Heading for Home

Heading for Home
After eight days of bouncing around on the rough roads of Kenya's national parks, the smooth pavement of the Nairobi-Mombasa highway was a welcome sight.

The final day of our trip was a long one: two days long, to be exact. It was a little over 48 hours from when we woke in in West Tsavo National Park until we went to bed at home in Butte, Montana, including 43 hours of travel time from door to door.

Timeline of our travel day

I got up just before 6:00 Friday, and stepped out on our porch to check out the view. Light rain was obscuring the mountains in the distance, while a giraffe and two zebras were headed past our room to the watering hole.

I decided to go have breakfast before packing up to leave, and when I got to the restaurant I saw that there were many giraffes and zebras at the watering hole.

A red-billed hornbill perched on one of the floodlights at the watering hole.

I returned to our room and packed, then went back for one more final view of the watering hole. The giraffes had left, and a family of warthogs had joined the zebras.

We had driven into Tsavo West from the west side, but for today's drive to Nairobi we would be leaving out the east side at Mtito Andei Gate.

After leaving the park, we left the land of the Masaai tribe and passed through the land of the Kamba tribe after turning north on the highway between Mombasa and Nairobi. We would be on this highway for the next several hours, passing through various small villages and the town of Emali.

As we neared Nairobi, the terrain got hilly and the traffic got heavier.

After entering the Nairobi area around 4:30, we got stuck in rush hour traffic for a while, and eventually made it to our destination for dinner: Carnivore restaurant, a popular tourist stop near the airport.

After dinner, Willie drove us to the airport, where we said goodbye to him and checked in for our flight. Nairobi's airport is smaller than you'd expect for a city of 5 million, and we waited in a coffee shop until it was time to board our flight.

After getting through immigration and customs, Megan and I parted ways with Marsha and Rhonda. They were headed to DC, and we were headed to Bozeman by way of Salt Lake City. The delayed flight from Nairobi made them miss their connection, so we all spent several hours in JFK before our connecting flights in the afternoon.

Sunset on our approach into Bozeman.

We picked up the dogs from Aaron's house, then drove the 60 miles home from there.

A long day, and it felt great to sleep in our own bed!