A night out in Karen

We arrived back at Karen on the outskirts of Nairobi to drop off Jas and Jenny and to pick up Daniel and Dave. With two nights at the camp it was a good chance to communicate with the outside world, make use of the hot showers to catch up with some much needed ‘personal administration’ and, in true overland spirit, take Henry out to say goodbye and get terribly drunk.

As is frequently the case when you travel abroad, we ended up at an Irish bar/club called the ‘Double Inn’ (see what they did there?). We were fine getting in as it was a local ‘mzungo’ Kenyan hang out but initially they wouldn’t let Henry in because he was a single black male. At this point Jenny demanded to see the manager and quite clearly and categorically explained that the only reason they had an extra 14 mzungos through the door was because of Henry. It was a battle that Jenny won and Henry was finally allowed to join us.

The clientele were mostly white Kenyans who had the air of public school boys (think men with floppy hair and pastel v-neck jumpers slung over the shoulders of a polo shirt or, more unusually, a pink ‘Smurf’ t-shirt!), well-to-do Asians and a handful of well established black Kenyans, most of whom had white girlfriends. It was an odd mix of people and there was a slightly odd vibe…it certainly wasn’t a traditional African night out.

Despite the unusual clientele and the dodgy regulations at the door with regard to skin colour, we had a fantastic night out. Unfortunately, the DJ appeared a little unprepared for people hitting the D-floor until 3am as he ran out of music very early on and resorted to playing the same tracks three or four times each. Nevertheless, it was a great night out and a great send off for Henry.