Kenya, here we come!

Bloemfontein, the city nearest our home town

Today as this post is aired, Grant and I will be on board the SA Express domestic flight from Bloemfontein to Johannesburg. From there we board a larger plane and all things being equal, we'll take off by 14h15. We should arrive in Nairobi at 17h05. We'll be collected from the airport by the company driver and taken to overnight in a hotel in the city. On Thursday morning the driver will collect us from the hotel and drive us out to the mine site which is a four-and-a-half hour drive from Nairobi. As you can imagine, I cannot wait to see East African countryside and take lots of photos.

Tuesday was quite a challenging day: we took Shadow into the city. He yodelled and yowled so loudly in the cage at my feet, that I eventually took him out and held him on my lap. He fiddled and tried to climb under the seats and across Grant, but after a while he lay down on my lap and "sort-of" relaxed. After having blood drawn at the vet for his future travels into Africa, we drove across town to Albie's kennels. I carried Shadow into his cage/run and he immediately jumped up onto the wooden shelf on which I placed his igloo filled with toys. Albie's assistant, Leomi says this is the first time she's booked a cat in and written the instruction: "to be walked regularly" on his visitor's card! She said she'd go in and stroke him and chat to him as often as she has the chance to do it. It was sad to leave our little lad but I know he's in good hands.

We phoned when we got home and of course, Shadow is fine. Just checkin', LOL!

Just when we thought we had all the arrangements in the bag, the person who promised to take us to the airport tomorrow, phoned to say he couldn't make it anymore! After phoning around town to see if we could catch a lift with someone going to the city, Angus (who is on leave down in the Cape, else he'd have taken us) phoned with a wonderful suggestion. He said we should ask Albie if we could meet her at her house and she take us to the airport. She lives about three kilometers from the Bloemfontein airport. I phoned her and she kindly agreed to help us out. We've left our vehicle in one of her garages and Angus will collect it from her over the weekend. It's so "cool" when you have friends in high places, lol. Oh and of course, I got to see little Shadow again when we stopped at Albie's !

As Bloemfontein airport is now an International airport, we will bubble wrap our luggage here (the theft and tampering of luggage on our airways is horrific and this is one way of making it a lot more difficult for would-be thieves to fiddle in our cases) and we will buy our US dollars at the Bureau d'Change. Note: we never travel without US dollars although we don't always use them.

The plane which flies us from Johannesburg to Nairobi is much larger than the one we took from Bloemfontein. Grant normally knows whether they're jets or whatever. I don't! Also, he's a very nervous flyer (I'm not)  so he "checks up" on the craft, AND the crew, I might add!

So for now, it's cheerio until I land on East African soil and am reconnected to the Internet.

Bless you all!