Morning at the Kozhi Airport Hotel
Good day on May 9th, 2026. I woke up in the Kozhi Airport Hotel (K-O-Z-H-I). I obviously needed to have breakfast on top of this place. They had great coffee. It was just a really very well set up guest house, hotel, hostel — whatever you want to call it. But very, very nice indeed. It’s a little bit tricky to get there, but since I was driving and I don’t mind so much the roads with potholes, that all worked out.
Why I Rented a Car in Kenya
So why did I get the car? Well, I got the car because I only have 3 days in Kenya and wanted to have this special stop. The first reason is to visit Lake Naivasha. Lake Naivasha is about a 2-hour drive from Nairobi, depending on how fast you drive. That would have been a bit of a pickle to get there, especially since I have probably 2 more suitcases than I normally would. So a car comes in really handy.
Navigating Kenyan Roads
I did not have a location device in the car, so I was relying on my phone since the Garmin was packed in my suitcase. That was a new adventure. I took the main roads and was trying to avoid toll roads, but then I got a message from Steven, the person that helped me with the car, that the car is ETC equipped. That means I can just pass through the toll roads and they’ll settle up at the end — a lot of convenience.
The African roads in Kenya are no different from elsewhere on the continent. You just have to always be careful. It’s just more the African way — you expect more of the unexpected. It was a beautiful ride, absolutely beautiful, to get to Naivasha.
The Wise Card Challenge in Kenya
The town of Naivasha was a little bit past where I needed to be, but one of the things I wanted to do was get some Kenyan money since I had arrived late at night and didn’t exchange money at the airport. I went to a bank in Naivasha to use my Wise card. Well, not so fast — that didn’t work. I went to another bank, and it didn’t work either. Long story short, my Wise card was not serviceable in Kenya.
It may have to do with the fact that the amount of Kenya shillings you get for $1 is humongous, making it hard for machines to accommodate that much paper. Fortunately, I can still pay with a regular credit card — I just can’t get any cash. It’s happened before, but no worries.
Arriving at Sanctuary Farm on Lake Naivasha
Now it was time to go to the Sanctuary Farm. Why am I going there? Well, back in the beginning of April when I was in Mozambique, I ran into people who had done 3 weeks on the Save River in canoes for the Wilderness Project. One of those people was Quilly. Quilly’s dad runs Sanctuary Farm on Lake Naivasha, and she grew up there. While she hadn’t explained too much about it, I found it online and really just needed to go. It was absolutely inviting, and I was looking forward to exploring what it was all about.
First Night at the Farm
I made it to the farm in time before darkness. It’s about 450 acres of farm, and there is a lot more to it than meets the eye. I had booked a little house for the second night, but there were no openings for the first night. The solution was that I could rent a tent with a bed already set up inside — all I needed to do was get my stuff in there.
It’s really neat to first drive along a lot of hotel-like situations on Lake Naivasha and then end up in a place that’s 450 acres where you can roam around. It was a truly welcoming place. More about that tomorrow. Thanks for coming along.
