Nairobi, ironing and dancing

Travelling has begun! St James' is on school holiday so I have been given a month to travel wherever I please! I've decided on Kenya then Somaliland, followed by Ethiopia, and possibly rounded up with Djibouti. At the moment I'm on the first leg of my trip, which is generously called "Kenya" when I've not even departed Nairobi!

Nairobi however is pretty interesting. Much much more metropolitan than Jinja or Kampala, also a lot more tall buildings and very nice places to stay! I arrived on Tuesday in the morning after an interesting 12 hour bus journey from Jinja when I spent an hour crossing the border to Kenya, and at 3 in the morning was awoken to the realisation that the coach broke down. I'm currently staying in a place called Milimani Backpackers, a really nice hostel costing 600KSH (£6) a night filled with friendly staff and friendly people!

To be honest, I haven't really come to Nairobi as a tourist, but more as a stop on the way, since being in Nairobi I've had three main tasks. 1) Book and pay for a flight to Hargeisa (Capital of Somaliland) 2) Find a Visa to allow me to enter Somaliland 3) Buy a new camera since my old camera broke, and I can't go travelling without one!

Number one was easiest, after walking around town for about 8 hours on Tuesday and visiting three different cafes I stumbled upon "Four Ways Tower" which contains "Safeway Travel", a travel agent that organises flights directly to Hargeisa.

Day two was not so successful, in fact, I achieved nothing, except visiting a particularly expensive Italian restaurant and confirming what I had already suspected about Kenyan prices being huge by comparison to Ugandan prices.

Thursday was spent on task three, this is when I discovered the joys of Nairobi shopping centres, I found a real sweet shop!! That sold Sherbert Fountains, Starburst, Milkybar Buttons and Quavers! After spending half an hour like a literal kid in a candy shop I left to sample Nairobi's Wimpy Burger. I was disappointed. And after all of that I didn't even buy a camera!

Friday came, and I checked off number 2 in the morning in a really posh hotel, and then spent an hour looking for a bus to go back to the shopping centre so that I could buy my camera, eventually I found a lovely little cramped bus blaring out Michael Jackson at top volume non stop on repeat! Finally got to the shopping centre, bought my camera, a few more sweets and came home!