Date: 13 July 1998 11:09am

Subject: News from Africa

Hello everyone Well we've arrived in Kenya and have now spent two weeks travelling around. We boarded our plane to Nairobi from Amsterdam airport just after the end of normal time of the England/Argentina game - so we missed extra time and penalties. Who missed England's two pens?? + Beckham - what an arse! Everything going v.well so far - we're under budget and tarnara and I are still talking to each other. We've even used the tent on more than one occassion Odd things in Kenya (part one):

I) The leading brand of cigarettes is called Sportsman?????

2) A bus in Isiolo (middle of nowhere) had a Zinedine Zidane sunscreen

3) A bar just outside Maralal (the capital town of the Samburu people) had a sign on the outside saying "No rungus (clubs), spears or knives"

4) Although Kenya is a leading producer of coffee, everyone drinks powdered Nescafe

5) Throwbacks to pre-decimilisation - the currency in Kenya is the shilling - little boys come up to you saying, "give me one bob"

6) Everyone in Isiolo chewed a mildly narcotic leaf called miraa - I think I would too if I lived there

7) Local guides in Maralal are called the plastic boys. This has nothing to do with glue sniffing, the clothes they wear or a strange strain of kleptomania. In fact, they are victims of the plastic revolution - i.e. no more room for their pastoral life

Anyway, back to reality, we're currently in Nairobi in the Hard Rock cafe.

We're thinking about heading down to Kilirnanjaro to do a bit of climbing before returning to Kenya and through to Uganda although it's still fairly flexible (tamara's view is that things are totally up in the air)

Further emails could be a bit sporadic - I doubt that many towns that we come across will have internet facilities - electricity might be a good starting point. We may just be limited to capital cities.

For the itinerary-spotters out there we've been to:

- Lake Naivasha
- Nyharuru
- Maralal
- abortive trip Lake Turkana
- Isiolo
- & back to Nairobi

Anyway, more news soon - I hope Hope you are all well