after an epic flight...finally, nairobi

After 3days and 2nights on planes (with a few rest stops in London and Dubai) we made it to Nairobi. In Dubai we had a taxi tour of this now-booming city, with the "biggest and best" of everything according to our cabbie, Usman. We went to the entrance to the new man-made island shaped in the form of a palm tree. There's also a series of islands constructed in the shape of the world. When JD inquired about perhaps purchasing one of the islands, it was a bit out of our price range, starting at $8m US, with boat and heli access only. I asked Usman how they built all these islands, well "they filled in the sea", naturally. After a brief touching of the Arabian Sea we drove along a major port lined with old trading boats, dhows, where there were massive piles of recently unloaded fridges and mattresses and computers. Then back to the airport for the last leg of our flight, from Dubai to Nairobi, over Iran. My level of exhaustion was peaking and I became very focussed on the thought of making it to a bed in Nairobi.
Once off the plane we were greeted by Margaret and Julie who were attracted to my oyster shell necklace, which I gave them and they hooked us up with a cab big enough (just barely) for our bike boxes. Ferdinann was our cabbie and he was a hoot, tommorrow he's taking us to Kibera, the largest slum in Africa. We got the lowdown on the future plans for Kibera from our new coffee shop friend, Elkanna. Apparently, the habit of moving people further out and plowing down the slum is changing and a managment office for the slum has been set up and there are plans to built some healthier housing. Saturday we're going to Elkanna's for lunch, we'll have a chicken, he said. We had a lovely chat with him at a little cafe where he is a regular, and he told us about the Kibaki's entirely new cabinet, which hit the press yesterday. Apparently, the US advised travellers to avoid Kenya because of the possibility of chaos caused by the rejection of a new constitution, but peace and fun is all we've had so far.
Much love to you all, can't wait to read your replies.
Kwaheri,
JD and Tracy