Thursday, January 28, 2010

The Journey to Nairobi

All were pumped up and boarded the bus to the airport with full excitement. What lay ahead was beyond anyone’s imagination……


Our journey on the flight was disturbing, not only physically but also mentally. All the kids exhausted us physically and Aananya’s high fever drained us mentally. Her body temperature was so high that we had to do cold sponge mid air. By the time our flight landed we had no other option but to run to the hospital even before we could keep our luggage in the apartment.


Thanks to our friends who took care of Aan while we were at the hospital and an Indian couple from Ericsson (Nairobi) who were with us at the hospital till all the tests and medications were done and given to Aananya. We took a clear chit from the Doctor since the next day we were flying to Massai Mara which was miles away from civilization and the only way to reach a Doctor would be to take a chartered flight. Thankfully Aananya’s fever was under control and we decided to take our flight to Massai Mara. Something I could have never dreamt of going to a few years back but always had a desire to see.

Surprising Decision

Hi... So we meet again...


Some times it's just good to flow with the course of water instead of trying to make your own way...

People who know me are aware that I prefer to plan everything well in advance, therefore they would be surprised to know the unexpected turn of events that are happening to me lately.

As I told you in my last blog that I had already decided on my next destination so my research work was on. Now was the time to implement, hence when I came back from Italy, I immediately gave my passport to get the Nigerian Visa which takes 2 weeks and then proceeded to give my application for a new passport which I am in dire need since I had only 1 empty page left. After I got the accepted application's docket number, I immediately applied for the Australian Visa with an application stating information regarding the passport since many countries deny visa on the pretext that there are not sufficient pages on the passport. While this was happening the long awaited 4 days weekend was approaching and as I said before, all the families take great advantage of these opportunities and head out for a vacation...

Imagine, seeing everyone confirm their 4 days plan I was restless like a fish without water. I also wanted to go; knowing fully well that the only chance I had was if I get my passport back from South Africa where the Australian Visa was applied for.

I had the schenegan visa which entitled me to visit most of the European countries and to my surprise exactly a week before the holidays my passport arrived and I straight on started dreaming of the possibilities of going to Europe since to apply and obtain a Visa for another country was impossible unless the country issued Visa on arrival.

Anyhow Aakaash was the one to burst my bubble and make me realize that I had no more pages left and the possibility to go to a different country was gr8 but when I would come back to Nigeria which I had to since my house is here, it wouldn't be possible due to lack of pages and with no Visa no entry :(

So I bid farewell to my beautiful dreams of going for a vacation and became a dormant listener to others overly excited plans for their trip. During such conversations, someone gave me an idea to get an emergency passport. Idea was immediately executed into action and just 2 days before i.e on the 24th November we applied for a new passport which I got just a day before the travel date.

P.S - All the paper work and execution of plan is always done by Aakaash... I am just the mastermind ;)
However when Aakaash was doing all the administration work, we had kind of decided to go to Kenya since 3 more families were heading there and had almost finalized all the boarding and lodging arrangements.

According to our tentative plans earlier this year, Masai Mara was the destination for the month of September but then we changed it to Italy. However I had done a lot of research at that point of time and knew some pretty good places to stay and had contacted the resort too. So just 2 days before the flight I took my chances and sent a mail to Royal Mara resort who responded immediately and gave us a good deal for all 4 families. Now the challenge was to tell the 3 families that there was another option to their almost finalized plan. To my relief we didn’t have to persuade or convince anyone to stay in my chosen resort since after seeing the website of Royal Mara, everyone was enticed and tempted to stay there and the experience was indeed incredible.