Author: Krisztina

Dang, these nine months really flew by haven’t they? It feels a little bit like it snuck up on me, only because we really squeezed in a bunch there at the end. The last month was so busy, partly because of Kilimanjaro taking up a full week, partly because I wanted not to leave anything unfinished at work and partly because we wanted to do all the Kenya things we didn’t get to do in the eight months prior. I handed everything over at work perfectly gift wrapped,

and the last two weekends were full of fun activities.

The penultimate weekend we went on our last safari with a couple of Bill’s colleagues and their friends to Ol Pajeta, a rhino conservancy. We got to pet a rhino and see more animals. And in true safari lodge nature, we stuffed our faces with the delicious all you can eat buffet. #classic

The very last weekend was probably my favorite weekend of all the weekends I spent in Nairobi. It started on Friday. I knew that Angaza, Bill’s amazing company, was planning a surprise going away happy hour for him. Around 3pm I get a panic call from one of his coworkers that he is not leaving the office even though everyone but the engineers have left, and there is a taxi waiting to take him to the secret party location. He eventually was convinced to leave and showed up to his surprise party where his colleagues showered him with praise, gifts, food, drinks, and a wonderful and thoughtful video. The secret party location was in fact very close to my yoga studio, so after a double session (I had aggressively signed up for a 10-class pack knowing I would have limited time and had to double up on a few days to go to all the classes I had paid for) I show up at the perfect time: the dance party had just started.

Saturday morning consisted of sleeping in after Bill’s surprise party and after-party. That ended up being a good decision because it turned into a very long day. Bill had told me earlier in the week that we would be going to his coworker Jane’s house for lunch with some of their other colleagues who are parents and wouldn’t be able to make it to our going away party that evening. Very believable. As I am getting ready, Bill mentions that Jane is a little bit fancier than most of his other colleagues and was informed that it is customary to wear white to these luncheons, some tradition leftover from British colonialism. Sure. I didn’t think twice about it. Bill calls the Taxify taxi around 11am and we are on our way. I don’t know where Jane lives, but after we had been in the cab for about 15 minutes, Bill sends a WhatsApp on his phone, and when I casually turn to look at him, he turns his phone away from me. Suspicious. It was right about now that Bill told the driver to turn in to a driveway. The driveway where my friend Yaara lives. “Whoa, Jane lives here too? This is where Yaara lives!” Bill doesn’t really say anything other than something along the lines of “oh yeah, I guess so”. More suspicious. In the 2 minutes it takes the taxi to drive up into the building complex and for us to walk to the house, a whole series of events replays before my eyes: last night at Bill’s party when I said to Jane “see you tomorrow” she said “yes see you at the race” (which was on Sunday, the day after tomorrow, not Saturday, tomorrow). Then Bill told me to wear white. Then he didn’t let me see his phone. Then we turned in to Yaara’s building. Now we were in Yaara’s house. Now I am surrounded by my Nairobi lady friends. Now they are putting a crown of roses on my head. Now they are saying “Welcome to your surprise bridal shower!” Now I have tears streaming down my face. Now I am so surprised and so happy!

Before we kicked Bill out – ladies only! – there is a projector set up for a surprise video. Turns out, Bill had emailed lots of my lady friends and family – who live all over the States and the world – who couldn’t be in Nairobi for my bridal shower and had complied their video messages for me into a beautiful and thoughtful video. I cried the whole time watching it. It was so incredibly special, and I felt so loved and so happy. The video was amazing because my friends and family were able to express their thoughts and personalities, and I felt like they were there with me! And Bill did a super job editing it – I don’t know how he did it without me noticing over the past couple of weeks. It was a wonderful surprise, and I am SO thankful to my wonderful friends and family who took the time to send in a video and say some really nice things about me #youknowwhoyouareandiloveyou. After the video we drink, eat (Yaara is an excellent chef), and play some games. Turns out Bill and I are very in sync – I answered all the questions he answered the same! Good thing we are getting married.

After more food and drinks and games, we head out to Village Market mall to a restaurant owned by my CEO/Yaara’s boyfriend for more drinks and food. And Bill was there too! We are now cutting it close to our going away party at J’s planned for 7pm, so we quickly go home with Monica (remember, our neighbor who took us in for the last month) to drop off our stuff (I had brought clothes for yoga because I thought I was only going to an early lunch) and change into our party outfits. We hang out at J’s till about 11:30pm and lots of friends rolled through! Moses, one of the frisbee team leaders, brought a Nairobi Ultimate disc and sharpies to have everyone sign it. It was so nice and thoughtful! We drink, eat delicious pizza, dance a little, and enjoy ourselves. I think everyone had a great night! We called it early because the next morning was the Nairobi Marathon and we signed up to run … … the 10K. Not the full marathon! I’m not crazy! Bill’s company was running, so we already had our numbers and jerseys, and all we had to do was show up at the start line at 7:30am. My goal for this 10K, which by the way was longer than any distance in a row with no rest I have ever run, was to run the whole time with no walking. In one ultimate game or two I probably run about that much, but it is in different directions and different speeds, and there is always some sort of game stoppage aka opportunity for rest. This would be the longest I would be continuously running at a (hopefully) continuous pace for a predetermined distance. If you have ever run one of these “fun runs”, you know that the serious runners go in the front because it turns out that for most of the run we were just dodging and running around people who were walking or going slowly. That actually helped keep my mind focused away from the fact that I don’t really enjoy running because we were in a real life video game bobbing and weaving around obstacles. Also I had told myself that now that I climbed Kilimanjaro I have to be able to run a 10K without stopping. Bill was so wonderful because he ran with me the whole time – I would have for sure walked if I was by myself. And guess what?! Goal accomplished! I ran the whole time!! After the run, which had so many U-turns that I kept thinking we were on the home stretch when we weren’t (I should have known better because I had studied the route map before the race), we meet up in the Central Park of Nairobi, Uhuru Park, to music and celebrating, and to get our participation medals. It was really cool to be running around the downtown of Nairobi, which is colloquially referred to as Town or CBD (Central Business District), because normally it is just so busy and chaotic with car, bus, motorcycle, and foot traffic, and now it was bizarrely empty of those things – like that eerie scene in Vanilla Sky when Tom Cruise is by himself in Times Square – other than the very organized chaos of the 10K runners. After about an hour hanging out with the Angaza crew, we head to the Alchemist for a delicious brunch, then head home for a super quick nap before our very last Nairobi frisbee team practice.

Monday and Tuesday were super busy days at work as I wrapped stuff up. Wednesday was our very last day with our flight scheduled for 11pm. We spend the morning packing, and I go to my very last yoga class. Great news! I used up all 10 classes! I am now super strong and my arms will look good and not flabby in a wedding dress. #phew Our last lunch in Nairobi was at La Salumeria, the restaurant just around the corner from us where months prior we had been mugged at gunpoint. Much different during the light of day, but just as delicious. It felt good to eat there in an ‘overcoming’ sense. We finished packing, weighed our suitcases and moved things from bag to bag trying to get under, or close to, the weight limits. We were worried about having to pay for heavy luggage, but it turned out to not be an issue. #phew The only hiccup that day was at the airport. At JKIA (Jomo Kenyatta International Airport), every person and car entering the airport has to get screened before entering the vicinity of the airport. So all cars go through a security gate while every passenger has to get out of the car and walk through a metal detector. Cars and passengers meet up again on the other side. The actual airport is about a one minute drive from this initial security checkpoint. After the checkpoint, there is a gate where all cars grab a time-stamped parking ticket to pay on the way out. Well, at this gate, there are guards/rent-a-cops, and one of them had the audacity to pull us over because we weren’t wearing our seat belts, which we didn’t put back on after the security stop 10 seconds behind us. I. Was. Livid. Good thing I lived in NYC long enough to lean in to confrontation. The calm Taxify driver informed us what the cop just said in Swahili, so I roll the back window down to speak to the officer. I very sternly and angrily tell him how ridiculous this is, and that I want to speak to his manager. He tells me to get out of the car to go speak to him in the office, to which I say “hapana (no) tell him to come here”. The cop refuses to go get him. “What’s your name” I say. He won’t tell me. Fine. I then tell him that I am absolutely not giving him any money so he might as well not waste his time on us and pull over another car that doesn’t know better. And he – knowing that it is illegal on government property to ask for bribes – says very quickly and angrily in Swahili that he never asked for a bribe. I asked the driver what he said, as I understood the words “pay” and “money” and the driver said the cop was making it clear that HE didn’t ask for a bribe, that I merely suggested it. I then told the cop that I have lived in Kenya long enough to know what he wants, and he isn’t getting that from us. Besides, look in the car: the entire trunk and backseat, minus where I was sitting, was full of our luggage and we were clearly leaving for a long time, so we had gotten rid of all our cash. He then mutters something about mzungus, calls me rude and then lets us go. We were hours early for our flight, so I was ready to fight even longer but I was nevertheless relived. Bill, my very polite Midwestern fiancé, was glad that I was there to handle the situation.

After we dropped our bags and got inside the terminal, we walk over to the restaurant that I had built. The manager came over to us to ask if we were enjoying our food and I told him we were, and that I was part of the design team who built this place. He then called the owner, and she and I talked on the phone a bit, and then we got our meal and our drinks free! That was a nice touch that I really appreciated. We should have ordered another shot. 😉

Our flight had a layover in Frankfurt, and going from Kenya to Germany was a total 180. Everything was so clean and organized and systematized, even the security checkpoint bins had their own conveyor belt to return it from one side to the other. They are so organized that when we checked in for our flight in Kenya, the exact gate number in Frankfurt was printed on the ticket and that was the actual gate number for our next flight! Having been to the Nairobi airport a lot, to build that restaurant, the security process was different every time I went based on who was operating the checkpoint.

The flight was great too. I watched so many movies I have been wanting to see but never got around to. I highly recommend Ocean’s 8. Anne Hathaway was so good in that. Actually, everyone was so good in that. We finally make it to Brussels – oh did I mention we were doing a mini 4 night vacation in Brussels and there will be a separate blog post to look forward to all about the beer and chocolate and peeing fountains – on Thursday morning, and it hits me that our nine months in Nairobi have come to a close. I know we will be back, partly because of Bill’s job, and party because we like it there. But those future trips will be more like nine days. I think about things I will miss, like the DELICIOUS fresh fruits we had at lunch every day, the cheap and delicious fresh veggie pack we had for dinner every night, my job and colleagues and the vibe and hustle of working at an amazing startup on fun projects, my 30-60 minute taxi commute to work where I binged a bunch of podcasts at 2x speed, the great restaurants, knowing the owners at many of those great restaurants, the amazing outdoor adventures of the country, and our friends. I think nine months was the right amount of time to live abroad. After about six months we really felt like locals and knew what was up, and one year would have been waaaaaay too long to be away from home and family. Nine proved to be a nice amount of time but I was very ready to come back. Upon landing at JFK and walking through passport control, it was the greatest feeling in the world when the customs agent loudly slammed the entry stamped in my passport, and, in her thick New York Spanish accent, which is my favorite accent to listen to, looked at me and said “Welcome home”.

We get to Kibo Camp around 1 or 2pm, have a small rest, then have a very early dinner at 5pm. This was because we weren’t actually going to turn in for the night at Kibo, it was merely a rest until midnight when it was time to start our summit attempt. In the hours between dinner and our 11pm wake up call, I couldn’t sleep much for reasons I can’t explain. Before our “breakfast” at 11:30pm, we put on all the clothes we brought. Here’s what I wore – I know you all are wondering: underwear, under armor compression shorts to tuck my upper base layer into, three-quarter length Patagonia yoga pants with REI wool socks that came up on my calves past where the yoga pants ended, Under Armor cold gear leggings, my Blackbird sweatpants, Columbia hiking pants, Mac in a Sac waterproof rain pants, hand warmers under my toes in between the REI socks and Patagonia thick wool socks. And that’s just on the bottom! I wore my short sleeve Uganda frisbee jersey tucked in to the shorts, my long sleeve Blackbird jersey tucked in to the yoga pants, my light blue Patagonia quarter-zip micro-fleece pullover, my grey Patagonia Better Sweater full zip fleece, my Patagonia Nano Puff Hoody jacket, my Patagonia Houdini windbreaker jacket, a puffy fall coat that goes to my thighs branded Calvin Klein my mom bought for me years ago at Costco, a new fleece Kitenge fabric accented hoody, and my Patagonia H2No rain jacket shell. Then my alpaca wool hat from Peru and an ear warmer headband as a face warmer and winter ski gloves. That’s NINE layers on top. And guess what. I was STILL cold. The gear was great, but my circulation is terrible. (If it isn’t clear, I’m trying to get some serious sponsorships or free stuff here #patagonia #REI #patagoniananopuffhoody #hiking #REIhalfdometent #ospreywaterbladder)

The reason, I was told by Dennis, that we start the hike in the middle of the night is because the moisture in the air makes it so there is more oxygen in the air and therefore “easier” to breathe. I guess “easier to breath” is all relative. The downside about starting in the middle of the night is that as it gets deeper into the night, it gets colder, and as you go higher, it gets colder. That’s compounding colder. At some point I had to wear the Maasai blanket that Bill smartly brought. I wore it like a cape, but it did not give me superhero strength.

The pure uphill climb in the dead cold dark of night was absolutely miserable. I had trouble catching my breath and my heart and body felt like it was sprinting even though I was barely moving. Here’s a not good combo: having to move to stay warm but needing to sit on a rock and rest every fifteen minutes to recover my breath. I could barely keep the pole pole pace. Groups were passing us and it was demoralizing. And I felt so guilty for making the whole group wait for me while I took a break. Poor Victor especially since he is skin and bones and was literally shaking from cold. I kept insisting that Bill and Victor go on ahead with Dennis and Johnson while I go even more pole pole with Issac and Emmanuel. Bill did not want to continue ascending without me if I was to continue ascending, so I kept trying. Isaac led the way, followed by me, then Bill, Victor, Dennis, Emmanuel, and Johnson. Emmanuel carried snacks for us and hot tea. About two hours in (I think) I was feeling extra weak. The “breakfast” was porridge, which you now know I don’t like, so I didn’t eat. Bill gave me one of the pb&js that we had made before the trip and it gave me a small energy boost. I also popped a Shot Block in my mouth, but they were pretty frozen and solid, not their normal gummy chewy selves. I ended up spitting it out because sucking on it felt to be using up more energy than it was giving me. The hot ginger tea was a great for warming up and hydrating, especially since our water froze in the drinking tubes. And it was great for Victor, not only because he was cold but because he wasn’t feeling well at early dinner the day before, and after he drinks some and we start moving again, he bends over to the side to vomit. One thing about vomiting from altitude sickness is that you immediately feel better. “Lucky Victor,” I thought to myself.

Keeping my mind occupied to focus on something other than my misery proved very very difficult. In the light of the stars all we could see was a wall of black going straight up, with small bobbing lights of the headlamps of hikers way ahead of us. I would look up and see just how far vertically up those lights seemed and I was on the edge of losing hope. “Why am I doing this?” “This is stupid.” “There is SO much left to go up.” Then I look down and see the lights of headlamps of groups way below us and Kibo Camp. “I can’t turn back now, I am already this high up, THAT would be stupid.” This back and forth goes on in my brain for hours on end.

In an effort to help me, Bill said to just focus on keeping a pace. But my brain had more excuses. I did gymnastics and play ultimate, both of which require extreme amounts of energy exertion but not at a consistent pace with opportunities for recovery, if even for just a few seconds. Bill, as a cross country runner in high school (and the pitcher on the baseball team and the salutatorian and Math Team champion #humblebrags), knew how to pace himself over the course of many hours and how to not let the mental game win. He was trying to help me, but it didn’t really. I started just literally following Isaac’s footsteps, stepping on this rock, stepping in this spot, etc. Focusing on that seemed to work kind of. Over the course of what seemed like an eternity, I tried keeping my mind off of the task at hand. Why did we already discuss all wedding things and what we have been reading on the earlier hikes! Now what was I supposed to think about?! I decided to sing every single Beatles song to myself. “Damn it, why can I only think of 4 of them! I usually know all the words to all the songs! Ok let’s try 90s and early 2000’s pop. You are, my fiiiiiire, the one desiiiiiire. Oh, a fire would feel so nice right now.” That clearly didn’t work either. So then I imagined myself singing a handful of different fun and silly kids songs to Bill’s nephews and imagined them getting such a kick out of it (Wellllllllllllll I walked around the corner and I walked around the block and I walked right in to a donut shop and I scooped up a donut right off the grease and I handed the lady a five cent piece. Wellllllllllllll she looked at the nickel and she looked at me and she said this nickel is no good you see there’s a hole in the middle I can see right through and I said there’s a hole in my donut too. Thanks for the donut. So long. … You put your butt in, you put your butt out, you put your butt in and you shake it all about. You do the hokey pokey and you turn yourself around, that’s what it’s all about! … I’m bringing home a baby bumble bee, won’t my mommy be so proud of me I’m bringing home a baby bumble bee. Ouch! It stung me! …) You get the picture.

After about 3 or 4 hours of off again on again pole pole, sit, walk, rest, drink, sit, pole pole, Isaac links his arm into mine and is now basically pulling me up the mountain. This was immensely helpful because I was so tired and ready to admit defeat. There was a point where I even closed my eyes and just walked as he pulled. Since he was now pulling me up the mountain, I had no choice but to keep going up. There was some rock stepping which required that he hold my hand instead of my elbow, and mind you, he was gloveless. I couldn’t let him down now and turn back after he willingly and glovelessly was helping me, could I? During one of our resting seated stops, Isaac points out Oliotuktuk town in Kenya thousands of miles below us. I only later found out that the joke in Swahili was on all of us suckers, as all the townspeople were sleeping warmly in their beds. Why were we up here again? We could be warm in our sleeping bags right now. But if we can keep going, the sun will eventually rise and warm us up. And that’s exactly what happened. We were able to hold on for 6 hours after we begin our ascent, and the sun crept over the horizon. Our entire group’s hope had been restored and it feels great. Don’t get me wrong, I was still tired and winded and felt like I wanted to die, but I was somehow, strangely, happy.

Kibo is actually a dormant volcano so there is a big crater inside and the peak is along the rim. We climb for about one more hour after the sun comes up to make it Gillman’s Point (5,685 meters; 18,651.5 feet), which is on the rim! It felt like such an eternity on the brink of death to get there, and once there, I take in the views and the sun, and remove my Maasai blanket cape. Dennis and Victor had made it up there at least 30 minutes faster than me, so they were ready to keep going. From Gillman’s we can see Uhuru Peak, the final destination. Seeing it felt pretty much like this: you know when you’ve played a full tournament Saturday of ultimate and you feel exhausted and sore in that sense of accomplishment sort of way and as you begin to take your cleats off your blistered feet you fantasize about that warm shower and welcome cookie at the DoubleTree followed by all you can eat salad and breadsticks at Olive Garden and you hope they are doing that Tour of Italy special when your captain/coach/tournament director says that there’s actually a crossover game right now and it’s going to be the hardest game of the day. Your heart sinks. Your head drops. But you know there is no alternative. You have to play. You have to get yourself up mentally and convince yourself you can do it physically. That warm shower and Tour of Italy is going to have to wait as you change your socks hoping it will make you feel like a new person, and you lace up your cleats for one more last big push. That’s what it feels like to see the actual peak, another two hours away uphill on the other side of the crater.

We keep climbing, Isaac is still pulling me. Other than feeling exhausted I feel great: no headache, no light headedness, etc. Bill’s heart rate, while sitting down and resting, climbed up to 90, which is not a great sign, so we really needed to keep the pole pole pace. That was no problem though because there was no way I could go any faster. The scenery up there is quite impressive. We are higher than planes, higher than the clouds, and there’s lots of snow and glaciers all around us. We are inching closer to the peak and I am getting slightly warm. Feeling comes back to my toes. People start passing us on their way back down, they had their turn on the peak and soon, hopefully, it would be our turn. They tell us encouraging things like “this is the hardest part but you can do it!” The people passing us on their way down were of huge age ranges, 20 years younger than me and 20 years older than me. I thought if they can do it, I have to be able to too. It also gave me hope that I will still be cool and adventurous in 20 years. We also see a few people being escorted down quickly by guides, people who are clearly sick from the altitude and look completely out of it. Some tours will rent portable oxygen for extreme emergencies, but from my understanding it should not be used preventively at all, and only after the first medical intervention of descending quickly is complete. Luckily, no one in our group had that sort of emergency. I later found out that all of our guides except for Emmanuel, who wasn’t even a guide, just a very helpful happy waiter and porter, felt lightheaded or sick. Had I known that then, I would have been scared for my life. Isaac was feeling sick but still pulling me up, but maybe that’s why he felt sick.

Nine hours after we leave Kibo camp, Uhuru Peak is just within reach. The whole climb, every next goal, whether it was the next turn of the switchback or that rock up there or Gillman’s or Stella’s Point, felt so close yet so far. As we near the congratulatory sign on Uhuru Peak, I take Bill’s hand and we step closer and closer and closer and finally…

we made it.

A flood of emotions happened next and tears start streaming down my face. I hug Bill crying and he, and Victor, both say they are proud of me. Still crying, I go over to Isaac to hug him and thank him for pulling me up. We all take a bunch of pictures at the sign, and I am sitting down in all of them. We let the next group of folks have their turn at the sign and go sit down on some rocks. A week before the trip I had purchased a chocolate bar that I put in a secret pocket in my backpack. I told myself, “This is Victory Chocolate, and it can only be eaten on Uhuru Peak”. I take out the Victory Chocolate and share it with Bill and Victor, informing them that this is no ordinary Cadbury chocolate bar. After about 30 minutes on Uhuru Peak (elevation: 5,895 meters; 19,340.6 feet), and after I peed up there and took off a few layers, we begin our descent. It took 9 hours to get up, and just over 2 hours to get down. We practically flew down. Once we were off the rim, the sandy rocky scree was really fun, although dusty, to run down. I found a good technique of leaning back and digging in my heels as I stepped down allowing for a few inches of sliding before my next step. Also, I just really wanted to be off the mountain and in the comfort of my sleeping bag. We have only one hour to rest before we have to continue hiking for another 9 kilometers (5.6 miles) to our camp at Horombo Hut that night. We didn’t mind leaving Kibo though because it had begun to snow. Basically our Friday consisted of about 16 hours of hiking, a majority of it a crazy uphill climb, at extreme altitude.

That night at Horombo I sleep so well. I think we all did. We were tired from missing a night of sleep (remember those previous paragraphs where I talked about how we hiked all night) and also exhausted (from that same all night hike) but so happy and feeling accomplished. We have one more day ahead of us. Day 6 we have to go 19 kilometers, 11.8 miles, to get to the Marangu Gate. But before we go, chef Adam has made us a cake and our porters sing us celebratory songs during breakfast. It was awesome. The hike to the gate was pretty much downhill through quite beautiful terrain. We were now on the other side of Mawenzi and it was incredible to see it knowing we had come from the clear other side. We had walked SO much over the past 5 days. And today was no different. We make it to the exit gate at 12:20 in the afternoon, have lunch, sing more songs, then pile in the van back to the hotel. In the parking lot we bid farewell to our porters, and the whole team after we give everyone a nice tip for their hard work. Before we head to our rooms, Johnson and Isaac present our gold certificates that say we made it to Uhuru Peak, and it felt good knowing what we have accomplished. Another thing that felt good: pooping in a toilet and taking a 30 minute hot shower after a week of wet wipes. Though the dirt may be gone from under my fingernails, and I am slowly starting to walk normally again without any muscle pains, I will always have the memories and experience of the mountain. And also a T-shirt.

It was by far one of the hardest physical challenges and mental toughness tests of my life, yet it was also one of the most incredible things I have accomplished. But I never want to do it again.

Day 2 begins with breakfast and packing, then we’re off to Kikelelwa camp (elevation: 3,679 meters; 12,070 feet), a nice 16 kilometers (9.9 miles) away though moorland terrain. I quite enjoyed this hike, with the peaceful rolling hills, our pole pole pace, and amazing views of Mawenzi and Kibo far in the distance. We stop at First Cave camp, which had an awesome cave. There was a small hole in the ceiling of the cave which I had to climb through and that was a thing I did that made me feel cool. I was feeling good and thought to myself, “I’ll definitely make the summit if I can make it through that hole.”

We arrive to Second Cave Camp for lunch (I prefer First Cave) and after eating and a short nap in the grass we head out and arrive to Kikelelwa around 3 to a snack of popcorn. I love popcorn and was exactly what I wanted and needed at that moment but didn’t know it. That’s how good chef Adam is. He knows what we will want to eat and what we will need to eat to help us be successful on this journey.

We have some time to kill before dinner so we read in our tent. We borrowed two books, a tent (REI Quarter Dome) for Victor, and a power bank charger from our frisbee teammate Jeff whom you might remember from my blog post about frisbee in Uganda. Bill read Bossypants by Tina Fey (it’s a great read which I highly recommend) and I read When to Rob a Bank by the Freakonomics duo Dubner and Levitt. Recounting what we read served as good time-passing story telling on the trails everyday. Also great time-passing activity while on the trails with your fiancé: working out all the wedding details and coming up with fun ideas and how to execute them. Since the wedding is in Westchester, New York on New Years Eve which is a Monday, and many people are coming in from out of town, we came up with an itinerary of events in New York City and Westchester for the extra long weekend if guests want to participate. It’ll be a great time and it was really fun to have uninterrupted hours to work out those and many other details.

I have an excellent post-dinner poop and after getting up to pee twice in the middle of the night and a mediocre morning poop on Day 3, we leave Kikelelwa Camp en route to Mawenzi Tarn Camp (elevation: 4,315 meters; 14,156.8 feet) 3 kilometers away. Each camp has a handful of outhouses which consisted of 4 walls, a roof, a door, and a hole in the ground. The older ones are made of wood, including the floor made of wood planks which I did not trust. I always opted for the concrete floor outhouses. If I am peeing, I prefer to go in nature, but nature sometimes called me into the outhouse. My youth as a gymnast and the past decade of off and on yoga has left my achilles very flexible, so I am able to squat all the way down while keeping my heels on the ground making the squat poop a non-issue. I don’t enjoy public restrooms so much (I mean who really does) and I am one of those ‘don’t touch anything/use a paper towel to open the door’ types, but I wasn’t bothered too much by the outhouses. Some tours have the option of renting toilets, which the porters empty and carry, but we didn’t opt for that add on luxury option. Since the camps we stayed at were small, the outhouses don’t get the same kind of traffic as the more popular camps, another reason the Rongai route was an excellent choice. Each person brought a roll of toilet paper for such occasions, and I had brought a handful of packets of wet baby wipes that my mom left for us during my family’s visit. Wet wipes came up huge during the shower-less week.

So this 3 kilometer (1.9 mile) hike to Mawenzi Tarn took 3 hours because it was an aggressive uphill climb. I thought to myself, “I’ll definitely maybe hopefully make it to the summit because we did this hike in the exact time it said on the sign.” The uphill was so worth it because Mawenzi Tarn was my favorite campsite as it is situated right at the base of the magnificent Mawenzi Peak.

After lunch we do an acclimatization hike up Mawenzi to the part that I made up is the highest you can go without needing technical rock climbing gear. The view was awesome albeit I didn’t go all the way to the edge like our fearless guides. Dennis asked me on the first day if I was afraid of heights and I told him no, I am only afraid of falling from heights, which to me is different.

Anyway, our acclimatization hike took about 2 hours round trip, then we rest before dinner and I start feeling terrible. I had taken a Diamox (an altitude sickness pill) that morning after breakfast but it was clearly wearing off, and I was at an elevation I had only been to once before a decade ago in Peru (when I had to ride the mule up the last bit of the mountain because I was light headed, had no energy, and couldn’t catch my breath). I lay down and try to read/sleep. I don’t go to the mess tent for dinner, but Bill brings me a little bit of food. I eat 2 spiral pasta pieces and have one sip of delicious soup when I feel it all coming up. I quickly unzip the tent, stick my head out, and throw up everything that was inside of me, including something that looked like a meatball even though I haven’t had meatballs for months. So so so much comes out and it was disgusting and felt bad that Bill and Victor had to see that. But neither of them were too grossed out – Bill because he’s my fiance and Victor because he is the oldest of 4 kids and was used to seeing that. After that epic vomit I felt SO much better. Dennis, Johnson, and Isaac come by to check on me, as the camps have very strict rules about sick trekkers. They checked my heart rate and blood oxygen levels with a finger scanner thing and both numbers were 82 if I remember correctly. But I’m not a doctor so I had no idea if that’s good or not. I thought the camp rangers were going to make me descend because I got sick (they didn’t), and I didn’t want to because I was already in my sleeping bag and it was cold and I just wanted to sleep my headache away. I thought to myself “I’ll definitely not make it to the summit because I just vomited.”

I wake up on Day 4 feeling loads better. Vomiting and sleeping has that affect. I took a Diamox altitude sickness pill after vomiting before going to sleep, and decided I will take them until I get to a lower elevation than Mawenzi Tarn. Medicine works so I don’t know why I was fighting it trying to tough it out. We eat a hearty breakfast and begin our day with the usual 8am departure time. We hike to Kibo Camp (elevation: 4,720 meters; 15,486 feet), which serves as the base camp of Kibo, stopping to eat our packed lunches along the way on the part of the mountain called “The Saddle”. It’s a downhill then flat then uphill hike, and we see many porters going off to the right. Turns out they were going to the closest water source, which was still far from camp. Each camp has a clean running water source where porters get water. Then its boiled before it is used to wash, cook, or drink. All the water tasted fine to me. In the gunpoint mugging incident, I had my small day backpack stolen along with my 1.5 liter water bladder that was inside it. Luckily, our neighbor Monica (and now our current roommate since we moved out of our place a month early to follow up getting our security deposit back (which we did by the way)) was taking a girls trip and passing through New York, so when she met up for dinner at my family’s house, my mom gave her a few things to bring back to Kenya for me. Huge props to my mom and dad who went to REI on a moment’s notice for me. We decided last minute we were going to do this Kilimanjaro trip, and it was too late to Amazon Prime because of the timing of my family overlapping with Monica. They got me 4 new pairs of hiking socks, and, most notably, a 3 liter Osprey bladder that is so well designed that Bill couldn’t stop raving about its genius every single day. He used that bladder because A) he liked it so much and B) it is heavier to carry 3 liters than 2 liters and I used his 2 liter one. It made me really happy that this water bladder made him so happy. Also Bill makes me happy and this trip was no exception. He would carry my things in his bag, and despite him being able to do the hikes in like half the time it takes me, he always walked behind me or next to me and if he did get a little ahead, he would turn around and wait for me making sure I was ok. One thing I wanted from this hike was for Bill to enjoy himself, and I knew I would feel guilty being slow on the uphills making it less fun for him. But he was encouraging and helpful so I think I’ll keep him forever.

TO BE CONTINUED…

Pole pole. That’s the Kilimanjaro motto. It means “slowly slowly” in Swahili and is heard often on the mountain as it’s the only way people can get up to Uhuru Peak at 5,895 meters (19,341 feet). Well, pole pole and porters. The dormant volcano known as Kilimanjaro is made up of three mountains: Mawenzi, a craggy, rocky, jaggedy mountain that looks like a Disney villain’s awesome castle and requires technical climbing skills and equipment to summit (so not many people have); Kibo, the snow capped mountain that is what people are talking about when they say they summited Kili; and the forgotten Shira. Poor Shira.

A week ago, Bill, his colleague Victor, and I boarded a bus in Nairobi to Arusha, Tanzania with our Kenyan guide Dennis. We had a 6 day trek ahead of us with our summit attempt on Friday morning (beginning Thursday night). After researching (ok fine, after Bill researched and shared the best links with me) about all the different routes, we (ok fine, I) decided on the Rongai route because despite being less popular and traffic-y, it apparently has a high success rate. My body doesn’t take to altitude well at all and this had a great 6 day option that included an acclimatization hike. We especially appreciated the fact that we would not be hiking with a hundred strangers, and in fact saw very few people on our hikes earlier in the week (other than porters passing us). Those early camps were small and cozy. Also, the Rongai route uses the Marangu route to descend, so we would get to see two routes, and both sides of the mountain, and I liked the thought of climbing up and over. So Rongai it was!

*Quick heads up that I will be writing about natural bodily occurrences so don’t be disgusted because it’s human. If you’ve never had anything exit your body through an orifice then you’re probably a Replicant. (Sidebar: do Replicants poop? Don’t make me watch Blade Runner again or google this right now, so if you know or have a theory, please let me know in the comments section!)*

After a good morning poop, we leave our hot showers and WiFi behind at the hotel in Moshi and drive in a packed 15 passenger van to the Rongai gate. There were three of us trekkers, Dennis our Kenyan guide, two Tanzanian guides Johnson and Isaac, (per Tanzanian law if your group is two or more, two Tanzanian guides must accompany the trekkers (which makes sense because not everyone from a group may make it up to the peak so one guide continues ascending while the other descends)), one chef Adam who should probably open a restaurant, one waiter Emmanuel, and 8 porters. EIGHT. They carried all our stuff (heavy bags of clothes, sleeping bags, sleeping pads, and our REI Half Dome Tent) as well as their tents, their stuff, enough food for 3+ meals a day for 14 people for 6 days including plates and utensils and serving trays and bowls, a “mess hall” tent where we ate all our meals, and a big heavy gas canister for cooking. The law states that each porter cannot carry more then 20 kilograms (44 pounds), so that’s why we needed that army. They were incredible. They would leave after us from camp as they packed up and cleaned up, fly past us to the next camp, set everything up and have snacks ready for us when we got there. True athletes. Running uphill at altitude with a bag on their back and their head. There’s a new SallyFit exercise! (For the maybe 2 people reading this who know what that is.)

Day 1 at Rongai gate (elevation: 2,364 meters; 7,755 feet), we have lunch while the porters get their bags weighed, and then we’re off to Simba Camp (elevation: 2,671 meters; 8,763 feet), an easy 7 kilometer (4.3 mile) hike. The sign said it would take 3 hours but our excitement got us there in an hour and a half. When we got there we asked Dennis if this is where we were staying and laughed incredulously when he said yes until we realized he was serious. I thought to myself, “I’ll definitely make the summit if this is any indication of how well we hike.” Our porters had set up our mess tent and Adam had prepped our meal. We meet Emmanuel our waiter, who brought us consistently delicious food every meal and general cheer every day. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned ugali in any other blog post, but it’s an East African staple made of corn which I find disgusting unfortunately. I was so worried that it would turn up as dinner one or more nights, but Adam never made ugali for us, only the porters! Every dinner started with a hot soup, and it was always a delicious hot soup. Very flavorful veggie soups that were great for hydration and for warming us up as those nights get cold. I would hold the bowl in my hands to warm them and drink the soup. No spoon required. Then there was always a starch (rice or potatoes or pasta) and a vegetable mix and a meat. Breakfasts were eggs, pancakes, fresh fruit (I wonder who carried the watermelon), and porridge which is basically liquid ugali (read: I never ate it).

During dinner at Simba camp, we meet our guides Johnson and Issac again for a debrief. Johnson talks about the spiritual, mental, and physical aspects of hiking Kilimanjaro and then says “any questions?” I was like “yes, several!” What time are we leaving here tomorrow? What time is breakfast? How many kilometers is our hike tomorrow? Approximately how many hours will it take? What is our next destination called again? What is the terrain of tomorrow’s hike? What is the general climate so we know what to wear? All my questions were answered and we were off to bed. Bill had the Kilimanjaro brand tea which was highly caffeinated and he didn’t wear enough layers so he did not sleep well. He couldn’t fall asleep, he was cold, and he got up three times in the middle of the night to pee. Poor guy. (The rest of the nights he slept great, so fret not readers!) I instead slept so well. I wore too many layers and actually got hot! My Hyke and Byke brand sleeping bag goes below freezing and I didn’t drink enough water during the day so I didn’t have to pee during the night. I thought to myself, “I’ll definitely make the summit if this is how well I am feeling.”

TO BE CONTINUED…

(You gotta love Frisbee!)

Last last Friday, Bill and I took a quick 1.5 hour plane ride to Entebee, Uganda for a frisbee tournament in Kampala. The city was originally built on 7 Hills, which, coincidentally, was also the name of the tournament. How lucky! 😉 We have been playing with the Nairobi team called Cool Water Frisbee Club (FC) every Sunday, and, as this tournament is one of the few in East Africa, everyone was really looking forward to it. We were 17 strong at this tournament – which is not a lot – and I have never felt so sore after a tournament in a very, very, very long time, like since those early college days of playing savage (no subs). I was so tired after Saturday’s 6 games that I got in bed at like 7:30pm, had dinner brought to my hotel room, and ate the spaghetti laying down watching tv by myself. Bill was downstairs at dinner being social.

The tournament had 9 teams, so the structure was a round robin – because everyone wants to play everyone! – then into bracket play on the second day. The rounds were 45 minutes long, mostly I think because of lack of field space (there were only 3), so there was no option of coming out slow. At the Sunday practices leading up to the tournament, we had been really working on our offensive flow and practiced playing zone defense. The captain split us into offense and defensive lines, and each line really got to gel together over the weekend. Bill and I played on the O line as the main handlers mostly because we have been playing a decade longer than everyone else and don’t really get stressed or feel the pressure of playing in a tournament. Like I mentioned, there are only a few tournament playing opportunities in this part of the world – which is the exact opposite of the Bay Area where there may be multiple playing opportunities to choose from on just one weekend (tournament, pickup, league game, beach, goaltimate, etc.) – and 7 Hills is treated as a very big deal by all the teams playing. It makes me sad to know just how much talent is here that may never get to reach their full potential just due to the lack of competitive opportunities. If our college aged teammates got to play on any college team in the States, they would for sure become a difference maker on field.

We won all but one of our games on Saturday, and we played 6 games! We lost to Entebbe which was a bummer. But we overcame and beat Kakamega in our last game on Saturday 10-0. Our zone defense was stifling against the newer and less practiced teams. We finished up pool play on Sunday morning and played Kisumu, the team that represented Kenya at the world championships earlier in July in Cincinnati. (Bill and I were invited to play with them, but – and no offense to Cincinnati – but we didn’t want to go there. Maybe if it was in a place in the States near our parents, or any other country in the world, but Ohio?! No thanks.) We lost to Kisumu in a tight, many long points game, but it felt great. I personally played my best in that game, and the sprit was high. We then entered the bracket and played Kakamega in the quarter finals. They were seeking revenge over their big loss yesterday, and we were getting tired. It was in the high 80s low 90s (Farenheit) all weekend, with no breeze and little cloud cover. It was HOT. And we were not used to playing two full days in a row. Luckily on our way to the fields both days, Bill, our teammate Jeff, and I (we travelled from the hotel together) picked up two of those huge 20 liter jugs of water for our team. There was water at the fields, but not right away. Also lunch was more than 2 hours late on the first day. However there were plenty of bananas to go around. Pretty sure the 10s of bananas I ate prevented me from cramping, so that was good! Anyway, we lose to Kakamega and don’t advance to the semi-finals. It was for the best because as soon as I took my cleats off, I was so glad to not be playing anymore and to be sitting in the shade in my camping chair! Jeff smartly booked a cab straight from the fields just after our quarters game, and Bill and I hop in the cab with him even though his flight was more than 2.5 hours before ours. The airport is about an hour – hour and a half away, and by the time we would have had to call an Uber to the airport, it was pouring rain and we never would have gotten a car. We have priority pass, so we hang out in the lounge on the big comfy couches, eating delicious samosas and mini pizzas, and watch Netflix as we wait for our flight.

The thing about going to a city you have never been to before to play ultimate means you don’t actually get to see the city. I have played in “Boston” at least 20 times, but I have never been to Boston, you know what I mean? What we saw of Kampala was the drive from the hotel to the fields and back. And to the airport at Entebbe from the fields. The city reminds me of Nairobi in terms of pot-hole ridden roads and tons of traffic – although there seemed to be way more boda bodas (motorcycles) than Nairobi, I am guessing because of all the hills. The rolling green hills of the city dotted with colorful houses reminded me of a postcard of some quaint European town. Overall, it was a fun weekend with wonderful people, amazing teammates and no sunburns! And while I didn’t get to see the city, in an effort to get rid of our Ugandan shillings, I bought a Uganda Ultimate jersey to match my Kenya Ultimate jersey!

There wasn’t much rest after my family left because a week later two of Bill’s best friends, who, for the sake of their request to remain anonymous out of silliness, I will refer to as Captain Danger and Bearasaurus Rex. The two guys were serious troopers because they landed late at night and early the next morning we left for a 3 day safari to Samburu. This was a new safari spot for me and Bill, and we were excited to go to a new place and go with our friends. Bill thinks that our Samburu lodge had the best food while I think it was our Amboseli lodge. The thing about safaris is that the food at the lodge is a delicious ALL YOU CAN EAT buffet. But since all you do all day is sit in a car looking at animals, you don’t get that hungry but you still eat two full plates of food plus multiple desserts. #lifeishard.

Samburu was awesome. On the day we arrive, after lunch and a bit of rest, we were supposed to hit the park for some animal viewing. Luckily for us, Captain Danger and B.Rex are not always on time people – and also they had been traveling for like 20 hours so it is understandable they were tired – and so we left the lodge half an hour after we intended to leave. I say “luckily” in that previous sentence because had we been on time we would have missed the most incredible thing:

We just started the safari and we are barely in the park when we see a small herd of water buck all standing at attention staring wide-eyed and intently at this hill across the dirt road. I have never seen an animal so frozen yet focused, so I follow their gaze and spot the tail of a leopard! For the next ten minutes, we follow the leopard as he/she walks across the hill, and crosses in front of our van like 10 feet away! That was a Kenya highlight for sure. Morals of the story: it’s not always good to be on time, and also I am really good at safaris.

The next day, after the previous evening’s delicious dinner and multiple games of Hanabi, we head out for a full day in Samburu. We see a lot of new, interesting things, including gerenuks – the “giraffe antelopes” with long skinny necks – and Grevy’s zebras, and so many different kinds of antelopes. We saw probably 14 different kinds of antelopes over the course of all the safaris. I think that is pretty cool. On the way home, we stop at a traditional Samburu village, where the locals welcome us and show us around their village, their homes, sing us welcome songs, the kids brush my hair, we give lots of high fives, and we learn about their way of life. It was a very nice and happy experience.

During the week, Bill and I have to work, but Cap and Brex spend their time exploring and enjoying Nairobi: they go to the National Park, the elephant orphanage, the giraffe center, the Kazuri bead factory, a tea farm and tour, downtown, the National Museum, and to spinners web – a huge market for all things Kenya. I plan to hit that place up a week or so before Bill and I head back to the States. We join up with them in the evenings after work for food, drinks, and Hanabi. Actually one night we didn’t play Hanabi because we went to Bao Box, a board game bar/restaurant, and we played Pandemic. Oh, and we didn’t play on the night we went to Carnivore, an all you can eat meat place. It is one of those restaurants where they bring meat around on a sword and cut it off for you with a machete. At least I’m pretty sure they are swords and machetes. The waiters were bringing around things like crocodile, ostrich, and ox testicles. I thought the veggie soup was the best. Cap’n liked the balls, and I don’t remember what Brex and Bill liked best. The chicken was good too, and there was this delish garlic sauce that went with it. In a move out of the ordinary, I turn down the dessert course because I didn’t realize it was included in the cost of the meal! Weeks later and I’m still regretting it. Anyway, on that Thursday, the three boys come to my office for a quick tour, and then I skip out early to go with them to a cheese factory tour where we eat an amazingly delicious lunch and where Bill milks a cow! The next day we head out to the Maasai Mara. This would be Bill’s and mine third and last time at the Mara, and like always, it didn’t disappoint! And neither did our week with Captain Danger and Bearasaurus Rex. Great company meant great conversations, great laughs, and great memories.

Five days after the gunpoint mugging I bid Emily adieu as she left for her 22 day overland safari through Africa (her Instagram of that trip was envy-inducing) and about one hour later I said “karibu (welcome to) Kenya” to my mom, dad, and sister! The three of them came for a 2 week vacation, and it was INCREDIBLE. I took the full two weeks off of work. There was a lot going on at work but it was hard for me to focus because my family was here, and I hadn’t seen them in months and needed those mom hugs from the previous blog post.

They were finally here and we had some amazing things planned. With the mugging fresh in my mind, I was overly protective and cautious, and we barely went anywhere in Nairobi, except to groceries, restaurants, the elephant orphanage, the giraffe center, the Kazuri bead factory, and KICC. Not all on the same day though. They arrived very very early on a Thursday morning, so we spent that day settling in, recovering from the long flights, looking at photos from their layover in Cairo, stocking up on food for the 2 weeks at the Carrefour at Junction Mall, and had a delicious dinner at our favorite restaurant Open House. On Friday we spent the day in Karen watching baby elephants and feeding giraffes, and on Saturday we left bright and early for the Maasai Mara with our guide Harrison.

The Mara was incredible. My mom, dad, sister, Bill, and I enjoyed every second of it. It was so magical and so different than the safari before, as no two are ever the same. On the day we arrive, we took an evening safari drive and saw cheetahs!! The next day was our full day drive, and we saw lions from WAY up close, and another cheetah that seemed to be posing for us then walked right in front of our van! The wildebeests had begun their migration and we saw hundreds of them walking in straight lines, feeding, and resting. They are kind of ugly and quite noisy. They had not yet made it to the Mara River for the famous river crossing, so we didn’t see any crocodiles make a kill, but we did see crocodiles being lazy. It was an incredible day, and we were all so happy to see what we did and all be together.

Back from the Mara we have a day of rest, then we go on a day trip to safari at Lake Nakuru and Lake Naivasha. My dad – and all of us – wanted to see the flamingos and my sister loves birds, so what better place for bird watching than these two lakes! Just as we enter the park, a baboon jumps on the van again, just as they had in the previous blog post. I was less scared this time and banged loudly on the van roof next to the baboon with a stick to scare him/her away and I felt very brave. We see a million different kinds of birds and a parent and baby rhino!! Then we get to the part of the lake where we can get out of the van and walk around. We see some birds closer up and enjoy stretching our legs. I notice a herd of water buffalo to our right just hanging out not minding us or anything. They were far in the distance. Then I notice one lone water buffalo on our left about 200 feet away or so who seemed to be enjoying whatever s/he is grazing on. I check back on that buffalo a couple of minutes later and now s/he is more like 150 feet away, but still grazing. My family continues to take in the sights and I ask them to start heading back to the van and luckily they oblige. I look back to my left and now that water buffalo is like 100 feet away looking right at us. I now am like, “ok, let’s go, let’s go” trying not to sound alarmed or that I am hurrying them. We start walking back, and I keep saying “let’s go”, “please hurry”, and the whole time they think it is just so we can start heading out of the park to get to Lake Naivasha not that a water buffalo is inching closer. We are maybe 30 feet from the van and the safari driver John sees the buffalo too – which is now like 50 feet away from us – and John tells us get in the car Now. However, I don’t think we were in actual danger at this point because the buffalo was walking perpendicular to us now that we had moved towards the van. S/he was just trying to get to the herd on the other side of where we were standing. But still, it was too close for comfort, and had we not started walking away when we did, s/he would have charged right through us. My family did not see the buffalo or know of its presence, so they were surprised when John said to run. He did find it very entertaining when my mom picked up the pace, and he said she ran very fast! We were safe in the van and headed to Lake Naivasha but got there a little too early, so the hippos were mostly underwater. Nevertheless, the boat ride was wonderful with lots of bird sightings including an African Fish Eagle catching a fish out of the water with its talons.

We have one more day of rest/Nairobi exploring before we leave for the 5 day safari to Amboseli and Voi. Harrison is our guide again – he is the best so we always request for him – and we enjoy Amboseli. It is THE place to see elephants. We saw two HUGE old male elephants fighting. It was incredible. They were staring at each other for like 15 minutes, then started battling for 5 minutes or so. Then they kept running away from each other. Then we saw some huge families of elephants with lots of adorable babies taking mud baths. Maybe the most adorable thing was when a baby elephant followed a mom and two twin baby elephants across the dirt road, but then turned around and saw that his/her mom wasn’t there, s/he cried out and started running back across the dirt road but went too fast and tripped a little on his/her own front legs. By this point in the morning I had to pee so badly because I had an entire liter of water with breakfast but there was so much elephant action I kept holding it. By the time we got to a safe pee spot it was almost too late. Next time I should wear a diaper, or just not drink a liter right before leaving on a full day safari. But that’s the thing with safaris. You need to stay hydrated because it can be hot, but then you don’t want to drink water because you will have to pee. It’s a tricky balance that I never really got right.

After Amboseli the plan was to go to the Voi Wildlife Lodge where we would spend two days relaxing and doing nothing except watch the waterhole. Harrison, the wonderful guide and driver that he is, suggested that instead of driving straight there, we take a safari through Tsavo West on our way, since it is on the way. Tsavo is such a huge park that seeing animals is not a guarantee, but we decided why not! The terrain in and of itself would have been enough because the landscape was beautiful and so varied. AND we got very lucky because even though we didn’t see a large herds of animals, we actually saw a lot of different kinds of animals than what we had seen already. So the variety was great. And to top it off, just before we exit the park, Harrison spots a leopard in a tree, and so my family got to see the famous big 5! We get to the waterhole lodge in the late afternoon and enjoy spending the rest of that day and the entire next day relaxing and watching the live national geographic waterhole channel. This might have been my favorite day because the 5 of us – mom, dad, sis, Bill, and I – just got to really relax, unwind, be together, enjoy the weather and the nature and each other. It was a top day of my life for sure. We woke up early to watch the sunrise and catch the early waterhole drinkers, and then spent the rest of the day losing count of how many elephants, waterbuck, and birds we saw.

The two week vacation sadly came to an end, but it was a wonderful and memorable time for all, and we got a lot of great photographs:

Subtitle: How We Got Mugged at Gunpoint

This is a post I have been really needing to write, wanting to write, and dreading to write. Now that the traumatic event is a few weekends behind us, and I am sitting at a peaceful lodge in front of a watering hole watching families of elephants and herds of impalas and waterbucks and tons of birds, it feels like a good moment to reflect.

The Saturday began like most others in Kenya, with a safari. My friend Emily was in Nairobi beginning her month long African vacation and Bill’s colleague Andreas was in town from the San Francisco office, so we decided to book a day trip to Lake Nakuru and Naivasha. The safari car picked us up from our place at 6:30am and after a three hour drive, with a stop along the Rift Valley to take a picture of the view, we were there! Just as we enter the park, a brave baboon jumps on our van and is hanging into the open roof! He placed his “very soft” hand on Emily’s shoulder, we turned around and freaked out! He just wanted food and was clearly not afraid of people. Andreas had the Kenya travel book in his hands and used it to bang on the car next the baboon. He jumped off but another jumped on! Andreas used the book again, and we were safe. Up until 12 hours later, that was the scariest part of the day.

Throughout the drive we see a rhino with a baby rhino, lots of water buffalo, pelicans, flamingos, giraffes, zebras, and lots of antelopes. On the way home we stop at Lake Naivasha to take a motor-canoe ride and see tons of hippos! That was great fun, especially negotiating the price of the boat ride to half of what was quoted. That felt good. As we head back towards Nairobi, we start planning our Sunday. We decide on hiking Mount Longonot, so Bill and Andreas get dropped at the grocery store to get snacks, and Emily and I get dropped at a restaurant around the corner from where we live to get a table.

Bill and Andreas take a taxi from the supermarket to the restaurant and we enjoy a delicious Italian meal together. It was a Saturday night, and all the other guests were dressed nicely and looked freshly showered.  We looked tired and worn out because we were – an early morning and a long day in the sun will do that to you. We finish up and are ready to call it a night.

We leave the restaurant at 10:35pm and instead of beginning our 1 minute walk home, we wait outside of the security gate on the street because we are waiting for Andreas’ taxi, and it is so much easier at night to find your driver if they can see you waiting. The restaurant is at the bottom of an apartment building which – like all apartment buildings in Nairobi – has a security gate and guards to let cars and pedestrians in. Inside the gate is the parking lot for the building and outside the gate is just a regular street. We were waiting 2 feet in front of the gate, underneath a rare street light. The four of us muzungus, with all our stuff from the day, not paying attention to what’s around us, delirious from a long day and delicious meal, were sitting ducks.

I am standing on the right, Bill to my left, then Andreas and Emily, in a little semi circle facing part of the street. Three armed men walk up from behind us and the first guy in the front says to us “give me your bag or I’ll shoot”. I look to where he was gesturing with his head, and in his right hand, he his very clearly holding a gun down by his side. All three of them were. Without saying anything, I slide my backpack off my left shoulder and start moving to my right, to get inside the security gate. Luckily it was a cold night so I was wearing a jacket and I had my phone and wallet in my pocket, and my passport in Bill’s pocket, and not in the bag I just gave to the gunmen. I start moving swiftly to the inside of the gate, and one of them calls out “don’t run or I’ll shoot”. And while I don’t remember this part, I was reminded after the event that I called back “I’m not running!”. That was either brave or very stupid. But now I am inside the gate, and I see no guards anywhere. They were not in their normal post just past the gate in the little kiosk. Bill however thinks it is a good idea to go inside the gate and follows me. He is holding out the two bags of groceries in front of him, like he is offering it to the gunmen, so they don’t notice his backpack. He is now inside the gate as well, and we disappear behind the guard kiosk for a second (I was going to hide, but then realized that might be bad, backing myself into a dark corner) and Bill takes his backpack off with his work computer in it and hides it in the dark corner. We come back out from the dark, still inside the gate to see that two of the gunmen have followed us in, past the security gate. I mean, what is the point of a security gate? Anyway, I show my hands open down at my sides to indicate to them that they have taken everything from me and I distinctly remember making an terrified yet annoyed face and shaking my head slightly. Bill is now bringing the grocery bags to one of the guys. He takes the loaf of bread out to show what is in there and to suggest they really don’t need this, but the guy gestures to Bill to put it down. I thought he was gesturing like he was going to lift his gun (he didn’t) so I yell out “NO!” while Bill calmly puts the grocery bags down near the guy and backs away. The guy takes the bags and the two go back out of the gate to meet up with their third guy. Meanwhile, the third guy has taken Emily’s bag which has all her traveling documents and a nice camera (though she luckily downloaded all the photos to her phone during dinner), among other things. She too, luckily, had her phone and wallet in her pocket. He has now moved on to Andreas, who literally had everything taken from him. His phone, wallet, backpack with his work laptop, and then if that wasn’t enough, the guy grabbed his hat off his head and tore his glasses off his face. The gunman then said to give him his wedding ring, to which Andreas said “No”. At that point the two gunmen come out of the gate and meet the third guy. They disappear back into the darkness but I don’t know where they went. I only remember Emily yelling after them, “Just give me back my passport” and I am like “Emily, get inside the gate!” The four of us reunite inside the gate, and that’s when the security guards conveniently show up. Some people we have told this story to think they were in on it. Bill remains unconvinced.

We walk the 20 feet back to the restaurant, where diners are peacefully enjoying their meals, unaware of what just happened in the past 1 minute. Our waiters call the police, bring us water, and do what they can to help us and calm us down. Emily and I are literally shaking, fending off tears, and when someone drops a tray with a loud bang, we jump. Two plain clothes officers show up and ask us to write down everything that was taken. They immediately track Andreas’s phone, and the CCTV shows the three gunmen getting into a white car that a 4th person was driving. Things seem promising. After about another hour with the police on site, and the restaurant closing up around us, and us cancelling all of our credit cards, the officers say we can go to the station tomorrow to get a police report. I use my very limited Swahili to tell them “Hapana Kesha. Leo. Sasa Leo” which translates to “No tomorrow. Today. Now (or what’s up) today” They argue back, but they see it is futile after I keep saying “Leo”. They pile us into the back of their military truck – the only things we have are Bill’s backpack, whatever was left in pockets, and the loaf of bread Bill took out to show what is in the bags. I remember holding Bill’s hand, feeling so thankful we were together, feeling guilty that I put Emily in danger during her visit, and feeling just how badly I needed to hug my mom.

At the police station we meet a real crack squad. They ask us to repeat everything we already wrote down, so the guy behind the desk can write it down in another book. We offer to write it because of time and efficiency, but those words don’t exactly compute in Kenya, or really any bureaucratic office anywhere in the world. We get a little piece of paper with a case number, which was the date and the number “2”, as well as the name and phone number of the lead detective on the case. An hour after we arrive at the police station, we are finally ready to go home. We call a cab, drop Andreas where he is staying –  though there were talks of a sleepover because we were all scared to go to sleep – and told him we will pick him up in the morning. Clearly we were not going hiking Mount Longonot but have to make tons of phone calls and prep for new passports, documents, etc.

The next day we spend at the apartment helping Emily and Andreas call embassies, credit card companies, and family. We keep replaying the last night’s events. We all agree it could have been so much, much worse. They could have been pointing the guns instead of just holding them down on their sides, they could have fired their guns instead of just threatening to, and we could have chosen to walk home into the dark in the direction they came from with no where to go. We decided that it could have happened anywhere in the world and that we were lucky. Sure they made away with like 5 grand worth of stuff, but we were ok. Shaken but alive to write this blog post. 

Emily and I go to the embassy at 6:30am on Monday and by 1pm, she had her emergency passport. I remember being in the waiting room at the US Embassy and looking around at the American building standards (ADA accessible elements, signage at the appropriate heights with braille, clean and detailed construction, etc.) and thinking “I can’t wait until I am back in America.” It was a weird thought for me, because I am ashamed to be American with our current political state and very not proud of America right now, but something about that waiting room was strangely comforting. It felt like a small slice of home.

In the coming days, things got easier and we began changing our habits. We will always get dropped off and picked up inside of our gate, we will never wait outside, and we will never walk at night. We often would walk home from where we were mugged because we would play soccer near there on Monday nights. But now we are not going to play soccer anymore. I don’t even feel comfortable walking there during the day which is unfortunate because that is our local vegetable and grocery shopping point. It feels unfair that we have to change our behavior because of other bad people (welcome to being a woman in general). It feels like the bad guys won.

But I know that they didn’t. The lead detective called us on Monday evening with some updates. The four guys hijacked the getaway car. They found the stolen car with the owners locked in the trunk. These guys really weren’t messing around, and clearly had a plan to do some serious damage that night. The police also found Emily’s passport and her BoA credit card. They also found the guys and since one of them shot at the police, the police shot back and killed at least one of them. The stakes really are high for muggers: the police know they are armed and so the police shoot as a default. It is scary to have validation that the guns they showed us were real, and I honestly don’t know how I feel about one of them being killed – I don’t know if I will ever know how I feel about it.

A week later, my family came to visit. I told them this story in person, and then I hugged my mom for a very long time.

Two weekends ago, to celebrate our two year anniversary of being together, and to celebrate our engagement, Bill and I went to Zanzibar! (It is an island off of Tanzania where I am convinced that all those stock photos on your computer’s screensaver are taken.) It was something we have been talking about doing but have not done much planning for. We bought the plane tickets and booked a hotel on Thursday morning and left less than 24 hours later. It also happened that Friday was a holiday so we got a free three day weekend!

That Thursday was maybe one of the more stressful days I have had at work even though in hindsight it would have been fine. The men’s World Cup was kicking off that evening, and I had about 40 pieces of furniture (most of which were my design!) by 5 different furniture maker Pros being delivered that day to our client, J’s (an awesome indoor/outdoor bar and restaurant with amazing live music, events, pizza, and is now THE spot to watch the soccer). We have been getting progress photo updates of the pieces from our Pros, but it was only the day before that we got photos of finished pieces – and the colors and the wood stains were all wrong and different from each other! The way paints are often mixed here is by pouring in white and mixing it with a stick until a worker thinks it matches the paint swatch. This non-computer code machine mixing makes for inconsistencies when there are multiple people mixing paint, and that is what happened. So, Wednesday evening was spent making phone calls to all the Pros, telling them exactly what they need to do tomorrow, driving to paint stores, and calling anyone I can think of to help. Lynk founder, CFO, and CTO Johannes picked me up at 7am on Thursday and we spent the day driving up and down Ngong Road and Naivasha road between all the workshops supervising and very helpfully stressing out – well I was, Johannes was very used to this kind of thing. The best part of the day was being able to sit on the 1 pink stool I had made, drinking dawas with Bill, Johannes and his girlfriend Thushanti at J’s while watching the men’s World Cup and watching people using enjoying the furniture we had delivered just an hour before. Phew!

Friday morning we head to the airport, to terminal 1A where I have another project (a new coffee shop and restaurant set to open this coming week!) to find our flight delayed for an hour and a half. The short flight was enjoyable nonetheless with some amazing views! We flew right by Kilimanjaro, saw a bunch of islands in the beautiful blue water and got a nice aerial view of Stone Town as we descended into Zanzibar. Somehow we had a priority pass so we got to skip the visa line to sit in an air-conditioned lounge as the immigration officers checked our passports and we declared we had nothing to declare. Though I did take all the candy on the table. We hop in a cab and head up to the northwest side of the island to Nungwi Beach, where our hotel is located. In the 5 minutes of research I did on Zanzibar, the northwest side of the island was highly recommended as the tide never gets too low and the sun sets over the water. Growing up near the beach in California with the beautiful ocean sunsets, I am always a bit disoriented when I look out over a big body of water and the sun sets behind me. Weird. Not to mention, on the east coast of Zanzibar during low tide, the water can be a mile or more away! So I narrowed my hotels dot com search to the Nungwi and Kendwa Beaches, and to those that had a pool right along the ocean. That was the only criteria I had.

We arrive to the hotel just in time for lunch. The food all weekend was DELICIOUS. It was all you can eat buffet style, which was part of our “full-board” booking. However, when we arrived we were mistakenly given the “all-inclusive” bracelet and we didn’t know the difference. So we got free drinks at lunch!! We settle in the room, walk on the beach, go in the pool, watch some soccer, enjoy the sunset, and before we knew it, it was dinner time! Dinner was served on the beach to a live music and dancing show. It was incredible. Also, I realized over this weekend just how many beach paradise perfect outfits I have. I really need to spend more time at beach paradises like this one. #problemsthatarentproblems

Saturday is our only full day on the island. We had the option to go snorkeling with dolphins but it would have been an all day excursion. We decided to do that next time we come to Zanzibar. And we do plan on going back, since our Tanzania visa is good for a year! Instead of snorkeling, we take a long walk on the beach in both directions, eat food, watch soccer, throw a frisbee, nap on the beach, review wedding venues, do more beach walking, do more beach napping, and do more eating a lot. It was a perfect relaxing day in one of the most beautiful places in the world. Sunday morning we leave for the airport right after breakfast and we were back in Nairobi in time to go to frisbee practice.