Pesa

Like I mentioned before, the Kenyan currency is Kenyan Shilling (KES).

1 € = KES 104.

$1 = KES 91.

Most of the people pay with cash instead of credit cards and the mobile service for payment transfers, M-Pesa, is widely used (East Africans are better at this than Finns...).

So what is the price range in Kenya?

The rent for my room in a five-room apartment with a shared bathroom is KES 30 000, which is about 290 € ($329). If you didn't see the pictures of the flat, check them in the earlier post here.

A bus ride to work (short distance) is 20 shillings, or bobs, as they are called here, and a bus ride into town can be around 40-50 bobs.

Fuel to your car will cost you around 90 Ksh/liter. 

The price of food can be surprisingly high. There are a lot of Western products available in Nairobi nowadays and their prices are about the same (for example a Mars-chocolate bar is 0,80 €).

The first time I went grocery shopping I didn't really pay attention to prices that much (I was extremely tired and walked around the store like a zombie), and ended up paying ~40 € for basic essentials for a week. Afterwards I checked the receipt and here are some examples converted to euros:

1 l milk = 1,06 €
Loaf of bread = 2,07 €
500 g of minced meat = 2,67 €
6 eggs = 0,90 €

Today I did a bit more price comparison and bought this:

... which cost me 580 bobs = 5,50 €. Much better. ^^

A taxi ride within my area, which is called Westlands, costs about 3 €, but the restaurant I went to on Saturday was a bit further away (a 20 min. trip one way) and going there cost me around 17 € total. 

There are all kinds of restaurants in Nairobi in all price ranges. Last Saturday I had dinner at a pretty nice place and paid 15,50 € for a burger with fries and little over 7 € for a Strawberry Margarita, so not that different from places in Helsinki!

The Western style coffee house chain Java's is very popular and I've had lunch there a couple of times this week for 6-7 euros, when I had a salad and chicken wraps. But then yesterday I had lunch at a buffet style restaurant serving Kenyan food, and it cost little over 3 €, so you know, it varies a lot depending on the place.

Here's what I had, going clockwise from the top: salad, chapati, chicken with pilau (seasoned rice) and some kind of meat stew. Yummy!

Today we had lunch at a very unusual place, which was an Indian restaurant in an abandoned hotel - somewhere you would never find yourself unless you knew it was there. 

It was incredibly tasty! The lunch was my colleagues treat, so I don't know what exactly it cost, but I think it was closer to 30 €, including drinks, which is not that bad for three people.

Plane tickets for example to the lovely port-town of Mombasa with Kenya Airways are 99 € (off-season). A few examples on prices for round-trips to neighboring countries, that I'd love to visit: to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania 380€, to Entebbe, Uganda 220 €, and to Kigali, Rwanda 250€... *dreaming*