When we were leaving the USA to come to Kenya, we were told by our mission, "Don’t carry too much cash when you are traveling AND your visas to get into Kenya will be $25 each, $100 for the whole family."
When we arrived at the airport in Kenya we went to the immigrations counter and filled out the applications for our visas, then proceeded to the window to make our application. The immigrations clerk said "That will be $200." We were shocked because we were expecting it to be only $100. So we stepped out of line and began digging in every pocket and every corner of every bag that we were carrying to see if we could come up with $200.
When all was gathered we had $194. We went back up to the counter to plead our case. "We only have $194," we said. The immigration official could not be negotiated with. Finally he said "Mr. Fleming and only Mr. Fleming may pass through the airport and go to the ATM and get some more money." Great.
So off heads Alan to get some more money. When he arrived at the ATM he put in his cards and he was given the following choices, 500 KSH, 1000 KSH, or 5000 KSH. Having NO clue as to the exchange rate of KSH to US$ he selected 500 KSH.
He came back to the immigration counter and proceeded to give the man the $194 and the 500 KSH. The immigration saw the 500 KSH and said "NO Kenya Shillings, it must be US$." Alan looked at him and said "The ATM does not distribute US$. The official responded "You have to go the other direction back into the airport and go to the bank and exchange the Kenya Shillings for US$. So Alan went to the bank and exchanged the 500 KSH. Now we know what the exchange rate is. For 500 Kenya Shillings he go 6 US$. Well that is ok, $6 is all that we were short.
So we go back to the immigration counter and pull out our $200 and lay it on the counter. The official looked at the money and responded "NO coins, no coins, we don’t take coins." Uggghhh. $4.00 of our $200 was in quarters, nickels and dimes. So Alan went outside the airport to the ATM, got another 500 KSH, back into the other side of the airport to the bank and exchanged it for US$, then back to the immigration counter and finally we were able to pay for our visas.
Now we are ready and we pass through customs with no problem, we get outside the airport and we are looking for anyone who might be the person who is supposed to pick us up. Don’t see anyone. We wait for about an hour and still no one shows up. So we find a pay phone and call the mission office. They inform us that the person who is supposed to pick us up waited for 2 hours. This is the two hours that we were trying to get the visas. Since they couldn’t find us, they went and checked the manifest at KLM and KLM told them that we were not on the plane.
They assumed that we must have missed the plane so they were on their way back to the mission office. This was before the days of cell phones, so we had to wait for them to get back to the mission office and then the office told them that we were there and waiting and then they turned back around to come and get us. So we ended up waiting for about 4 hours for them to pick us up. Meanwhile our adorable 7-year-old Connor conked out on top of our luggage. He was so excited on the plane that he had not slept a wink in 36 hours. He was constantly pushing the call button, can I have a soda, can I have some peanuts etc. It was a very memorable trip.
