Beach Life
I'm now in Lamu, an island off the coast of Kenya (north of Mombasa) it's a great little island with a lot to see and do... stunningly beautiful! Here's how I ended up here and what I'm doing:
From Nairobi:
I left for the train to late - by matatu of course! I thought I was gonna be late and was practically running through Nairobi to the station. Of course I wasn't late! In fact it would be another 2hrs before the train actually set off.
Anyway I ended up in a carriage with some really interesting people - Pavel (from the Czech Republic), Wes (from California) and Vincent (Kenyan).
I was really looking forward to the next morning where we'd eat a nice full English breakfast while checking out the man-eating lions of the Tsavo National Park. Unfortunately, and possibly the only time in the history of the train's operation, we were pretty much on time, and that meant that most of the Tsavo had whizzed by while we were asleep.
Anyway so we ate the breakfast and a couple of hours later we rolled into Mombasa station. We managed to leave our bags at the station and headed off for food and culture.
The culture we found ('we' being Wes, Pavel, Pavel's girlfriend Eva, and myself), was one of extreme laziness. We ordered some food and sat there for 1.5hrs before any food came. And it wasn't like some exotic foreign food that was hard to make, we ordered ugali (nshima) and nyama (beef) - the standard meal!
When we'd eventually eaten we carried on to Mombasa Old Town and Fort Jesus. A really interesting historical site... apparently.
In the evening we decided to share a "cab" and work our way north till we came across a decent budget hotel. We eventually found one and ended up staying two nights there. We spent those days on the beach, playing pool and visiting some ruins and things like that.
We then moved on to Malindi (well we sent Wes on there, we stopped along the way to see some more ruins!). When we arrived in Malindi we were surprised to hear all the locals greeting us in Italian! Little Italy is an understatement! This place was overrun with them! The accommodation Wes found for us was quite a posh place so we were delighted to hear it cost the same per person as the grubby place in Nairobi... at least that was what he'd understood. He was wrong unfortunately... it was double the price :( Anyway the next day we spent exploring Malindi and that night we moved into a place half the price.
The next day we got up relatively early and got the bus to Lamu (the jetty where you catch the ferry to Lamu). Another hot, dusty, bumpy, back-breaking bus ride! I was particularly unfortunate that the cushion in my seat had been eroded and there was a piece of a plank of or something digging into the small of my back the whole way.
When we eventually got to the island we were assaulted by would-be captains offering dhow sailing trips with snorkeling and lunch on a beach. All the exact same offer for the exact same price! Anyway Pavel and Eva had arrived 20 mins before us (they woke up earlier and got a different bus) and had found a great place to stray. It's a little cottage thing in the middle of the old town (there are no cars on the island so there are only tiny little narrow streets) with it's own roof top terrace and sleeping for 6! It's really great and works out (shockingly) to 500 per person - the same as the grubby place in Nairobi!
Lamu is so good I don't want to spend all my time in this "cyber" with it's sticky keyboard! It really deserves its own post - with pics, which I'll get up asap.
Kwaheri (bye) for now...
From Nairobi:
I left for the train to late - by matatu of course! I thought I was gonna be late and was practically running through Nairobi to the station. Of course I wasn't late! In fact it would be another 2hrs before the train actually set off.
Anyway I ended up in a carriage with some really interesting people - Pavel (from the Czech Republic), Wes (from California) and Vincent (Kenyan).
I was really looking forward to the next morning where we'd eat a nice full English breakfast while checking out the man-eating lions of the Tsavo National Park. Unfortunately, and possibly the only time in the history of the train's operation, we were pretty much on time, and that meant that most of the Tsavo had whizzed by while we were asleep.
Anyway so we ate the breakfast and a couple of hours later we rolled into Mombasa station. We managed to leave our bags at the station and headed off for food and culture.
The culture we found ('we' being Wes, Pavel, Pavel's girlfriend Eva, and myself), was one of extreme laziness. We ordered some food and sat there for 1.5hrs before any food came. And it wasn't like some exotic foreign food that was hard to make, we ordered ugali (nshima) and nyama (beef) - the standard meal!
When we'd eventually eaten we carried on to Mombasa Old Town and Fort Jesus. A really interesting historical site... apparently.
In the evening we decided to share a "cab" and work our way north till we came across a decent budget hotel. We eventually found one and ended up staying two nights there. We spent those days on the beach, playing pool and visiting some ruins and things like that.
We then moved on to Malindi (well we sent Wes on there, we stopped along the way to see some more ruins!). When we arrived in Malindi we were surprised to hear all the locals greeting us in Italian! Little Italy is an understatement! This place was overrun with them! The accommodation Wes found for us was quite a posh place so we were delighted to hear it cost the same per person as the grubby place in Nairobi... at least that was what he'd understood. He was wrong unfortunately... it was double the price :( Anyway the next day we spent exploring Malindi and that night we moved into a place half the price.
The next day we got up relatively early and got the bus to Lamu (the jetty where you catch the ferry to Lamu). Another hot, dusty, bumpy, back-breaking bus ride! I was particularly unfortunate that the cushion in my seat had been eroded and there was a piece of a plank of or something digging into the small of my back the whole way.
When we eventually got to the island we were assaulted by would-be captains offering dhow sailing trips with snorkeling and lunch on a beach. All the exact same offer for the exact same price! Anyway Pavel and Eva had arrived 20 mins before us (they woke up earlier and got a different bus) and had found a great place to stray. It's a little cottage thing in the middle of the old town (there are no cars on the island so there are only tiny little narrow streets) with it's own roof top terrace and sleeping for 6! It's really great and works out (shockingly) to 500 per person - the same as the grubby place in Nairobi!
Lamu is so good I don't want to spend all my time in this "cyber" with it's sticky keyboard! It really deserves its own post - with pics, which I'll get up asap.
Kwaheri (bye) for now...
find sandy find sandy!!!! she has a little shop called amani....her daughters are adrian's daughters too...ex luangwa valley...!!! knows your ma and pa...enjoy lamu...it rocks. x j
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