A night in Nairobi

It’s an intense, intoxicating land and I love it. But that doesn’t go for East Africa’s principal city, Nairobi. Dusty, dirty and ugly, this is no place to linger. So, when, at the tail end of an adventure, I’m stranded here for a night, I head for the sanctuary of the Norfolk Hotel.

While there are newer, smarter and cheaper hotels in town, none match the Norfolk for nostalgia. The Norfolk was Nairobi’s first hotel, opening for business on Christmas Day, 1904. In those days, Nairobi was the last stop on the colonial railway, before it ground its way up the escarpment.

The Norfolk was where the new colonial settlers stayed as they negotiated purchases of farmland in the north, in a region that became nicknamed the White Highlands. Ascending the steps into the Norfolk’s grand lobby, past the ranks of uniformed bellboys, I feel as if I’m walking into a period film set. Strolling through the cool courtyards and leafy gardens, reminiscent of an Oxbridge college, the edge and aggression of the streets outside seem instantly light years away.

Every place has an optimal hour and Nairobi’s best moment is dusk. This is when the traffic and crowds disperse, the dust settles and the evening ahead offers promise. Mine starts with a Tusker beer at the Lord Delamere Terrace Bar. There’s history in both the beer and the bar.

The beer is called ‘Tusker’ in cold-humoured tribute to the brewery’s co-founder, who was killed by an elephant while out hunting. Meanwhile, the Terrace Bar is named after the third Baron Delamere, Hugh Cholmondeley, who arrived in Kenya in 1897, having ridden there from Somalia by camel.

The first wave of colonial settlers to arrive in Kenya was a motley bunch and Lord Delamere was their natural, if unofficial, leader. Small, muscular, physical and eccentric, Delamere’s party tricks included riding into the Norfolk on horseback and then jumping over the restaurant tables and shooting down bottles off the bar. A man of honour, he would scrupulously have the damages added to his bill, although when a manager once had the temerity to call last orders, Delamere locked him overnight in the meat store.

White mischief in Happy Valley

The 1920s and ’30s were Nairobi’s social heyday, when the settlers travelled in from their farms intent on serious partying. The highlight of their calendar was Race Week, when it was impossible to get a room at the Norfolk and wild parties were held out at the Muthaiga Club.

It was also during this era that the White Highlands acquired a new sobriquet, Happy Valley, with reference to its reputation as a sensual pleasure zone of drink, drugs and sex. Back in London, they rather enviously asked, ‘Are you married or do you live in Kenya?’

The high priests of this libidinous society were the dashing Earl of Erroll, Josslyn Hay, who shortly after being expelled from Eton had eloped to Kenya with a married woman, and Raymond de Trafford, a British army officer who came out to Kenya to hunt gorillas and women. They thought they’d discovered free love and for a while they had, but it burned them in the end, as it always does. Hay was murdered by a jealous husband and De Trafford ended up a bankrupt alcoholic.

Even when I’m travelling alone, I make a rule of taking my evening meal seriously and never in the hotel where I’m staying. So, I catch a taxi over to the Tamarind restaurant. Though I’ve eaten here half a dozen times, I wouldn’t have a clue how to find it: it’s hidden away somewhere in the depths of the business district, in a square of tall office blocks that are dark and deserted at night. It’s only when I pass through the heavy iron security grille into the busy dining room, that I realise I’m there.

"Kenya’s on the up and the Tamarind’s buzzing"

I first found the Tamarind in the early 1990s, when times in Kenya were tough. The restaurant then was empty and forlorn, but the chef still heroically served up oysters and fresh tuna, winning my loyalty. Now, buoyed by good harvests and returning tourists, Kenya’s on the up and the Tamarind’s buzzing.

I order sashimi and crayfish, accompanied by South African wine. Life’s good and I’m too drunk to notice the prices. After a few drinks, it’s tempting to look back on Kenya’s colonial past with a generous eye, admiring the settlers for their pioneering spirit and rowdy spunk. But that’s only if you’re blind to the consequences.

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Published courtesy of the Out There Travel Guide

Though it started in 1952 as a campaign of civil disobedience, things rapidly escalated when the British colonial administration responded by imposing a state of emergency and imported thousands of troops. When the civil war ended five years later, 123 British farmers and soldiers had been killed, plus 2000 pro-British Africans and up to 50 000 Mau Mau rebels and supporters.

Though the Mau Mau revolt failed in the immediate sense, it did successfully set in motion the steps that led to Kenya’s independence in 1963. Mind you, once the Kenyans had won their independence, they proceeded to mess it all up.

Dinner over, I take a taxi back to the hotel, the driver gingerly skirting around the numerous potholes, some of which look deep enough to swallow the car. Even darkness can’t hide the fact that Nairobi is dilapidated and decaying. Despite huge infrastructure contracts and generous dollops of financial aid, little of the money has ever trickled down to fill the holes in the street.

"Everyone's anti-graft till they get their turn"

Meanwhile, the country’s former President Daniel arap Moi allegedly salted away several billion US dollars during his 25 years in charge. Moi was eventually ousted in the 2002 elections by a new party campaigning under the optimistic banner of the National Rainbow Coalition and a manifesto to root out corruption.

A far cry from the squalid slums of Nairobi.

Since then, the holes in the roads have only become deeper, and the new president and his cronies have been implicated in huge financial scams and bogus contracts. It would appear that everyone’s anti-graft till they get their turn at the trough.

My evening ends back at the Norfolk Hotel, with one last drink on the terrace. It’s reached that stage of the evening when one’s given to reflection, which feels profound but is actually piffle and won’t be remembered in the morning.

As I lounge in luxury, a few kilometres away, one-third of the city’s population lives in appalling squalor in the largest shantytown in Africa. Also staying nearby, in the equally grim circumstances of Kamiti Maximum Security Prison, is Lord Delamere’s great grandson, Thomas Cholmondeley.

One of Kenya’s few remaining white farmers, Cholmondeley shot dead a local black man, claiming self-defence. However, his case isn’t helped by the fact this is the second time he’s done it. Africa is a continent of contrasts, where tomorrow could be the finest day of your life or just as easily your last. Because of, not despite, that, I love it. Mind you, at this stage of the evening, I even like Nairobi.

For more info...
• The Norfolk Hotel is in Harry Thuku Road. Visit their website or email kenya.reservations@fairmont.com.
• You'll find Tamarind in the National Bank Building, off Haile Selassie Avenue.