déjà vu but new

So, here’s the thing.

There’s a great deal of comfort in returning to a destination, especially when traveling solo—the familiarity of the experience, suddenly fresh in my mind, calms down the nerves that, even after so many years of faraway travels, inevitably come over me for days leading up to departure.

The key is to add somewhere new to the well-trodden, and the excitement is once again palpable.

For this next one, it hits such a sweet, sweet spot—I’ll land in Mombasa, an airport I now know well; I can see it in my mind’s eye. I’ll head over to the ATM (the one to the left once you exit, not the dodgy one to the right), and then straight over to Safaricom right across to load my SIM and add cash to my M-Pesa.

Then, on to the domestic terminal; many anticipated security checks later, I’ll board the one flight over to Lamu. And herein lies the new (ha!). Here I know little to nothing, and that’s the best feeling—I have the frame of reference, my familiarity with the country and how things generally work, but at an entirely new-to-me destination.

Here’s to another adventure, déjà vu but new.