Art Caffe turned out to be very Bay Area hipster with a menu full of healthy smoothies, globally inspired dishes and an airy, casually affluent ambiance. James ate with the kind of refined, effortless precision that made me vaguely self conscious about how loudly I was slurping at my chia firecracker smoothie, though not self conscious enough to stop doing so.
When the bill came and I told the waiter to split the bill James made a face at me like I was being ridiculous and told the waiter to put everything on one bill. "She just had a smoothie," He said. Turning back to me he flashed the most disarming, panty dropping smile I'd ever seen. "Just let me."
"Let you what?"
He met my gaze very deliberately, the edge of his lips still curled up mischievously. "Take you out on a date."
"And that means paying for everything?"
He shrugged. "Sure."
"Why?"
"So it's clear that this is in fact a date."
I hadn't expected that and though I had follow up thoughts about why that particular gesture made it more of a date I couldn't find the words in time. Nor was I sure I wanted to. He seemed so happy with himself and I was so attracted to him I swallowed the usual diatribe I would have gone on about why the guy paying for everything was dated and, frankly, misogynistic. Instead, like some teenager, I revelled in the little thrill I got from him saying that we were on a date and spent far too much time dwelling on the shape of his lips, the brightness of his skin and the pale green of his eyes.
It took about an hour and a half to get to Longonot and in that time the city exchanged itself for lush green countryside and the skyscrapers of Nairobi were replaced by huts along the side of the road. At first I didn't pay much attention. I thought it all looked like versions of things I had seen before in other countries. Maybe the dirt was a little redder and I didn't have names for some of the trees I was seeing but it was surprisingly similar to places I had seen in South America and Asia. In fact, it felt like a mishmash of the two places. But then... then we descended into a valley and I saw an expanse to one side of me - vast and verdant, almost endless, with Longonot visible in the distance, hazy and enormous, a sloping volcano sleepily and gradually rising up to scrape a few low, wispy clouds - and a wall of crumbling rock on the other side of me. I realized that there were no guard rails, just road, thin air and a fall the height of which I had trouble quantifying. My breath caught in my throat.
"It's great, isn't it?" James said.
"Yeah," I exhaled.
"The hike I like to do is up to the top then around the volcano," He pointed out the window, "You'll get a view of the whole area from up there and you'll get to see inside the volcano. It's hard to describe, but you'll get it when you see it. It's full of trees and it looks almost like a green lake."
I watched James for a moment admiring the way he drove with such easy confidence. In Nairobi he had navigated some pretty dense traffic without getting angry or tense and now, on this road without guardrails, he seemed perfectly at ease.
"Do you have any terrible habits?" I blurted once we were back on level ground.
His eyebrows shot up and he laughed. "What a question." He drummed his long fingers on his steering wheel. "Well, how about this one?" He grinned and I had a feeling whatever he was about to say was just going to make me like him more. "I watch insufferably artistic films. The kind that normally make people just fall right asleep and I love them. Can't get enough of them and as a result no one ever wants to go to the movies with me."
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Nairobi Dreaming - Complete!
सामान्य साहित्यUniversity friends Luisa and Kay reunite in Nairobi after a year apart to do some feel good volunteering but their friendship and the trip begin to unravel the moment they meet a strikingly handsome British philanthropist and a Ghanaian entrepreneur...
