is nice and interesting. This danish woman author of Out of Africa (that became a film with R.Redford ) and other books lived in this marvellous house from 1917 until 1931 when after she divorced from her husband she returned to Denmark because her Coffe plantation was not successful at all. The house interior is quite interesting with some original old furniture (some of it had been sold when she got bankrupt) and some not original received as a present from the Out Of Africa movie production company. However what really impressed me was the marvellous garden, with its huge old trees and colorful flowers.
Nairobi is a chaotic city, mostly affected by huge traffic jam and sadly polluted, but it also seems a vibrant, frantic city where you can find plenty of small African restaurants (where you can eat with a few thousands of shillings), many pubs and also many sandwich bars. No doubt that after 10pm the city center gets desert and most of tourists rush back to their hotels or to their favourite disco-pub protected by a strong security service. I do hope I can visit it one more time with a reliable kenyan friend.

A taste of Kenya

Before leaving I was asking myself if I would have enjoyed in Kenya as much as I did in Senegal, if I could feel the same emotions. During this trip I realized that this was a wrong doubt because you can not compare Kenya to Senegal as much as you would not compare Italy to Finland. Both are in Africa or in Europe, but each of these countries has its special "taste", its culture shock, its favourite meal, its traditions, in other words its good and bad sides. The tourist will continuously complain of local crap food, of light shortage, of road potholes, of hawkers while the traveller, the real one will try as much as possible to find the best in every situation, even the most difficult, even the annoying. Lets say that in the first part of my short trip I acted as a fucking tourist, while in the second I finally became a real traveller appreciating every drop of energy that Africa let fall in my tongue.