The world is filled with different cultures that vary greatly as you travel from one place to another. Fortunately, I have been lucky enough to experience quite a few. But none I have experienced so far has compared to that of Kenya. Kenya seems to have an invisible energy that keeps the nation in sync. It lives and breaths just like everyone that is a part of it, like an invisible pulse that beats to the sound of the empty plains of Africa but with an intensity that keeps the city alive long after the sun has set. It’s hard to see this when you first arrive, but you know that there is something there, something that you can’t quite put your finger on, but you feel it nevertheless.

Nairobi is the capital city of Kenya and the heart of the nation. When April and I first arrived, this is where we set up a base for a couple of months as we explored the surrounding areas. As free-spirited and adventurous as we are, we’re cautious travellers. Whenever we arrive in a new city/country, it generally takes us a couple of days to suss a place before we genuinely relax in our surroundings. We’ve always felt this is a sensible approach to travel, and to this day, it has served us well. Make note here how I said ”a couple of days”. We have travelled all over the world, and two days have always been plenty for us to get a strong enough feel for where we are and fully relax. In Nairobi, it took us two weeks!

Kenya is not classified as a third-world nation, but 80% of its population lives below the poverty line; of those, 17% live off less than $2 a day. It is a country contrasted by a metropolis and third-worldesque sense of living. You’ll be in a cinema complex on the top floor of a multi-level shopping centre one minute and driving past one of the largest shanty towns in Africa the next. With this level of close integration between the rich and the poor, you’ll understand why it’s hard to truly relax when it’s hard to distinguish from which extreme people around you are from.

Now before I continue, I want to make one thing abundantly clear. 99% of the people we met during our entire time in Kenya were polite, kind and welcoming and would do anything to help you. And apart from the odd taxi driver, which I think is a common theme throughout the world, we didn’t experience any issues.

That being said, Kenya is a place where you need to keep your wits about you. If you walk into the wrong neighbourhood at night looking like a tourist with your fancy Apple Watch and sparkling jewellery, you’re asking to be robbed. But exercise a reasonable level of common sense, and you’ll have the time of your life.

This is what took me so long to find my pace in Nairobi. The non-stop contradictions just kept throwing me off my game. But when it finally clicked, everything fell into place. Like when that song comes on at a nightclub, and everyone starts jumping up and down to the same beat in perfect synchronicity, the crowd pulsing as one as if it were a single living organism. This is what it’s like when you find the pulse of Kenya.

From this moment on, everything changed. My confidence increased but without losing wares. I was more relaxed, and I was able to enjoy myself more. But beyond these common traits that I feel everywhere, there was an awareness of the lifeblood of Kenya. It was as if I was seeing beyond the Matrix. Kenya has an underbelly with which, once exposed, you just can’t help but fall in love. It’s not something you can go looking for. It's something that will reveal itself to you when both it and you are ready. This is something I will forever be grateful for experiencing and what will have me return time and time again.