Africa,  Kenya,  Photography,  Wildlife

Africa Underway – Trouble On The Streets Of Nairobi

July 17, 2024 /

Nairobi, Tuesday 7am. Darkness lifts as we progress slowly through passport control and baggage reclaim, then out into the melee of taxis, buses and safari jeeps clamouring for passengers or waiting for someone to spot their name on a board and head out under the big morning sky.

The expressway from airport to city is a racetrack of vehicles constantly changing lanes and squeezing through gaps which are barely there. Alongside and parallel, huge numbers of people make their way on foot to their workplace, giving the industrial quarter the look of an African Lowry painting, stick figures jostling through crowds in every direction. We are met at our one-nighter hotel with beaming smiles which light up faces and give an extra sparkle to already friendly eyes; then to our delight a small fee buys us early check-in and includes an amazing breakfast of honey roast pumpkin, mango pickle, spicy chicken wings and biryani. This is a welcome to Kenya to warm the heart as well as the stomach. 

Streets of Nairobi

It isn’t long before the tone of the day takes a significant change, though, and our first 24 in Nairobi turns into something entirely different. Enquiring whether the concierge can supply a city centre map, we are greeted with the response that today is not a good day to be leaving the hotel unless you’re leaving the city altogether: armed soldiers are already filling the streets in anticipation of violent anti-Government protests, and our blunt advice is to not venture out at all unless it’s by taxi. 

Sure enough, when we look down just a short while later from the hotel rooftop, tear gas canisters are being fired by police and army alike, pungent smoke is drifting up from the streets and the sound of an angry mob echoes from the lofty walls of the city buildings. Government enforcers armed with rifles, sticks and shields charge at the scattering protesters, regularly firing tear gas right into the heart of the crowd. We’re safe on the roof, but even up here our eyes, noses and throats sting if the breeze carries the gas in our direction.

Tear gas as tensions mount

Tension and violence come in waves and in partnership. Watching from our rooftop vantage point is incongruously calm given the violence unfolding below, we are voyeurs of someone else’s conflict, taken aback yet able to escape the gas and serenely order a plate of samosas while gunfire still echoes through the streets just yards away.

A bit close for comfort

The battle is joined by hulking Police water cannons driving back the crowds with jets of water dyed pink which simultaneously floods and stains the streets, successfully dividing and conquering the crowds. But they are not dispersed easily and the confrontation carries on for most of the day, now and again peaking with noise as rounds of live ammunition are fired into the air, joining the loud crack of tear gas guns as tensions threaten to boil over into something even worse. Sirens wail, voices rise and fall in angry unison. Young protesters goad the soldiers, then run from the inevitable retaliation, seeking refuge around corners before returning for more of the same.

The water cannons arrive

Kenyan TV is beaming live coverage from the streets below: we learn later that there has been a fatality in protests in another town, indicating that, despite all we see, Nairobi is perhaps not the eye of today’s storm.

We knew before arriving here that there had been protests recently, but today has been an unexpected, for us at least, resurrection of violent conflict. The first day of our long journey through Africa has been…shall we say….different.

Firing the dyed water at protesters

As you would expect, we choose to take our evening meal in the safety of the hotel restaurant, and once again the bizarrely incongruous nature of the day is all too evident: the convivial atmosphere of a restaurant full of visitors from afar at complete odds with the scenes which have been unfolding outside. It’s almost as if we’ve been watching newsreels – yet of course it’s been very real. Staff still smile sweetly, their eyes once again sparkling, yet a few yards from the door their kid brother may just be embroiled in the wars of the street.

The depth of anti Government and anti President feeling is palpable, particularly amongst those youngsters styling themselves as the Kenyan Gen Z, and it’s therefore hard to believe that these tensions will be extinguished any time soon. It’s probably a good thing that we are moving on from the city quickly. In the end, it has to be a first for us – the first 24 hours of a trip spent without ever leaving our lodgings. Next morning it’s a 6am breakfast, ready to be collected for the start of our 7-day safari, and after a short visit to the operators’ office to part with a large wad of American dollars which has been a worry to carry around, we join our travelling companions for the next few days and head out of town.

Our driver points out a certain group of policemen, saying that they are the ones to avoid. “Argue with them and they shoot you. Live ammunition. Those guys are happy to kill their own people”. I guess we’ve been warned.

It’s rained heavily overnight, pools of rainwater mingle with the pink dye from yesterday and at the same time conceal potholes in the streets. As our safari minibus hits the road, city gives way to ramshackle shanty town suburbs, then soon we are on our way out through the greenery, climbing steep highways where heavy trucks labour to make the gradient. The troubled streets of Nairobi are behind us.


Ninety minutes or so later we are on a road clinging precariously to the side of the mountain: this is the cusp of the Great Rift Valley, an incredible natural phenomenon which stretches 9,600 kilometres from Mozambique to the Red Sea. When we call in at a vantage point though, the whole scene is shrouded in dense cloud which hugs the valley below and completely hides what is undoubtedly a fantastic sight on a clear day. Can’t win ‘em all, we suppose.

The Great Rift Valley is down there somewhere
Clearing slightly

Eventually, beyond the busy town of Narok, we leave the good roads and commence a 2-hour stretch along boneshaking dirt roads, the scenes before us becoming picture book Africa. We aren’t even on safari yet – not officially anyway – but already the sights are unfolding. Over to our right, a pair of ostriches feed in the grasses and within a few more yards a pair of zebras casually cross the track in front of the bus; next, majestic giraffes graze from the branches of trees unfazed by our presence. Exotic wildlife is already showing itself and we’re still only on our way.


Yes, those troubled streets of Nairobi are well behind us now. We’re on our way to the Masai Mara.

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