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| Glenn's Journal for 10-31-02 to 11-2-02 - Nairobi Happy Halloween!!! I will miss this holiday this year as I usually get into costume to surprise the trick or treaters. I will have to do double duty next year!!! Today we slept in until our bodies were ready to get up. We stayed in so late that we missed breakfast and went straight to lunch. We went out for a little while but most of the day was spent writing journals, reading, and overall relaxing. We had dinner at the hotel restaurant before retiring for the evening. We really needed the R&R. Friday in Nairobi and the plans today include checking out a curio shop at the Hilton with firm fixed prices, which means that the prices are already set very low (and they were). This gave us a comparison to use to start bargaining for better prices at the market on Saturday. We also stopped at an internet cafe and caught a movie, as Erin was movie deprived and it was raining today anyway. After the movie we went back to the internet cafe to set up contacts for our next stop in South Africa along with a few other e-mails to friends. We returned to the hotel for dinner and spent the rest of the night reading our books in the room. Saturday is our planned shopping day. The best market is the Masai market on Tuesday but we will be in South Africa by then. We asked about other markets but ended up at the city market, which was just down the road. Erin and I spent over 5 hours at the city market making sure we stopped into every store. Upon entering the market they are more than happy to see you and you are approached by many store owners interested in us checking out their store. The first store we stopped in to had a set of hippos that we both liked. We were their first customer of the day, which along with their last customer are very important to them for good luck. We bartered our way into what we felt to be a decent price for the hippos so we bought them. This only took a half hour before we moved on to our next store. In the next store we found a bowl that I liked but it was priced at 7000 shillings ($87.50) which was well more than I was willing to pay. I told the gentleman that I would be back later to talk about it. From here we spent the next 4+ hours walking around the many other stores where Erin bought a hematite necklace, I tried to buy some Masai people sculptures, and we looked around for only things that we really wanted to buy. We had arrived around 10:00 am and finally stopped around 2:15 pm for lunch before returning to buy the few things we had decided on. Upon returning we bought a beautiful plate made from stone which took a little bartering. We also returned to the second store to barter for the bowl that I liked but the owner was not that interested in selling as he would not reduce his price to an acceptable level for me. After leaving the market (around 3:45 pm) we were heading back to the room with all of our purchases, but we ran into a gentleman that we had seen yesterday that wanted us to see a local store just around the corner. We were already worn out from shopping but we agreed to stop in to look around. We did not have to buy anything so no worries!!! We spent another hour walking around this place where we found a bowl and a few other things that we thought were worth bartering for. The idea is that this is a family store (which I highly doubt) and they collected everything we wanted and took us out back to barter (away from any other customers to hear). They started at 18000 shillings ($225) for everything we wanted (bowl, necklace, earrings, and a wood sculpture) and I bartered for a half hour or so before getting everything for 3500 shillings ($43.75). Once I get into the spirit of bartering I really enjoy the challenge of seeing what you can get for the money. I bartered for everything then switched to bartering for each piece before turning back around and bartering for everything before we agreed on a price. I felt pretty good about the day even though we were well worn out. We returned to our room, dropped everything off before stopping for dinner and calling it a night. |
| A view over the Rift Valley, a mere 1 hour drive from Nairobi |
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| Watching these elephants tussle just a few feet away wasn't safe, but certainly thrilling! |