As soon as we exited the plane, it was evident the adventure was about to begin. The jet bridge from the airplane to the airport terminal was completely dark. Knowing that power failures can be common in Africa, we joked that maybe it was a sign of things to come.
Kevin Kathuka from DOT Kenya was very gracious to meet us at the airport and arranged a vehicle to take us to the hotel.
We were warned about the traffic in Nairobi and they certainly weren't kidding. According to Google Maps, the distance between Jomo Kenyatta International Airport and our hotel is around 30 km.
Kevin said that if we were lucky, the drive might be 1.5 hours or 4 hours if unlucky. I couldn't tell if he was slightly kidding or not. Especially after I asked him if the road was mostly 2 lanes or just 1. He replied that most of the route was 3 lanes, some parts as wide as 4. Hmm, 30 km takes 4 hours, he must be kidding, right?!
At first, the traffic didn't seem that bad -- even comparable to what I was used to in Toronto. But then we crawled, and crawled, and crawled ...
The drive took us 2 hours and 20 minutes (average speed = 12km/h) and I could totally see how the drive could take 4 hours. The condition of the road was great, but there was just a large volume of cars and a couple of places where the road did bottle neck to one lane. Most of the route was in fact 3 or 4 lanes, but often there was a bus or some other vehicle completely stopped in either the far right lane or far left lane blocking traffic, causing further traffic build up. This was BAU normal. The nice surprise is that even with lots of drivers fighting through traffic and changing lanes, you didn't hear many people honking horns.
We arrived at our hotel at dark in the rain, so we haven't had a good look yet. But first impressions are impressive. The people who work here are very friendly, the food was excellent (I had grilled fish), and the rooms are better than I could as for.
#ibmcsc kenya
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