Flights between many African countries are irregular and expensive. Using the Internet, we found that the least expensive way to fly from Morocco to Kenya to Turkey is via Amsterdam (Casablanca - Amsterdam - Nairobi - Amsterdam - Istanbul) on KLM.

Aside from preparations, Nairobi offers little and can be dangerous for unwary tourists. We avoided trouble by following the advice of the Lonely Planet guide and our hotel receptionist:

• Don't walk on unlit streets at night.
• Never walk on the street carrying your luggage, even during the day. Take a taxi or have the bus pick-up / drop off in front of your hotel.
• Don't walk through the city park, Uhuru Park.

Here's a list of useful preparations that can be made in Nairobi:

• Camping supplies can be rented at Atul's Tailor on Biashara Street. The sleeping bags and butane stove we rented here were sufficient to cook food on Mt. Meru and stay warm at high elevation huts on Mt. Kilimanjaro. Prices are high. Renting 2 dirty sleeping bags, a stove, and an old aluminum pot for 26 days cost us about US$130.
• The bookstore called Bookpoint on Moi Avenue has a topological map of Mt. Kenya, but the map isn't very accurate. Furthermore, since the trails on Mt. Kenya are unmarked and trail junctions are without signs, first time visitors are better off hiring a guide in one of the towns near the mountain.
• The grocery stores carry 2-minute soups, energy drink mixes, and other camping food.
• The ATM at Barclays Bank on Moi Avenue is connected to the Plus and Cirrus networks. Note: if you're heading to Arusha or Moshi, Tanzania make sure you have sufficient US$ before leaving Nairobi!
• The Internet Café, e-world, on the ground floor of Barclays Bank on Moi Avenue is clean, air-conditioned, has new machines, has a medium-fast connection, is FTP enabled, will copy files from your floppy disk to the client machine you use. The cost is 25 KSh for every 15 minutes, the same price per minute as many of the other less functional Internet Cafés around town. At the time of this writing, however, a .dll incompatibility with the Internet Explorer loaded on all of the e-world machines caused Internet Explorer to crash when trying to attach a file to a web-mail.
• Another great Internet Café is Cyber Vill@ge on the 2nd floor of the Queensway House on Kaunda Street. Cyber Vill@ge isn't air conditioned but the connection is fast, the network is FTP enabled, and floppy disks are allowed. The cost is 25 KSh for every 15 minutes.
• Numerous tour agents offer safaris and climbs up Mt. Kenya. To avoid street scams, it's best to use the companies listed in Lonely Planet or other reputable guidebooks. Unfortunately, even the most reputable companies in Nairobi give tourists false information in an attempt to get their business and make higher profits.

To get from Nairobi to Mt. Meru or Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, there are 2 shuttle bus options: Riverside Shuttle and Davanu Shuttle. For Mt. Meru, ask to be dropped off at the Arusha National Park junction between Arusha and Moshi. For Mt. Kilimanjaro, take the shuttle to Moshi. Riverside (Tel: 02-35561) departs Nairobi from the Norfolk Hotel on Harry Thuku Road twice daily at 08:00 and 13:30. Note: the Riverside office address listed in the newest Lonely Planet Kenya guide is old and no longer valid. Davanu (Tel: 02-822001, address: 4th floor, Windsor House, University Way) departs Nairobi twice daily from their office also at 08:00 and 13:30. Both shuttle companies will pick up passengers from their hotel in advance for no additional charge. Beware, however, of being overcharged for shuttle tickets. See our page on Mt. Meru for details.

Our last few days in Kenya were in Nairobi. We intended to visit Lake Naivasha after Mt. Kenya, but the shared-taxi ride from Mt. Kenya back to Nairobi was uncomfortable (cramped and sweltering hot) and dangerously fast to the extent that we never found the motivation to ride another to the lake. Instead, we read, slept, wrote web pages, and ate often at the remarkably good Japanese restaurant, Akasaka on Standard Street, for 4 days. By departure day, we were anxious to leave. We had enough of the touts on every block trying to sell us a safari, the countless taxi drivers continuously asking us where we wanted to go, the fake watch salesmen on the street tsk-ing us to look at their merchandise, the homeless barefoot children begging for money, the untrustworthy police looking to collect "fines", the suspect tap water, the all-night disco noise, the non-functioning traffic signals, all of it. We reached the airport early, checked-in, and found our departure gate, Gate 5 for flight KQ116 scheduled for departure on March 15 at 11:00. Our hand-carry bag rode the x-ray machine, and the security frisked us. "We're almost out of this country," we thought to ourselves. The female security guard spent little time patting down Masami. She was through and collected the hand-carry bag. The male security guard checked Wes thoroughly, even asking to see the inside of his hidden money pouch, bill by bill, and then had the nerve to ask for a payoff. Unbelievable. You can't trust anyone in Kenya, even the airport security who wear uniforms that say "Kenya Police". Wes told him, "No", wrote down his badge number 67882, and questioned, "Who is your manager? I'm unhappy that you asked me for money." "Please don't say anything. I'd lose my job," he pleaded pathetically. Officer 67882 immediately disappeared from Gate 5 at 10:10, though Wes didn't bother to report him. Don't trust anyone in Nai-robbery.