Setting up base in Nairobi!

I’m in Nairobi! After a brief detour in Switzerland and some truly awful traffic (Nairobi has the second worst in the world!) I made it to my base in Nairobi.

Fortunately for me, this is my parent’s house in an area of town called Gigiri. They’ve lived here for many years and have kindly offered to let me stay here when in Nairobi to A) save some cash and B) have a workspace with some decent internet — ‘decent’ of course being a term relative to Africa. My primary month of filming runs from June 20 to July 23, during which I’ll be climbing Mt. Meru, Mt. Kilimanjaro, and Mt. Kenya back to back to back with little to no respite. In preparation for that rather grueling period, I’ll spend the next month mostly based here in Nairobi doing several things. I’ll be finalizing logistics such as equipment lists and permits; for example, I just finished submitting a film permit to the Kenya Wildlife Service that asked me to submit a final version of the film in VHS format; either their form is out of date, or (more likely) they’ve never felt like upgrading their system. I have already (in the day and half that I’ve been here) touched base with an experience filmmaker who lives here in Nairobi and is helping me arrange interviews and with a local Kenyan climbing guide, Samson, who will be going on several smaller expeditions with me to film and research for my story. Later this week we will be heading out to Lukenya, a small mountain about two hours from Nairobi where Samson guides.

I’m excited to get this show on the road and I’ll keep you updated! In the meantime, here’s my minimalist mountain filmmaker camera rig: