Day 1: Travel chaos and Kenyan hospitality

Not all adventures begin as you dreamt. I stood staring in despair at the word "cancelled" that appeared on the flight departures board at Heathrow. It was now 11pm having waited here since 2pm for a flight scheduled to depart at 5pm. The flight had been delayed, the board increasing the delay by manageable hourly increments until the inevitable cancellation was announced. Naturally I catastrophised the situation, the irrational thoughts catalysed by my tired state. A flood of questions cascaded through my mind, "What if I don't get there in time for Mount Kenya?" "If I do what if I'm tired or dehydrated from the flight?" "Where do I go now?" We were herded towards baggage reclaim and ushered through passport control, I groaned as my large kit bag that I was so satisfied to drop off 10 hours ago was loaded onto my back. A few British people cracked some dry jokes as we had to still use the passport E-gates to leave the airport, "Aren't you supposed to have a holiday before going through these?" The whole situation was summarised perfectly by a couple of older Kenyan women who simply tutted, speaking Swahili in what I interpreted to be a sassy tone.

I joined a ridiculously long and painfully slow moving queue to be allocated a hotel for the night. Frustrated by the queue not moving, I relieved myself from the weight on my back and sat on my kit bag - a position I always adopt when having an airport based meltdown. I began messaging hotels, transfers, the local company organising Mount Kenya in a hope to reschedule everything so my dreams wouldn't be dashed. But I had no idea of when I'd next be put on a flight. The queue began to slowly move forward and as I attempted to get up a Kenyan man behind me gently kicked my bag propelling me forward with a mischievous grin, I laughed and accepted the help. We laughed together at the situation, comparing how many hours we'd been at the airport.

Finally I was given a room at the Holiday Inn which is luckily a short walk from the terminal and told to check for emails frequently that will tell me when my rescheduled flight would be. It was around 1am when I got to my room and I was drained but anxious to sleep in case I had to be up early for a flight. I set a 4am alarm and settled into disturbed sleep. I awoke to an email telling me I would be on a 10am flight, so continued my admin confirming my arrival in Kenya for my hotel transfer and requesting to start Mount Kenya a day later, to allow some sleep and rest beforehand. Emmah, the local agent who's been organising my mountain trip was so relaxed and flexible and replied within a minute on whatsapp "You start whenever you want, Friday is good". This instantly settled me and the adventure was alive again.

After a 9 hour flight featuring poor attempts to sleep, lots of wriggling and facing my irrational fear of plane toilets I was in Nairobi. As soon as I logged onto the airport WiFi, my driver for my transfer had messaged me to tell me exactly where he was and as soon as I'd cleared passport control he greeted me with a huge smile. He introduced himself as Gerald, handed me a cold bottle of water and unloaded my bag from my back. He was incredibly friendly saying "welcome home, Kenya is your home away from home", he pointed out significant buildings on route to the hotel and announced the name of every road he turned onto. He asked me what Swahili I knew and I told him the words I'd learnt on Kilimanjaro and from my Tanzanian friends. "Karibu sana" he said which I translated to you are very welcome and replied "Asante sana" meaning thank you so much. "You know you will like Kenya more than Tanzania, they are our brothers but we are better" he laughed loudly as we pulled up to the hotel gate. "First we have to do security, then we can enter" Gerald told me. A man with a large torch opened the van and did a very casual check, making quick glances around the vehicle as he beamed saying, "Ahhh welcome, it's Amy right - we've been waiting for you since yesterday, very sorry for the flight delay. Come in and see Mary, I have your bags hakuna matata." At the desk Mary greeted me with a beautiful smile saying "Amy you made it", it was very late so I was the last guest they were expecting. She organised my room and the security man walked with me, helping with my bags. It was a wonderful welcome and instantly made me forget about the ordeal of the journey and focus on the fact that I'd arrived in this lovely country.

I slept for 9 hours undisturbed and spent the morning peacefully hydrating and resting, watching birds dart through the trees from the balcony that overlooked Nairobi's arboretum. I worked my way through various plates of carbohydrate laden food to fuel up for the mountain and had friendly chats with the hotel staff. I ate dinner by the pool, there were only a couple of other guests but the hotel had organised a DJ who had positioned himself on a platform in the centre of the swimming pool. His charisma was admirable as he danced to himself, smiling and laughing while playing upbeat African music - occasionally pausing the songs to announce his name like he was hoping to be discovered by someone. I went to bed early, having already organised all my kit ahead of my early pickup for the mountain the next day.

As I drifted to sleep, I thought of why I was here. A year and a half has passed since I stood on the summit of Kilimanjaro. Enough time for the memories of altitude sickness, extreme cold and brutal inclines to fade into irrelevant background details and to romanticise the notion of standing on a summit. Tomorrow I'll begin my attempt of Mount Kenya, the 2nd highest African peak, renowned as one of the continent's most rewarding alpine experiences with its panorama of imperfect spikes, forested middle slopes and glacier clad summits. My aim is to reach Point Lenana, rising to 4985m which is the highest trekking peak on the mountain. Nervous anticipation entwined with excitement rumbled through my body as I lay surrounded by a fort of pillows basking in my last hours of luxury.

(I will have no signal on the mountain and will begin to update the blog on Tuesday when I'm down so no panic messages or irrational thoughts please!!)