"Good morning ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to Nairobi. I apologize for the bump on landing, but the altitude does things to your reactions --- At least that's what I'd like to blame". If the pilot was as tired as the rest of the crew, the rough landing shouldn't have been a surprise.

It was three am. I was taking my wife back to the country I grew up in. It had been six years since I had been there. My parents were waiting for us on the other side of customs. We were looking forward to getting to their home, and get some rest after a night flight from Montreal to London, and another to Nairobi.

Line ups for immigration, have our passports stamped and get a visitors visa. Wait for luggage, then line up for customs. Mom and Dad were waiting for us with a van they borrowed from the School where they work. We piled all our luggage in the van and headed for town.

At night smells stand out. It is impossible to describe them. Dust from the plains, scents for a thousand tropical plants, less plesant smells which come from crowded humanity. The air was calm and cool as we left the airport, a huge difference from the mountains of snow we had left behind.

We had to pick up someone else before we headed home, and my parents had thought it mean to pick her up before 7am. We then had three hours to wait in Nairobi at night.

Nairobi is not a city known for being lively at night. The city at night belongs to theives and night watchmen. There are two or three petrol stations that stay open all night in the city of two million, everything else is closed up solid.

We drove downtown and waited for morning. We parked around the corner from the New Stanley hotel. After an hour of talking some of us were feeling the need to use the facilities. The guard at the New Stanley let us in after a bit of convincing. There were a few tourists milling around, waiting for early morning tours to start, our first sign of life for the coming day.

Back in the van, the signs of life in the morning started. A few busses went by, taking the first residents to work. Over the next half hour there were more and more busses, full to capacity, roaring by and leaning at crazy angles around the turns. It was starting to get light, so we drove to Uhuru park to watch the sun rise. The red, then orange orb rose up behind the city skyline. It was officially morning.

Nairobi in the morning is an assault on the senses. As we headed out to the suburbs, we watched thousands of people walking to work. Rivers of humanity walking for several kilometres to work at jobs which paid very poorly. There was bogainvillia everywhere, with its spectrum of colours from yellow to deep purple. Occasionally we saw flame trees, covered with orange flowers. Everything looked dirty. The red dirt spread everywhere, the sidewalks, cars, even buildings. The smell of humanity, and diesel from belching trucks and busses added to the mix.

After picking up our passenger, we headed west through the suburbs. The sky-scrapers of city centre quickly disappeared to be replaced by houses. The four lane highway went down to two lanes of potholed pavement. Luxurious tropical growth was everywhere.

As the houses thinned out, more vegtable plots and villages appeared, and we started climbing to overlook the great Rift Valley. We pulled over at a viewpoint to look at the valley. The floor was almost a thousand metres below us, and the other side was 30 km away. Unfortunately, it was hazy, so we could only make out the faint outlines of Mount Longonot and Mount Suswa, dormant volcanos on the valley floor.

While we were stopped we were surrounded by hawkers, trying to sell us anything from carvings, to plums, to live rabbits. As the view wasn't too great, we left quickly.

Engine racing, we drove down the steep road home. A second home to settle into for a few weeks while we travelled around Kenya.

Our first day in Kenya was awe inspiring. To go from the dead of winter to the life of Africa was a radical change. The tiredness from the night flights and seven hours of jet-lag heightened our senses. What a way to wake up!

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