Colchester United

Day One: May 31st

U's Community Development Officer Tom Tayler gives us the lowdown from Nakuru after the first couple of days.

Twelve hardy souls, including members of our FITC team and Colchester United fans, have headed to Nakuru to spend ten nights helping with education, sport and construction projects.

This week has seen our Colchester United Football in the Community team lead a trip to Kenya with African Adventures.

Day One started early for our travellers, with pre-4am pick ups by our friends at Roman Coaches. First in the queue for check-in, we were ready and raring to go for our 10.30am flight.

Eight long hours later and we had arrived in a humid Nairobi at around 9.00pm. Once through passport control and, after a swift brush with customs, we met our trip host Ken and were escorted to our transfer point.

It was here we remained until Ken retrieved his van, which had been blocked in. Once we set off, it didn't take long for the drama to get started.

Firstly, we had our first wildlife sighting of some wild zebra by the roadside and then Ken realised he had misplaced his toll ticket!

As we approached Nairobi, the buildings got taller and the streets became densely populated, which made driving conditions hazardous. It must be said that our driver skilfully manouevered past all vehicles and people (just!) to get us to our location for the night, Hotel Sandton Palace. 

Tucked down a side road, this place was pushing our levels of expectation but once we were in, we soon settled.

This may have been helped by the discovery of the bar, who we convinced to remain open for us to sample the local lagers Baloski and Whitecap.

A long day came to a close at 1.30am in the bar although, for most, the noisy Nairobi nightlife kept people awake well into the morning ahead of the trip to Nakuru.

We were up nice and early for our breakfast, where we were greeted with eggs, sausages and vegetables, along with a generous helping of Afrikan tea.

We departed Hotel Sandton Palace around 8.00am in our convoy on the way to Nakuru. Our four hour trip was broken up with a couple of stops, the first of which was at the Rift Valley viewpoint, where we braved the rickety bridge in search of the breathtaking views.

Our second trip was to Buffalo Mall, which gave us the chance to visit the supermarket and stock up for the journey.

It wasn't long before we arrived at Kivu after seeing our selection of antelope, zebra and baboons alongside a vast range of cows and goats!

Upon arrival, our first action was to eat lunch of beef stew, rice and vegetables, before we met Fred, Sharon and Layla, who gave us an excellent orientation meeting.

The rest of the afternoon and evening was our own, so after a few more Tuskys, we had another visit to Nakumart Mall before watching two consecutive games of football on the TV and witnessing no goals!

Again we enjoyed our dinner of roast potatoes, cabbage and one sausage each, but the highlight of this was our spicy Kenyan ketchup, which went down a treat.

Day Two ended with some games of cards around the cats that were residents of the bar and also saw us continue our battle to find some wi-fi!