I was only in Kenya for a week, but it seems I came home with a wealth of memories and stories.

I think, for anyone who’s been on to Africa, a safari is one of the most unforgettable experiences. I certainly never imagined I would be able to go on such a trip in this lifetime! Luckily, my colleagues in Nairobi were similarly excited about the prospect, and we lost no time putting together a list of people who wanted to go, figuring out costs, and making arrangements.

Step 1: Find your people

When I got in the car at the airport, I met my colleagues Carla and Daniela. After introductions and all (Where are you from? How long was your trip? OMG we were on the same flight??), Carla asked, “Do you want to go on safari??” I very enthusiastically said yes!

Over the next two days we found more and more people who were flying out late on Friday, after the training workshop, and who wanted to go on a safari too. By the end of the training workshop, we had 11 people signed up to go on the safari!

Luckily our colleague Mafe had gone on the safari on the day she arrived, and she was able to tell us how her trip went. She was able to book a car, which picked her up from the hotel at 6am. She booked and paid for her ticket for the wildlife park online. The car had her back at the hotel by 11am. Since she was by herself, she spent quite a lot on the car because she didn’t want to be in a van with strangers.

Fortunately, we were 11 people, so we would have no problem booking vehicles.

Step 2: Find a ride

Our colleague Sid was the field comms manager, and he had been working in Nairobi for about six months. He’d been on the safari before, and he said he’d go with us. He took care of calling the taxi company, since they did safari tours too. He tried getting Land Rovers, but those were fully booked. Instead we got two vans, which had roofs that opened up so you could stand and see the wildlife. (Below)

Sid got the two vans for USD 250, and since there were 11 of us splitting the cost, we were pretty happy with the rate!

What was funny though was figuring out how to pay for the vans. Most of us hadn’t found the time to get our money changed, so we didn’t have any Kenyan shillings. Most people had US dollars or Euros. Some people didn’t have cash!

Again, Sid to the rescue! He offered to pay for the vans first, and we could pay him in whatever currency we had.

Some people paid cash, and paid for the others as well, and they paid each other through whatever e-wallets they were using in Europe. I was the only one who had US dollars, and I didn’t have change, so when I paid my share, I got half of my change in USD and the other half in KES! Carla took charge of this, and we all joked that it was because she was from Fundraising and didn’t mind handling the money. (Right)

Step 3: Get your tickets

I honestly think that getting the ticket for the safari was just as if not more stressful than the training workshop we’d just finished. We all gathered at dinner on Thursday just to work on booking and paying for the wildlife park together. The facilitators and the other participants came by and laughed at us, because we were very seriously filling up the form and taking pictures and trying to pay for the ticket.

Seriously though, it was a pretty stressful exercise! First you had to go to the Kenya eCitizen website, because only with an account could you buy a ticket for the Kenya Wildlife Service.

Setting up an account required your passport details and a photo of a very specific file size. The site was not very friendly, and crashed a few times for several of us.

After setting up the account, you could finally go to back to the Kenya eCitizen website, scroll down and get started on the ticket to the wildlife park.

We had to remember to choose the Nairobi National Park, and that we were entering by the main gate. Because we’d booked our own van we also had to indicate that we were using our own vehicle, and that we didn’t need a tour guide or any other services. Then we could only pay with a credit card, USD 44 for each Adult-Foreigner.

The forms were needlessly long, and several people had trouble with payment, the site crashing or freezing before they could pay. But finally, all 11 of us got our receipts and tickets, and the safari was a go!

Step 4: Get going!

We had a 6am call time! A number of us were worried about not being able to eat before leaving for the safari. The breakfast buffet opened at 6am, which is when we were supposed to leave. Someone suggested we ask the staff to pack our breakfast for us, so Carla asked about that. When she told them we were 11 people, they said they would just open breakfast for us at 5am! We were very happy with this, since we did not want to be hangry while we were looking for lions and giraffes and rhinos.

So we got our breakfast at 5am, and at around 6, Sid arrived with the two vans. Away we went!

For now (until I can get the next post up) let me say that the safari was worth all that stress and panic. Actual safari post and pics coming soon!