And yet, one piece of advice I heard at the pickup-artist school turned out to be unexpectedly useful. One day, I complained to an instructor that I felt lonely, that relationships still were not working out, and that the classes had changed nothing. After listening to me, he said:
“You have money. Why don’t you just go somewhere—on some exotic tour, for example?”
The advice did not answer the question that had brought me to the school, but the idea itself caught my attention. Soon afterward, I visited the website of the Adventure Club, an organization I already knew from previous hiking trips. Among the available itineraries, I found a ten-day tour of Kenya, from December 28, 2019, to January 6, 2020. The program included an ascent of Point Lenana, a safari in the Maasai Mara National Reserve, and a New Year’s celebration in Africa. I liked the idea of spending those days in surroundings utterly unlike anything familiar to me. I signed up and bought Etihad Airways tickets with a long layover in Abu Dhabi. My flight was scheduled to depart from Domodedovo at 12:15 p.m. on December 26.
On the day of my departure, I was in no particular hurry. At around 10:25 a.m., about fifty minutes before check-in closed, I boarded a minibus near the Domodedovskaya metro station. The drive to the airport usually took about twenty-five minutes, so by my calculations I had plenty of time. But the minibus did not leave and sat there for almost half an hour. By the time it finally started moving, no more than twenty minutes remained before check-in closed.
All this time, I had been messaging a friend on Telegram and told him that I was stuck in the minibus. He replied:
“Igoryan, you’re not going to make it.”
By then, I knew that too. The closer we got to the airport, the more tense I became. With about five minutes left before check-in closed, I was still on the road and seriously thought the plane would leave without me. I was already running through the alternatives in my head: where I might find another flight and how much new tickets would cost.
That was precisely when Etihad Airways called me. An airline employee asked whether I intended to show up for check-in. I hurriedly replied that I would be there in five or ten minutes and was astonished to hear that they would wait for me. Just a minute earlier, I had been mentally preparing to buy new tickets; now I had another chance to catch my flight.
When I reached the airport, I jumped out of the minibus and ran to the check-in counter with my hiking backpack. The Etihad Airways employees really were still there, waiting specifically for me. They greeted me without reproach, quickly and courteously checked me in, and accepted my luggage. I then hurried through passport control and security. Only when I reached the departure lounge did I finally allow myself to stop and catch my breath. It seemed that the hardest part was over.
I went to a gate that I mistakenly thought was mine, sat down, and calmly waited for boarding, suspecting nothing. Time passed, but no boarding announcement came. At first I paid no attention, yet the minutes went by and still nothing was happening at the gate. Only then did I decide to check my boarding pass again and discover that I had confused the gate numbers.
I looked at the time—boarding for my flight had already ended. I was sure I had missed it for good. My recent relief instantly gave way to panic. Convinced that my only option now was to return to the public area of the airport and buy a new ticket, I began rushing around the departure zone, trying to find a way back through the checkpoint. My behavior attracted the staff’s attention. I tried to explain that I had missed my plane and wanted to leave, but they could not simply let me go back. They stopped me, led me into a staff room, and held on to my passport. I had no idea what would happen next. At that very moment, Etihad Airways called me again.
“Where have you been? The plane is waiting for you.”
It was a genuine wow moment. The flight I had already given up for lost was still waiting. I immediately found the staff members who had my passport, took it back, and ran to the correct gate. They let me onto the plane, and soon after I took my seat, the doors closed and the aircraft began to move. That was how my journey to Kenya began—with the feeling that I had missed the same flight twice and somehow still made it aboard.
The flight to Abu Dhabi was uneventful. My layover before the next flight lasted almost a full day, so I had booked a hotel room in advance and decided to explore the city while I was there. At the airport, I booked an economy-class taxi and was pleasantly surprised when a Lexus came to pick me up—the very first detail already hinted at Abu Dhabi’s wealth.
The hotel room was unexpectedly impressive too. For a relatively modest price, I got a room whose interior looked considerably more expensive than it was. It impressed me so much that I recorded a short video with commentary and sent it to the shared WhatsApp chat for the upcoming tour. I wanted to introduce myself to the group a little before we met in person.
After settling into the hotel, I went for a walk around Abu Dhabi. Despite the limited time, I managed to see its futuristic streets and experience the city’s atmosphere of technological sophistication and outward splendor.
The next morning, I returned to the airport well in advance and, this time, made it there on time. My hiking backpack had remained in transit: my luggage was checked through to Nairobi, so I did not have to carry the heavy gear from the hotel back to the airport. I completed the necessary formalities, boarded the plane, and flew from Abu Dhabi to Kenya.
After the gleam and scale of Abu Dhabi, Nairobi’s airport seemed small and rather modest. In the compact arrivals hall, I noticed a man with a backpack and thought he might well be on my tour. I approached him, we started talking, and my guess proved correct. His name was Kirill. He was from Saint Petersburg, older than me, and, like me, worked as a programmer.
We decided to travel together to the hotel where the rest of the group was due to assemble. Conversation with Kirill flowed easily from the start: before the tour itself had even begun, I had already met someone with whom I would share a substantial part of the journey.
After the two incidents at Domodedovo, both of which had made me think the trip was over before it began, simply being in Nairobi felt especially exhilarating. The savanna, Mount Kenya, and the wild animals I had previously only read about in the tour itinerary were now close at hand. At last, the journey was truly beginning.
When we reached the hotel, we finally met the other tour participants. While introducing myself, I said:
“Yes, yes, I’m the one who sent the video from Abu Dhabi.”
Only then did I learn that my video had made a mixed impression on the group. I no longer remember their exact words, but the gist was that at first they could not quite figure out what sort of strange fellow was joining them, and after meeting me in person they concluded that I was “actually all right, pretty normal.” It was an unexpected follow-up to the first impression I had made from afar.
The group itself was quite a varied bunch. Our guide immediately came across as experienced and knowledgeable. Kirill and I, having already found that we got along well on the way from the airport, were assigned to share a room.
Once the entire group had gathered, one participant immediately caught my attention: Dima T. He was sociable and open, so we quickly became acquainted and made friends. He looked like Yuri Dud, and I jokingly suggested that he must actually be Yuri Dud. Dima T. replied that I was not the first person to notice the resemblance, but added that he was Dima T. after all and would rather not be compared with Yuri Dud.
Before long, the guide invited us to take a walk around Nairobi and get to know the city a little. Kenya was the first country I had visited in sub-Saharan Africa—or, as we called it then, “real Africa.” For the first time, I found myself in a city where nearly everyone around me was Black, making me especially aware of just how far I had traveled from my familiar surroundings.
I remember Nairobi for its constant stream of people, its many Christian churches, and its street missionaries. The state of the traffic lights was particularly striking: at many intersections—on nearly every street we walked along, it seemed—they did not work at all. Yet cars kept moving, people crossed the roads, and the streams of traffic somehow sorted themselves out without the usual signals.
During the walk, Bogdan told us that it was possible to buy khat in Kenya—a plant with stimulant effects that, according to him, was sold quite legally there.
That evening, back in our room, Kirill and I remembered what Bogdan had said and decided to leave the hotel in search of khat.
We did indeed manage to find it. We bought some khat, brought it back to the hotel, and tried it. Before long, Bogdan himself joined us. And so, by evening, something we had heard about during our walk through Nairobi had turned into an adventure of its own.
The following evening, after another walk around the city, Kirill and I decided to visit a local cinema in central Nairobi. It was quite a long way from our hotel, but we chose to walk there. We picked Jumanji: The Next Level, which was shown in English. The screening ended late—somewhere between ten and eleven at night, though I no longer remember the exact time.
After leaving the cinema, we decided to walk back to the hotel as well. Almost immediately, however, police officers stopped us. They checked our passports and warned us that it was unsafe to walk through that neighborhood at night. We listened to them, but at first did not take the warning seriously enough and continued on our way.
After a while, a random passerby spoke to us and also advised us not to continue on foot. Following this second warning, we became genuinely uneasy and decided to call a car.
There was a church nearby with a security guard on duty outside. We approached him and asked once more whether the area truly was unsafe at night. He confirmed what the police officers and the passerby had said. We then asked him to keep an eye on us while we waited for our ride. An Uber soon arrived, and we returned safely to the hotel.
Finally, on December 29, the main part of our program began. Its first stage was an expedition up Mount Kenya and an ascent of Point Lenana—one of the massif’s three principal peaks, standing at 4,985 meters. The peak was named after Lenana, one of the best-known leaders of the Maasai, a people who have long inhabited the lands around Mount Kenya. Unlike the higher peaks of Batian (5,199 meters) and Nelion (5,188 meters), which require technical mountaineering skills, Point Lenana is considered the most accessible to trekkers. Even so, a serious physical challenge and breathtaking views of mountain ridges and boundless Kenyan plains lay ahead of us.
We traveled to the foot of the mountain by minibus. Beyond the windows stretched the magnificent savannas of East Africa, a region often called the cradle of humanity. The group was truly wonderful, bringing together people with different experiences and interests. On the road, we continued getting to know one another and talking.
Along the way, we crossed the equator. There, an unusual demonstration involving swirling water was staged for us. A few meters south of the equator, the water rotated clockwise; to the north, it rotated counterclockwise; and directly on the equator, it drained without any noticeable rotation. It all looked so convincing that no one in the group doubted what we were seeing. Only later did I learn that it was a tourist trick: the direction in which the water rotated was determined not by the Coriolis force but by the way the demonstration was performed. At the time, however, it made a powerful impression on us, after which we continued on our way.
When we reached the foot of Mount Kenya, we got out of the minibus and unloaded our belongings. Local porters were already waiting for us there. We transferred anything we might need during the hike into small backpacks to carry ourselves and handed the large ones to the porters. They divided the load among themselves and secured it to their backs, and once all the preparations were complete, we set off.
The porters moved much faster than we did and tried to reach each stop ahead of us. Consequently, everything we needed to rest was ready by the time we arrived, and a prepared meal awaited us. Among the things they had to carry was one rather unusual load: Bogdan, one of our group, had brought several cans of beer that he intended to drink at the summit. His plan made us smile in surprise, while the porters, unaware of what was inside the backpack, carried the beer uphill with the same diligence as all our other belongings.
The ascent of Point Lenana was planned over three days and included two nights in tent camps. Every day brought new impressions, and when darkness fell, we stopped for the night. Both nights, we slept in tents beneath a sky strewn with millions of stars. The Milky Way was so clear and distinct that it seemed close enough to touch. In those moments, time appeared to stand still, and we felt part of something majestic and boundless.
The second night was very short: we had to rise long before dawn. To help us fall asleep early and get some rest before setting out at night, the instructor even gave us sleeping pills.
At two in the morning on December 31, we woke up, ate breakfast, and began preparing for the final stretch. Before we set out, the instructor gave me and several other participants another kind of pill. I never found out what it was, but he said it was supposed to help us cope with the physical exertion ahead.
We hoped to reach the summit by sunrise. Despite the cold and our accumulated fatigue, the nearness of our goal gave us strength. Dawn found us still on the trail, and we reached Point Lenana a little later. The thin air made breathing difficult, but the view from the summit was worth every ounce of effort: Kilimanjaro rose majestically in the distance, its outline barely visible against the clear sky.
At the summit, we savored every moment: we took photographs, laughed, and tried to absorb the atmosphere around us. Before long, however, it was time to head back. After descending farther, we reached the campsite where we would stop and welcome the arrival of 2020. Another unusual encounter awaited us there: monkeys lived around the campsite and seemed to greet our arrival.
By midnight, the members of our group and the guide had gathered around the fire. Members of the local support team could be seen some distance away, though I no longer remember whether they joined the celebration. The monkeys remained nearby, and in those unusual surroundings we welcomed the arrival of 2020. The celebration included alcohol: I drank too, and afterward I became noticeably more uninhibited. I took a more active part in conversations, asked questions, joked and laughed, and spoke more boldly with the other members of the group.
I particularly remember a conversation with one participant who, as it turned out, was a physicist. I began talking to him about consciousness and freedom of choice, insisting that they could not be accommodated within an entirely deterministic picture of the world: if everything is predetermined by preceding physical causes, then such a system simply leaves no room for genuine choice. He understood the problem I was describing and agreed that the contradiction truly existed. He then suggested looking at quantum mechanics, where, according to him, strict determinism no longer applies. Perhaps, he speculated, some connection to the problem of consciousness and freedom of choice might be found there.
What mattered most to me was his reaction. Someone who understood physics immediately followed my reasoning, recognized a real problem in it, and took it seriously. Thanks to that conversation, I realized that the relationship between the physical structure of the world, consciousness, and freedom of choice genuinely concerned people familiar with the foundations of physics and remained an open subject of reflection and debate.
Celebrating New Year’s in such surroundings brought us even closer together. Fatigue mingled with joy, wonder, and delight, turning that night into one of the most unusual and memorable celebrations of my life.
On the morning of January 1, after our New Year’s celebration, we continued our descent. To make the journey more entertaining, someone suggested playing yes-or-no riddles. One person described an unusual situation, and the others had to reconstruct what had happened by asking questions that could only be answered with “yes” or “no.” I had always loved such logic puzzles and made a point of remembering the most interesting ones. I eagerly joined in, and amid questions, guesses, and laughter, the descent became much more enjoyable.
At one point, we discovered that we had lost Kirill. He soon turned up, however: it turned out that he had become absorbed in examining the local plants during the descent and had fallen behind the group without noticing. Kirill was interested in botany, so the surrounding plant life fascinated him no less than the climb itself.
After completing the descent, we finished the mountain portion of our journey. The next stage of the program was a three-day safari, which revealed an entirely different Kenya to us. We stayed in cozy bungalows nestled in greenery right inside the safari park. Each morning, as soon as the sun began to gild the treetops, we split between two jeeps and set out into the park to observe animals in their natural habitat.
One of the most memorable events of the safari was our encounter with a pride of lions. The male sat apart, majestically surveying the surroundings as though guarding his domain. The lionesses rested nearby—graceful and strong, embodiments of quiet power. As we watched the animals, the guide explained the organization of the pride: how the lionesses hunt and care for the cubs while the male protects the territory. Everything appeared calm from the outside, but the guide’s account revealed the complex life of the pride, with its internal order and division of roles.
Wildebeest grazed peacefully on the boundless plains, moving slowly through the tall grass. Their dark silhouettes blended so naturally into the surrounding landscape that they seemed an inseparable part of it. We saw other antelopes nearby as well, sometimes alone and sometimes in small herds. They paid almost no attention to our presence, allowing us to observe them quietly from the jeeps.
We also encountered elephants moving unhurriedly among the shrubs and tall grass very close to our jeeps. From such a short distance, their enormous size, composure, and confidence in every movement were especially palpable. All kinds of birds constantly circled above the plains and near the watering holes—large and small, familiar and unknown to us. Flamingos stood out in particular, gathering by the water and coloring part of the landscape pink.
Crossing the border between Kenya and Tanzania was an event in its own right. On the Tanzanian side, we saw hippos resting in the water. From time to time, they snorted noisily, surfaced briefly, and then submerged almost completely again. A crocodile lay motionless on the nearby bank, basking lazily in the sun. The entire scene looked remarkably calm and almost serene.
When we returned to Kenya, giraffes greeted us, stretching their long necks toward the treetops. They moved leisurely among the greenery, easily reaching branches inaccessible to other animals.
We were especially lucky to see a cheetah. As we learned, spotting one on safari was far from guaranteed. The guides therefore remained in constant radio contact: if the crew of one jeep found a cheetah, the information was immediately relayed to everyone else.
At one point, a message came over the radio that a cheetah had been found. Our jeep headed toward the indicated location along with the other vehicles, and soon several groups had gathered around a tree. A cheetah really was lying on one of its branches, resting calmly above the heads of the many observers.
Over three days of safari, an entire world unfolded before us, one in which every inhabitant occupied its own place and was connected to the natural environment. It felt as though scenes from nature documentaries had come alive and were now playing out directly before our eyes. We watched the animals in their natural habitat, living by their own rhythms and laws. The chance to be so close to this vast and complex world became one of the most powerful impressions of the entire journey.
After the safari, we were taken to a Maasai settlement. Until then, I had known their way of life mainly through books and documentaries, so the opportunity to see everything with my own eyes was especially fascinating. We were able to walk through the settlement, look inside its residents’ homes, and learn about several aspects of their traditional way of life.
One of the most memorable moments was meeting the local chief’s son, with whom I had my photograph taken. For me, that picture preserved the memory of how openly we were welcomed into the settlement and the dignity with which its residents spoke about their lives, customs, and traditions.
They then showed us the traditional way of making fire without matches or lighters, using several wooden sticks. Every movement was so precise and assured that the difficult process seemed almost routine. We watched as friction gradually produced smoke and then a real flame appeared. Seeing a person create fire from a few simple pieces of wood was truly astonishing.
Afterward, we looked inside the Maasai homes. Their frames were assembled from wooden poles and branches, and their walls were coated with a dense mixture containing cow dung. It was dark inside, and the rooms themselves seemed very small. Despite their outward simplicity, these dwellings were adapted to local conditions and built almost entirely from materials found nearby. Their design embodied knowledge accumulated and passed down from generation to generation: an ability to understand the surrounding environment and find within it everything necessary for life.
The Maasai are an East African people living primarily in southern Kenya and northern Tanzania. Pastoralism lies at the heart of their traditional way of life: herds occupy a central place not only in the economy but also in society, while the search for water and fresh pasture has shaped seasonal movement for centuries. Many communities still preserve elements of this way of life, their customs, and their cultural traditions while also participating in the modern life of Kenya and Tanzania.
For me, visiting the settlement became much more than another stop on the journey. The design of the homes, people’s relationship with their livestock, their use of natural materials, and their preservation of tradition revealed a coherent way of life directly connected to the land and the surrounding environment. I was particularly impressed by the dignity and confidence with which the residents introduced us to their lives. The encounter made me reflect on how outward simplicity does not imply a lack of depth: behind it may lie knowledge accumulated over generations, inner strength, and a distinct understanding of freedom. This is how the experience remained in my memory—alive and full of meaning.
Once the tour was over, we returned to Nairobi and began going our separate ways home. I again flew with Etihad Airways and, after a layover in Abu Dhabi, made it safely back to Moscow.
Later, however, Dima T. told us in the group chat that his journey home had taken a far more unexpected turn. After departing Nairobi, he fell asleep. While Dima T. slept, the plane stopped in Zanzibar to refuel. When he woke up and saw that the aircraft had landed, he assumed that he had reached his destination, gathered his belongings, and got off. Only once he was inside the airport did Dima T. realize that he was in Zanzibar and that the plane was supposed to continue onward.
He was not allowed back on board: doing so would have required him to repeat the necessary check-in procedures, and there was no time left for them. The plane therefore departed without him, and Dima had to find another ticket. I no longer remember the precise route of his subsequent flight, but he was lucky enough to reach Moscow in business class after buying the ticket for roughly the price of an ordinary flight.
And so the journey that had begun for me with two close calls involving the same flight acquired an unexpected aviation epilogue involving another member of our group. Dima T. himself summed up the story in the briefest possible terms:
“I’m never setting foot in Zanzibar again.”
