After a half-hour of reading, the pleasant and funny stories lulled me back to sleep for about an hour, and when I woke again I figured the restaurant would now be open and I could get some bottled water and a cup of tea. I was tremendously thirsty, with all the travel and the drinks. So I rose and dressed and put on sunglasses and went to go check out the restaurant.
The hotel was sort of an open concept — as soon I exited my room, I was outside, and then I turned to my left and walked by a couple of rooms and then I was at the outdoor pool, which in daylight looked inviting, more so than in my memory, and I turned right at the pool, walked down a few steps, and then was in the lobby, which I bypassed for the restaurant.
When I entered the restaurant, a young man in a white shirt and black slacks immediately asked me if I was there for breakfast. I said yes. Breakfast was included with the room. He asked me if I wanted to sit inside or outside and I said outside. He walked me to a terrace out front of the restaurant, a fenced-off area filled with tables and chairs, plants and flowers, to the side of the hotel’s entrance. I was seated in a wicker-bottom chair and thanked him and looked at the menu.
There were three choices of complimentary breakfast: one, a pancake, a sausage, with sliced mango and pineapple; two, yogurt and granola, with berries, and sliced mango and pineapple; or, three, eggs, sausage, potatoes, with sliced mango and pineapple. All breakfasts came with coffee or tea, toast, with jam packets and butter packets, and a small glass of orange juice.
I was impressed — it all looked pretty good.
A waiter approached, another young man dressed similarly to the maître d’, and brightly said, ‘Hujambo, bwana? How are you today, sir?’
‘Sijambo,’ I said, remembering the phrase from the back section of the Kenya Lonely Planet. ‘It’s a very beautiful morning,’ I added.
‘It is,’ the waiter said. His name tag said Robert.
‘My name’s John,’ I said.
‘Nice to meet you, John. I’m Robert,’ he said, making no motion to his name tag, and then he added, ‘Would you like some coffee or tea?’
‘Tea would be great,’ I said. ‘And I’ll have a bottle of water, too, please.’
‘Not a problem, sir. But the bottled water isn’t included with the breakfast.’
‘That’s fine,’ I said.
‘Do you know what you’d like for breakfast?’
‘I’ll try number one,’ I said, ‘with the pancake.’
‘I’ll bring you your tea and water,’ he said and was gone.
Cars continued to pull up to the entrance and drop off staggering travellers. Robert returned with a small steel teapot with a teabag in it, a ceramic saucer and mug, some sugar packets, a shot glass of milk, a bottle of water and a glass.
‘Asante sana,’ I said.
‘Karibu,’ he said. ‘Your breakfast will be right out.’
‘Thanks.’
Breakfast was good. I ate most of it, then asked Robert for the bill for the water, which I paid for in shillings and left a tip.
In the lobby a line of people stood waiting to get to the front desk, where the same concierge from the night before checked them in, one party at a time. They looked hot and tired and I sympathized, but I was more surprised that the same concierge who was working at ten o’clock the night before was manning the desk at nine-thirty a.m. He looked dapper, too, and very fresh. I didn’t feel fresh at all.
I felt a slap on my back.
‘How’s it going, man?’
I turned around and my friend Mark was grinning, his hair wet.
‘Mark!’ I said. And we briefly hugged.
‘When did you get in?’ I said.
‘Last night, around midnightish.’
‘Ha,’ I said. ‘I drank a few beers at the bar, thinking I might catch you, but then I sort of faded off.’
‘Yeah,’ he said, laughing, ‘I saw you sitting at a table when I was checking in. You looked like you were falling asleep. I wanted to come in and say hello but I had to hit the rack. I was a zombie, too, and couldn’t drink.’
‘Oh, man, how embarrassing,’ I said. ‘Yeah, Boris’s father-in-law got us a little drunk upon arrival, doing vodka shots in his backyard.’
‘Nice,’ said Mark. ‘Sounds like fun.’
‘Yeah, I mean, it was fun. But after twenty-four hours of travel probably inadvisable.’
‘Of course,’ said Mark. ‘But you’re in one piece.’
‘Sort of. I don’t want to ruin the trip with hangovers.
‘Have you had breakfast?’ he said.
‘I just did.’
‘Oh too bad,’ he said.
‘I’m just going to head back to my room but we’ll catch up in a bit,’ I said.
‘Sounds good.’
‘Enjoy your breakfast,’ I said. ‘It’s good!’
When I got back to my room I brushed my teeth again, after having put corn syrup on my pancake, and took my anti-malarial medication, which I’d been taking in the mornings after eating a little breakfast. Nairobi doesn’t have a malaria problem, but the island I was heading to, Lamu, is in a malarious region, so I took the pills in preparation.
Then my bedside phone rang, which startled me.
I picked up and it was a young woman saying that a Mr. Boris was in the lobby, waiting for me. I’d be right there, I told the woman on the phone.
Boris was sitting on a red velvet upholstered bench reading the Standard, when I walked the few steps down into lobby. He spotted me right away and stood up, folding the news — paper and setting it on the coffee table in front of him.
‘How’s it going?’ he said.
‘Good,’ I said.
He patted me on the back.
‘You got here okay,’ he said.
‘Yes, Martin made sure I got in all right. He’s terrific, a very nice man. And he and Billy were funny; he told Billy that if he didn’t look after us he’d kill him.’
‘Ha,’ said Boris. ‘That won’t be necessary, I don’t think.’
‘How’re you?’ I said.
‘Good,’ he said. ‘But I’ve booked myself a room here till we go to Lamu. I talked to Anita, and she gave me a room. This way, too, I can just be here where everybody will be and take the odd photo for the piece.’
‘It’ll be more convenient,’ I said.
‘Yeah, this way I don’t have to take cars constantly,’ he said. ‘It’ll be easier, and Tanya’s having a great time with her cousin and aunt and grandparents.’
‘Sounds good,’ I said.
‘We should head into town and pick up cellphones,’ he said. ‘They’re inexpensive and it’ll make communicating so much easier. That way I can check in on Tanya, too, when we go to the coast. And I can call Nina.’
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Do you know where to go?’
‘Yes just downtown. There are a bunch of places. Cellphones are big here.’
And, indeed, cellphones were big in Kenya. On the car ride from the hotel to downtown, a ride that took about twenty minutes but only because traffic was so congested, I kept seeing advertisements for Safaricom, Kenya’s largest cellphone provider, and a few ads for its much smaller competitors. Instead of us calling Billy Mutinda for a ride, the security guard at the front gate simply opened the gate and signalled for a car to pull in, one of the many that waited outside the gate for a fare.
The sun was bright and high and I was excited to see downtown Nairobi. People walked alongside the idling cars. Black exhaust filled the air around us but the sky above was endless blue.