Kenya Day 46 - A long way home

I was up at 07:30, fairly early considering Gilbert wasn't coming until 10:00, and was showered and fed in plenty of time so I went bird watching in the gardens for a while.

Silvery-cheeked Hornbills - male and female

Huge fan palm

Pied crow

Creeper, a bit like honeysuckle

Casuarina

Izaak Walton Hotel

At 10:30, with no sign of Gilbert, I checked out and sat in the garden having a rather surreal Skype conversation with Dave while I waited. Eventually Gilbert appeared at 12:00 - TIA! - and we went down to the Rescue Centre, where I went shopping with Lilian for oil (10 litre drum), salt (500gm per day, so 5kg to last 2 weeks), laundry soap in 50cm bars (6 of these), etc and got back just in time to feed the kids and go for lunch with Gilbert and the volunteers.

The dinner queue

Preparing to dish up

Lilian and her stove - the maize and beans is in the big pot

Some of the girls having their dinner

Some of the boys

 It's already 14:00 and I ask when I need to go, then get a bit concerned as nothing seems to be happening. Eventually a taxi/van turns up and we head off about 15:00. It's an interesting journey with very varied scenery from hills to miles of rice paddies with lots of egrets.

Rice paddies

Drying rice

Lots of lovely veg

Camels are quite unusual round here...

We took the bypass around Nairobi, avoiding the traffic jams and got to the airport about 17:30. More goodbyes and I'm going through security, checking in, more security, a last Stoney and onto the plane. It may be an overnight flight to Amsterdam, and I may be tired, but I don't sleep, just doze while watching a movie. I'm sat next to a nice couple of ladies from Eldoret on their first flight, and, of course, their first trip outside Kenya. They are going to visit someone in Dusseldorf, so we do the terminal changes in Schiphol together - maybe I'll be able to catch up with them next time I'm in Kenya. See? I'm planning to go back already...