Safari254

Last night was a bit of a nightmare. We spent the whole day shooting so naturally we were exhausted. All I wanted was to take a hot shower and sleep. We picked up Kigen, our location scout in Eldoret. After diner we headed off to Nandi Hills. Earlier in the day we had called Kigen, told him about our plans and instructed him which hotel to book. As far as we were concerned we would arrive in Nandi Hills and go straight to the hotel.

At 10:45 pm we arrive at the gate of the hotel where we would supposedly be spending the night. To our knowledge, we knew the rooms had been booked and Kigen had confirmed that indeed he had booked he rooms. Five mintes after arriving at the gate Kigen was still speaking to the watchman, at some point Seronei (our driver) also got out to speak to the watchman, a few minutes later they come back to the car and I could just tell something was not right. Apparently the housekeeper had gone home with the keys and could not be reached.

We decide to drive to another hotel, which happened to be fully booked. I was doubtful, because Nandi is not a very big town and it is highly unlikely that a hotel would be fully booked unless there was a major event going on. By this time we have been driving around for half an hour and I was just getting angrier by the minute. As per Kigen’s recommendation we decide to drive to Handset Hotel (which happened to be non existent). This is turning out to be a long rant but I’ll continue anyway. We then ended up driving to Blue Hills Hotel, which wasn’t to our liking so we drove back to the first hotel with hopes of convincing the watchman to let us in or give us the caretaker’s phone number. He was adamant, so we went back to Blue Hills Hotel where we spent the night. At this point I could have slept in the car, I was exhausted and we had planned to start the next day at 5 am so I really needed the rest.

You would expect Kigen to have learnt his lesson. But no. Once again we told him of our plans, we wanted to shoot the sunrise in Kapsimotwa gardens and he was to make arrangements. He claimed to have done so.We left on time (for once) but what was meant to be a 15min drive (guess who said so) ended up taking around 40min and we missed the shot. Frankly at this point I was fed up and if it was up to me I would have left him by the roadside. I was very vocal about how disappointed I was and he apologized and promised to make it up to me. We’ll see how that goes.

Back to my journey. I have previously blogged about Kapsimotwa Gardens. My sister had gone there with her family and she would not stop gushing of how beautiful the place was. She was not exaggerating. The place is beautiful. The pictures do it no justice.

It was so peaceful I forgot how angry I was at Kigen.

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The area is famous for it’s expansive tea plantations

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Me pretending to pick tea

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After walking around the garden, one of the workers was kind enough to take me to the guest house so that I could take a look.

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Later on we went to take some photos at the tea estates in the surrounding area and with that we were done with Nandi Hills.

After a brief stop in Mosoriot, and a longer one in Eldoret to have our first meal of the day (at 6pm), we were off to Iten. Fortunately we had no trouble getting accommodation today. Chela (our producer) took care of everything and we booked ourselves at Kerio View hotel.

Jeri, Seronei and Chela sitting by the fireplace at Kerio View

Well, that’s it for now, Unexpected Kenya continues ….