Kicking back in Kenya

Market in Mombasa
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We flew again from Zanzibar to Mombasa (due to feeling lazy), where we spent the first night in a cheap and nasty hotel near the bus station. The sign forbidding prostitutes was a good indication of the place’s class, or lack thereof. Mombasa’s quite a good city, with a really nice old town.

After a couple of nights (we moved to a quieter place for the second night) we boarded a bus headed for Lamu, on Kenya’s northern coast. After spending most of the day on the bus we were disturbed to see buses banked up for hundreds of metres when we weren’t too far short of the ferry. There was a truck stuck in the mud on the left, and a bus stuck next to it on the right, which meant that no traffic could pass (the surrounding areas were marshy). After a great amount of effort by a large number of people over several hours, one lane was finally cleared and a few buses got through. Then some complete plonker suddenly revved his engine, and ploughed straight into the bog and got stuck, despite people waving their arms around to stop him. He’s dead now.

A few of the girls decided to strip off and get a tan, which I thought was a peculiar thing to do at a restaurant

Mombasa airport
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We finally made it to Lamu, and thankfully it was worth the effort. In a way it was similar to Zanzibar, in that the main town has lots of alleyways and a diverse population. It’s probably slightly more attractive though. The donkeys wandering around at their own leisure were quite amusing. One day we went on a fishing trip on a dhow (wooden boat), which was fine until we got sick. I though I had reasonable sea legs from my time in a boat with my Granpda in Tasmania as a teenager, but obviously I was wrong. We still had a good time though, with the fish being cooked under a tarp by the beach in the pouring rain.

View from our hotel near the bus station in Mombasa
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From Lamu we returned to Mombasa, then went on a day safari in Tsavo East National Park (it was all we had the time and money for). It was a great experience, and we did manage to see several elephants and giraffes, as well as a few lions. Once the word got around that the lions were on the prowl, masses of safari vans congregated in the area. It was quite comical really.

We went to lunch at a restaurant that day, which had a small, sunny lawn. For some reason Kenya attracts masses of Italians, most of whom were at the restaurant. A few of the girls decided to strip off and get a tan, which I thought was a peculiar thing to do at a restaurant. What really disturbed me though was when the blokes joined in, with one young chap stripping down to his red underpants.

Our excellent hotel, Mombasa
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That night we were meant to be picked up by a bus at midnight in a place called Voi, but when 2am it hadn’t come for us, we had to figure out how to get to Nairobi. We went out to the main highway and ended up hitching a lift in the cab of a truck, with a driver who smoked joints the whole way. It was an interesting way to travel, to say the least.

Upon arrival in Nairobbery we just went to a hotel and stayed there for the afternoon, until it was time to get a taxi to the airport for the flight to London. We heard too many stories of people being mugged (even just outside the hotel) for it to be worth venturing out more than a few hundred metres.