Day 3: Saturday, January 14, 2006

An alarm clock was not needed this morning even after such a short night! We awoke to the beautiful call of a single bird that seemed to enjoy his simple call of “good morning” from 5:30 – 6:00 a.m. (at least). At 6:00, he became silent as the sun began to rise; a crow then began cawing and this was followed by the chirping of some other birds and finally the rooster began crowing at 6:30 a.m. when it was as light in our room without a light as it was outside.

Breakfast was a wonderful buffet spread with cereal (hot and cold), ham and sausage, boiled eggs or hand-made omelets, bread (multiple kinds) and jam, and tea and coffee.

We left The Methodist Guest House a little after 9 a.m. in pursuit the finding a bank to change team money, a store for buying water, and a restaurant for obtaining lunch prior to our journey to Meru. Money was exchanged at the bank; the rate was surprisingly not as good as it had been at the airport, but all seemed pleased that they now had 1000’s of Kenyan shillings instead of a few dollars. The grocery store was uneventful in that we were able to buy water in both large and small bottles, as well as a few sodas.

Lunch was at Steers, a fast-food place similar to combined fast food place in the States. One could order hamburgers, fried chicken, etc. from one side of the counter or pizza and hot Italian subs from the other side. The intent was to place our order (around 10 – 10:30), go to the grocery store, and then come back and pick it up for the journey to Meru. But, by the time we finished at the grocery store and returned, it was 11:45 so we all just went ahead and ate before loading into the vans and heading north.

Submitted by Kellye J