I emailed Kenned several times over the last few days and have been anxiously waiting to hear back from him. Anyone hear from him?
Ilene

Ilene, I heard from him about 3-4 days ago. Haven't tried to contact him since. I sent you an email with a few more details. He may very well be having trouble accessing internet. Please let me know the outcome.

I've sent him an email too

He was supposed to pick up my family for about 4 hours of transportation during a 7 hour layover I had in Nairobi on Saturday (the 5th). On Friday, I sent him an email from Rwanda informing him we were cancelling his services due to the situation. (We just stayed in the airport for the layover.)

I was informed by phone on Saturday morning that he responded to my email acknowledging our cancellation and saying that he understood our decision, but I did not actually see the email.

During our layover at the Nairobi airport the internet was slow but working.

Van

Welcome back, sevendown! How was your KQ NBO-CDG flight?

Hi Patty.

When I recover I hope to find time to make a more detailed trip report. But in the mean time I can say the Kenya Airways 767 business class is great. In fact, out of the four business class cabins (Delta 767, KLM MD-11, Kenya Airways 767 and Air France 777), I preferred Kenya Airways the most.

Our first experience with KQ 767 business class was actually on the flight from Kigali to Nairobi (1 stop in Bujumbura). The configuration is four rows of 2-1-2. We were fresh on that flight and could fully explore the seats, controls, etc. There is a small compartment in front of you on the floor where you can store your shoes or a small carry-on bag. Also, the overhead storage is huge and the bins come down far entough to allow easy access during the flight.

Our 7 hour layover in the Nairobi airport turned into a 9.5 hour layover when the NBO-CDG flight was delayed by a couple of hours (I never learned the reason). So having been travelling since 6 a.m. Kenya time that day, we were very tired when the plane finally took off at 2:00 a.m. But the lie-flat seat was great and easily operated. (I never did figure out all the controls on the AF seat, which is not a true lie-flat seat.) I had no trouble sleeping for the whole flight on KQ. I was a bit groggy from a sleeping pill when they served breakfast, so I can't even remember the quality, but I think it was very good. I was very comfortable with no stiff joints, aches, etc. on the KQ flight. It was just like a bed.

The KQ delay caused us to have to rush through the change of terminals at CDG, and by the time we arrived at our departing gate we had about 15-20 mins to shop at CDG before we had to board our flight to Houston. As a consequence, our checked bags got to spend an extra day holiday in Paris, but I expect them to be delivered to me today.

That's great to hear, thanks! I saw the delay on flightstats and had wondered if you'd made your connection at CDG. Glad to hear everything was fine and looking forward to your report.

One more quick question, did you need to reconfirm your return flight with KQ?

I never asked anyone if I needed to re-confirm the flights. But I did so anyway just to be safe. I confirmed them once about 3 weeks before and then again the day before.

Thanks, just so I'm clear, when you say day before, did you mean day before your outbound or return?

I re-confirmed on Jan 4, the day before my return on the KQ flights (KGL-NBO and NBO-CDG) on the 5th.

I just got on the KQ website and looked up the local number in Rwanda for KQ and called them there and they confirmed everything was still operating and they showed all of our reservations. (The english of the operator was not that great, so I ended up handing the phone to my driver, whose english matched the operators -- both poor, but they understood each other.)

One thing that surprised me on this trip was the use of cell phones everywhere. Everyone had them and everyone was using them. I could get reception just about everywhere I went. Only at our camp in the Serengeti was it spotty, but even there the camp manager showed me a fallen tree limb to climb up where he said they got good signals. It worked.

I didn't do it, but If I had wanted to I could have called my mom in Dallas while following a lion hunt in the Serengeti or sitting 6 feet from a silverback gorilla in the mountains of Rwanda.

Sevendown,

I am sure your travel companions appreciated your restraint with the cell phone.

Thanks again!

Lynn -- I of course wouldn't have even thought of using my cell phone in those situations, and in fact, although I took my phone with me just in case of emergency, I kept it at the bottom of my luggage and only used it on the day we arrived (to tell family members at home we made it there) and in the airport on the day we were leaving (to tell family members we were in Nairobi, but were safe and not leaving the airport during our layover). It was a another guest in our camp in the Serengeti who went up the tree and found the signal to use his blackberry.

I purposely avoided using my phone the whole trip because to me it really takes away from the "in the wild" experience to think I can easily communicate with anyone, anywhere. But that is the way the world is going, even in remote Africa. C'est la vie.

Maybe a new market for the cell phone scrambler industry?

Sevendown,
So you had a sighting of the tree climbing blackberry user?

Soon, I bet orientation on rules in the vehicle will have to specifically address cell phones.

Looking forward to the report when you are settled in back home again.

OK..this is going to sound really ignorant, but I didn't think our cell phones would work in Africa. Don't you need a special kind of plan to get service over there? We have Verizon. Please advise to the technically challenged.

If you have a "world" phone (I think it is called a "quad band&quot then it will work fine. With AT&T I had to call and ask them to turn on the international feature on my account (no charge), which I did several years ago and I don't have to do again.

So it depends on what phone you have. I believe most of the phones sold these days will work. My best advice would be to call your phone company.

Others on here know a lot more about this than I do, so please, add your thoughts.

You need a GSM phone with 900/1800 MHz frequencies. In the US, AT&T and T-Mobile are GSM so it's likely that your current phone will work. Verizon is CDMA but some of the phones they sell are also GSM capable. You need to check your specific model. If you have the correct GSM frequencies, then the easiest method is to just call your wireless provider and have them activate international roaming. Their per minute rates can be high, but you keep your US number. Your other option is to get the phone unlocked and buy a local SIM and airtime on arrival. The per minute rates will be lower but you'll have a new local number (other people calling you will have to pay long distance). If you don't have a compatible phone, you'll need to rent or buy one.

For Verizon information, start here
http://mobileoptions.vzw.com/interna...one/index.html

Can somebody provide Kennedy's email address? We will have an 8 hour layover in Nairobi in a couple of weeks and want to see if he's available.