Half the world away

(A cafe outside Nairobi airport)

I am hopeful that the hardest part is now over. If there is a greater power though, and he, she or it wanted to terrify me, they couldn't have arranged a set of circumstances better.

I fell asleep around 9pm with my maasai club by my head and my bags wedged between wall and door, the loud music and conversation just outside the 'hotel' not standing a chance against my fatigue levels. I woke at around 3:20 when my alarm went off. My room was right at the front of the building, and I could hear conversation just outside the front door. I turned the light on, and two minutes later the desk woman was knocking on my door to tell me something unintelligible. I'd imagine she was speaking Swahili, only very slowly and loudly. There was a guy with her, and the sign language indicated that he was my taxi to the airport. I was immediately on my guard, since the guy the night before had said several times that he personally would pick me up. Since it was at least twenty minutes before our arranged pick-up time, I felt there might be some sort of scam on – in the worst case, the guy could have been tipped off by the woman to pick me up early drive me somewhere and rob me. Still, there was very little I could do, so I packed, moved the majority of my money and credit cards into my shoes, and went outside.

Sometimes things happen, your mind constructs a scenario, then following events demonstrate how wildly imaginative you've been. In this case, the exact opposite happened, and continued to happen. You need one guy to drive a car, right? This one had two – a driver, and a guy sitting in the back, behind the passenger seat. By now I was actually strangely calm. The adrenaline was flying through me, but I almost didn't have time to be scared. I got in. We drove off.

I can laugh now, but as we drove, I flexed my hands, and tried to convey by way of subtle body language that not only was I well able to handle myself, but was also an expert in several martial arts. It's all in the fingers, hopefully. There was no conversation, although the driver put on a tape of what, I guess, passes for Dar es Salam music. We pulled onto a petrol station forecourt by a dark, empty road. It was closed and deserted. Why on earth would two locals from Dar es Salam pull into a deserted petrol station with a relatively-rich tourist in the back at 4am? I was still scared, but somehow not displaying any of the symptoms. It was almost an unreal situation to me. The guy shouted a couple of times, presumably for attention. After the third, a shout came back. We drove off. Based on later events, I worked out that the guy was asking for petrol, and that someone shouted that they were closed,

We drove on, still on dark back streets. We pulled on to a quiet dual-carriageway and, at this point, the engine died. I couldn't quite believe what was happening, but I think subconsciously I'd decided that if anything was going to happen to me, it would probably have happened back at the garage. The thing is, I'd checked the fuel gauge at the petrol station, and it said he had half a tank. I've since learned that the fuel gauge was only one of the many things wrong with the car. The guy got out, went to the boot and came back with a plastic bottle. 'Fool', he said, and went jogging off up the road, towards a brightly-lit petrol station in the distance.

At this point, the chap in the back decided we needed to chat. As per usual, he asked where I was from. 'Ah, England! Yes, very nice place. Very nice.' Feeling still very much 'in the woods', I was conscious of needing to portray myself as not worth robbing.
'Nah, not great', I said, then struggled to think of a subtle fiscal reason why not. 'Er, it rains very much. Very cold', I explained. 'No mosquitos', I added as an afterthought.
'Manchester, Liverpool', he countered.

I was on firmer ground here, since Africans love their English football teams. 'Ah yes, Arsenal, Chelsea. Frank Lampard!'. He then tried to sell me a bracelet. I demurred, Still trying to come across as 'poor tourist with no money', I told him I'd run out of cash and that was why I was going home. He then asked me what I did in England. Obviously, I didn't want to tell him about how my last job was working for a Private Swiss Bank.

What's the most lowly-paid job you can think of in the UK? Is it 'I work with cars'? I bet it's not, is it. I could even – truthfully! - have told him I was unemployed. Yet stuck in a car at 4am in Dar es Salam, 'working in the motor industry' was all I could come up with as an example of somehow who might be practically destitute. Anyone who's just had an MOT care to comment?

The driver came jogging back and, after twice losing his keys, popping the bonnet, fiddling, then losing his keys again, we were off. Reaching the airport, I paid the 10,000TSh agreed and legged it. Was I ever at risk? I'm not sure. I don't think so. I think they made more than enough cash off me just by charging over the odds.

That was not the end of my stresses, though. The flight to Nairobi had a limit of only 20Kg. My bag weighed more than that, even with everything heavy moved to my hand luggage. You'd be amazed at just how much an antique maasai spear weighs. I hoped to be able to prop the back on the scales and keep my foot under it. My heart sank, then, when I saw the desks and realised they had separate scales in front of the desk, loaded and unloaded by a porter. I counted my dollars. Luckily, when I got to the front, the porters were very busy. The

check in official motioned to the scales, I hefted my bag on with one hand, thankful for the hours in the gym, and held onto it. The arrow shot past twenty, then I managed to lift a little and bring it back to nineteen. I immediately jerked it off and put it by the desk for him to label. I had gotten away with it.

My belt has a hidden compartment. I thought it might be useful for a twenty dollar note, or something. I never thought I might be smuggling gems in it.

I must say something about the flight. I ended up sitting next to a muslim woman in traditional dress. From Dar orginally, she happened to have lived in Birmingham for the past twenty-five years. I told her about my travails. 'It was in Temfa?', I said.
She thought for a moment. 'Temeke?', she asked? I nodded. She rolled her eyes and laughed. The best she could do was, 'I'd never, ever go there!'. Apparently, it's just about the roughest area in Dar. Totally underdeveloped, and no white people for miles around. No shit, I thought. I asked her to compare it to somewhere in England. 'The roughest area you can think of', she said. Excellent. I paid too much for the cab, too. I thought getting him down from twenty-five to ten was good. She said it was more like four. Oh well, I'm still alive.

(News Flash: 'Precision Airways, Kenya' in-flight food isn't exactly gourmet.)

One last hurdle, then. Getting out of Nairobi airport without paying for a new visa. I skipped the visa queue, waved my old visa at the official and somehow got away with it. So I'm sitting in a cafe beside the Emirates office, waiting for it to open at nine so I can pay for my ticket change. I can't help thinking I'm nearly home, yet I'm still twenty-four hours from Brixton.