Wednesday, June 12, 2013

Hakuna Matata, the Africa Diaries

First things first.
Africa is not a country. It is a continent. I do not understand why people say things like ' I would love to go to Greece, France, Africa...' It gets on my nerves each time this happens. I am quite the puritan when it comes to countries and continents. For me, a country is a country and a continent is a continent, just as an apple is an apple and a coconut is a coconut!


*R, breathe easy, do not get carried away*

Any way.

So Africa (as a continent) has been on my list of places to travel to for the longest time eveeerrrr. I have been to Morocco but it is more Arabian/ Indian really than African and I wanted to visit the real Africa.

Since i do not talk about work (either mine or Sid's) here, lets just suffice to say that thanks to Sid being Rocket Singh of the year (second year in a row, *proud smile*) the company decided to send us to Kenya. And since we were going to sit in a plane for 9 hours anyway, we decided to extend the trip.

After multiple rounds of planning, cancelling, re planning and re cancelling, we finally zeroed in on our plan. The trip was consist of 4 days in Mombasa and another 4 in Masai Mara.  In the meanwhile, other things had to be taken care of.

Injections. Jabs. Tablets. Injections.

Yes, you get the picture, mainly injections.

All in all, i visited the medical centre twice and got punctured thrice(Don't worry darling, said the wise nurse when i expressed concerns about being given two jabs one after the other, I can give you 8 injections without any issue) Both times I got appointments on Tuesdays which resulted in sore arms which in turn resulted in missed dance classes. Aaaarrgghhh.

At the end of it all, I had the yellow fever, Hep A ( its the hip 'n happening way of saying Hepatitis A) and DPT (Diphtheria, Polio Tetanus) jabs in case you are interested in the details.
And malaria tablets that I was told to take for 14 days.

As the day of our departure grew closer (and it became increasingly difficult to make me sit still~)the usual drama that precedes a long-ish holiday began. There was a lot of office work, Sid was travelling till Thursday ( we were flying out on Saturday morning ),  I wanted to feed home baked cakes to everyone in this world and beyond, packing, last minute shopping....the madness.

Friday evening my entire house was strewn with our clothes. Errmmm,....ok, my clothes.The kitchen was dirty, the house was a mess, there was no food and i was dead tired from the last couple of days at work which had been quite busy.

Working like a woman possessed, I got everything in order. My luggage was packed and locked before i went to bed. Of course, at 6:45 am the morning of Saturday, with our airport transfer cab due at 7:10, Sid politely informed me that I had used the wrong suitcase. Out came everything and it ended up being the usual mad dash towards the end.

I did not know it then, but the next ten days were going to be the most incredible few days of my life so far. I am back in London now, no longer the fair-ish girl that boarded the BA flight to Nairobi but a dusky, tanned girl who wears a bracelet with Kenya colours on it and a HUGE round, red/ black mark on her leg.

Keep watching this space for 'The Africa Diaries'

Hakuna Matata,
R


8 comments:

krishna pachegonker said...

really scintillating piece on Afri country!congrats

I HEARD YOU said...

This was your best ever travel post! It was so fun to read it right from the beginning! Great to know our original RP's back!

Anks said...

heard you guys were in tents! wud love to see the pics...

Nisha said...

Masai Mara is soooo on my list...can't wait to read about the trip :)

R said...

thanks Krishna!

IHU- :) i hope i will complete the series and that you will like all of it!

Ankita- yes, we were! wait for more posts :)

Nisha- the post is heading your way sooon!

Unknown said...

Waiting to read further :)

R said...

thanks Nishima! good to see you here!

ILOFT said...

Awesome!