Tuesday September 17
We got up before 5:30am and were in the jeep on schedule at 6:00am - we farewelled Little Oliver's and started the 6 hour drop to Kilimanjaro Airport (JRO) where we caught a flight back to Nairobi (Wilson, the domestic airport in Nairobi which also supports some international flights; e.g. ours).
We made it in plenty of time, farewelled Ayoub and dagged about JRO until our Safarlink flight at 2:00pm. On the flight we caught a glimpse of the "mighty mountain" which is losing it's famous snow cap due to global warming.
At Wilson our re-entry into Kenya was seamless and our driver was there to meet us. In spite of worrying about Nairobi traffic we made it our hotel, the Ole Seneni, in about 15 minutes. We checked-in and headed to the lovely outdoor terrace which overlooks a national park. After some refreshments, we did some re-organising of our luggage as we now had our leave-behind suitcase, the massive red roller. We headed to dinner but both sort of hit-the-wall part way through the main course so we left for an early night. The Ole Sereni is a bit of a mixed bag - our room was one of the smallest we had stayed in since the our first trip to Paris in the 70's and overlooked a road construction project (rooms on the other side overlook the national park). However, the common areas in the hotel were very pleasant and Eagles, their fine dining restaurant, was world class - we were just too tried to really due our lovely meal justice.
Wednesday September 18
We had a bit of a sleep-in - first one in 2 weeks then had a leisurely breakfast. I finished the packing then we headed to the international airport (NBO) which, as previously reported, was destroyed by fire about 6 weeks earlier and was a bit of a tent-city in the interim as a new terminal building is being built. Check-in etc was a breeze and at the time of posting we are sitting in a tent for the 2-hour wait for our flight - it better be on time.
We made it to Jo'berg on time and got to our hotel, the Hilton in Sandton by about 7pm. It was early to bed and off home via Singapore on SQ the next day. We finally arrived in the door some 20+ hours later totally exhausted.