Monday, January 26, 2009

Kenya: Camptown races all day long, oh do dah day!


We have arrived in Nairobi, Kenya. Our first stop? Wild-life safaris? Exotic bird watching? Exploring old Arabic trading towns? Nah. Instead we pretended to be colonials and went straight for the Nairobi horsetrack.

Susan enjoying a mint julep as the horses go by

Alas, while we were not successful in our goal of having the horses pay for the honeymoon, Susan was able to make us a bit of money, from some excellent betting. We won BIG with a horse called 'Riptide.' Love that name. We should qualify: when we say we won big, we mean that we were able to pay for lunch.

Besides her talent at picking winning horses, Susan also further showed her superhuman ability to shmooze by somehow finding and befriending the owner of the winning horse and getting us both invited to spend the afternoon up in the owners' boxes. Once there, we had drinks and some good conversation and basically pretended we were British colonials to fit in with all the other owners.

All in all, a thoroughly good afternoon. I dare say, well done old chap!

Sadly, our tourist time in Kenya was cut short by several ailments (see Master of Disaster entry), but we did have several wonderful meals with several amazing friends: Fletcherites Lisa Karanja, Martin Masumbuko, and Manal Stulgaitis were all gracious hosts and gave us a taste of local Kenyan fare.

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