Today took us back over the ferry to Mombasa and then a quick flight to Nairobi. We turned in the rental car in what felt like a pretty typical experience other than paying cash for some fender damage Tiffany ‘found’ after a tree walked across the parking lot and hit the car. At least that’s what she says happened.
While waiting at the gate to board our flight we were approached by an official with the Kenya Airport Authority. He asked us for the license plate number of the rental car that we had returned 30 minutes prior.
Brian was thoroughly confused by the man’s accented English so it took about five minutes for him to understand that the agency we rented the car from has paid the airport authority for the right to rent only one car. Apparently the car that we returned wasn’t the right (licensed) car and that the agency has been circumventing payment for their two car “fleet”.
Brian shrugged his shoulders at the official and couldn’t come up with any paperwork from the agency that wasn’t in checked baggage and couldn’t remember the Kenyan license plate of the car. The man went away pleased to learn that we had arrived at a specific/known time so he could check his CCTV footage.
At any rate, the whole dropping off the car in the parking lot, waiting for a damage estimate from an unseen agency authority reviewing texted images of the bumper, and then going to the cash machine to get 28k shillings ($250) to resolve all damage payments was weird. To top it off with a little beaurocratic snipe hunt made this an official Adventure to share.
We flew Kenya Air (the pride of Africa) and the flight was completely uneventful. Once again we’re in Nairobi for just one night so we treated ourselves to connecting rooms at the Crown Plaza. It has a small pool on the 4th floor roof and we enjoyed some cocktails and (weirdly) hot chocolate on the deck.
2 out of 3 children surveyed said the pool was “really cold” so their time in there was short. In hindsight the hot chocolate order was brilliant to warm them up. CreeperKitty didn’t get in the pool today, he is re-reading the Harry Potter series and can’t tear himself away long enough for anything like swimming.
No one felt like venturing out for dinner so we ate at the hotel’s restaurant. The dishes were not bad but overpriced as we had suspected going in. Dinner over, we’re all looking forward to a good night’s sleep.
5 Adventures Together 