Happy New Year!

Well waking up this morning sucked! What a night!

Today is the day our little group of three must say goodbye. :( Lisa and I leave for our next adventure in Kenya, and Callum heads over to check out Zambia before trying his luck at climbing Kilimanjaro!

We packed up our little chalet, said goodbye to our SA boys and the three of us when for brekky- Lisa and I had organised and paid for transfers to the airport the day before so we had an hour to kill together. For breakfast I ordered some sort of vegetarian pasty and a cup of roobois tea- what I got was a chunky steak pasty and no tea! Gotta love Africa! Lisa smashed a chicken pizza and Callum had a pasty with a coffee.

At 10.45 we returned to the hotel- our transfer was to arrive at 11. We said goodbye to Callum as he got in a taxi towards the border and we waited….and waited….by 11.30 our transfer had still not arrived. The hotel made several phone calls and I physically ran to the transfer office myself to ask why our driver had not yet showed up! Ugh it was so frustrating- so many things seemed so out of control- apparently the office I booked at isn't the office that deals with transfers, but oops they are not answering their phones, and their driver is unavailable now and wow- was I stressed! I did not want to miss that flight and we still had to cross a border!

Lisa and I grabbed our bags, left the hotel and walked back to the office- as we got there, one of the mangers had some keys and directed us into a mini van- he had phoned the border to explain we were running late and had a plane to catch and organised another transfer to pick us up at the border to minimise delays getting a car through and we were on our way!

We arrived at border control to exit Zimbabwe and almost walked straight through- yes! But… Our driver had not arrived yet. Ugh. 10 minutes later he showed up. We raced to the next border control to enter Zambia and I almost died. There was a line about 20 people long and some very frustrated American travellers who got quite annoyed when our driver tried to talk our way to the front- nope! To the back of the line we went!

We eventually got to the front of the queue - and guess what?! Wrong line! We hadn't even bought our visa yet! We went to the next line and the Visa officer was dealing with another traveller, but got to us soon after- eventually, we had each paid $50 US to enter Zambia (we had researched that it would only cost us $20 for a transit visa- but we were running too late to question it so we just paid and ran!) Always losing our money to random fees all over the place! Seriously- most of my spending money has gone towards Visas, parking fees and everything else we didn't expect- you pay for everything! I'm sure we get ripped off all the time being young white Australians… But honestly- I think sometimes it's just easier to pay and be done with it!

It was a speedy trip to the airport! But- we made it! Got stopped at security and had to unpack my bag to show them that the Australian animal wooden pencils Debbie gave me to give away as gifts were not weapons of mass destruction and got our boarding tickets- handwritten of course.

Feeling very flat at this stage and was glad to get a viber call through to Dad and Sharni. Very teary. Not a day to have a New Years hang-over on! I hate borders.

Sitting on the plane, Lisa and I were asleep within minutes. So annoyed I had just paid $56 Australian dollars to enter Zambia for 2 stressful hours only to land and have a stop over straight back in Zimbabwe! Surely we could have organised that better! Luckily we were able to stay on the plane on the stop over which allowed me to have a bit of a Greys Anatomy marathon on my iPad which returned my stress levels back to normal. :) Lisa was able to catch up on more sleep.

Landing in Nairobi was very carefree. We met some lovely Kenyan Visa workers who basically approved a 3 month Kenya visa to us for on the spot, had our bags come out on the conveyor belt first and when we walked out of customs, a driver was standing there with a sign that had my name on it! Upside down… But it was there!

It took twice as long for us to arrive at our hotel as our driver was terribly lost. He did not work for the hotel and I believe was just a taxi driver that booking.com had organised. Oh well- we got there. We drove down some dodgy alleyways with people sleeping under tarps and had security guards with very big guns point us in the right direction- which was actually the wrong direction- but we got there eventually!

The receptionist 'Paul' was very lovely and showed us to our room/ apartment. Yes, an apartment with a bedroom, a bathroom, a laundry, and lounge room and even a kitchen! I'm in heaven! I have been craving home cooked food for so long and need veggies!! I get to cook! It brightened my night. Spoke to the family- feeling much better.

19° Mostly Cloudy
Nairobi, Nairobi, Kenya