Travel Thursday: Kenya {Mombasa}

The view from our hotel lobby!

When we were in Kenya, Jonty & I went on a little weekend adventure to Mombasa, the country's popular beach side town. We took an overnight train, which was an adventure in itself (I'll tell you about it next week). When our taxi dropped us at our hotel, we were in for a bit of a surprise. The hotel receptionist informed us that, since we're not Kenyan residents, our room rate (already not cheap) was higher than we were quoted. (This is because Syano's sister's friend - a Kenyan resident - got the rates for us.) Isn't it bizarre that there are different rates for residents & non-residents? It's just like at Nairobi National Park. Well, at least they're honest about it rather than trying to swindle more money of of people. We waited in the lobby, hot & tired after a long night on the train, not to mention mildly annoyed that we were wasting the little time we had in Mombasa, for an hour while the receptionist talked to the travel agency, then to the manager, and so on. Thankfully, we were given our original rate.

The beach was spectacular. White sands & warm water: it doesn't get much better than that!

And there were camels!!!

However, along with the camels came camel ride salesmen. And boat trip salesmen. And shop salesmen. The beach was lined with people trying to sell us stuff. On our walk down the beach & back, we were approached at least five times. To be fair to these guys, (a) it was off-peak, so they probably weren't making much & (b) most people traveling to Mombasa are actually wealthy enough to spend money like that.

We did actually book a snorkeling outing with one guy for the next morning. After deciding to book, he told us that the price he quoted (2500 Kenyan shillings, about £25/$37) was actually for each person, not for the entire outing. After haggling & practically fighting & eventually just getting up to leave, we got our price. The outing was really nice. We left around 8:00 in the morning, when the air was fresh. The sea was warm & the boat ride to the snorkeling spot was very relaxing. No sea turtles or sharks showed up, but we had fun snorkeling nevertheless. My favorite part was watching the tiny crabs crawling around in the boat while I let one foot trail in the water and breathed in the ocean air.

On the way back to the beach, I chatted with one of the two guys on our boat. He told me that he can drink four (big) bottles of beer, & that the local favorite is coconut wine, made only in the village. The boat we were in was made by his grandfather! He's from one of the eleven coastal tribes. Their tribal dishes mostly consist of freshly caught fish and vegetables. The fishing boat comes in every morning at 11 o'clock. Kenya, according to him, is the most corrupt country in Africa. (I begged to differ, but what do I know?) What struck me the hardest was how bitter he was about the Haves (versus the Have-nots) in Kenya, & in a way I couldn't blame him.

Our hotel room left a lot to be desired, especially considering the price. For example, TV wasn't plugged in, & when we tried to remedy that ourselves, we found that it didn't even have a Kenyan plug! But at least we had a mosquito net. And this oh-so-amazing view:

On our second, & last, day in Mombasa, we mostly hung out by the pool. (We didn't go to the beach because we were tired of being hassled.) It was really hot outside, & mellow (but not cold) in the pool. We read books, listened to music, & drank/ate fresh coconut (omg yum!). It was suuuch a nice day!

The evening before, we took a walk to Nakumat (aka Wal-Mart) & bought some fresh bananas & oranges. I actually will never be able to fully enjoy a banana here ever again. The ones in Kenya were so sweet & flavorful. Mmmm... I'm salivating just thinking about them.

We walked into the town but didn't see much because (silly us) we chose to go in on a Sunday, when everything is closed. I'd love to go back & explore a bit more.

Some general thoughts on Mombasa: Quite touristy. Very dusty. (It was a colonial town.) Big Muslim population. Friendly people, but usually trying to get money from you somehow. Very hot.

Oh yeah, & the mosquitos there are ninjas! I got bit by lots of them (especially at the train station), but by the time I looked the little guy was gone.

 

I can't wait to tell you about our epic train journey.
You. Will. Die.

<3

Travel Thursday: Kenya {Safari}

Okay, to be honest, I don't know if what we did counts as a safari, but our friend Syano's dad hired a car for us (and I should point out how appreciative we are that he did that for us!) and we drove around Nairobi National Park looking for/at animals for an afternoon.

Nairobi National Park is pretty close to Syano's family's house (where we were staying). Syano and the driver paid in Kenyan shillings, but Jonty and I had to pay in US dollars! Isn't that bizarre?

We got there mid-afternoon after running around town getting dollars and whatever else.

Right upon driving in, a bunch of baboons (a congress of baboons, to be technical) was blocking our way.

They took their sweet time moving out of the road. But we didn't mind because we loved watching this little one.

I was snapping photos right and left.

Our next obstacle was a couple of giraffes having an afternoon meal. We were able to get very close to watch them because they were definitely not scared of us.

Giraffes are such beautiful animals. I loved watching their bodies move as they walked.

We saw loads of giraffes, no doubt more than any other animals. They were everywhere, usually in small groups. Of course, they are the easiest to spot!

The park is only 7 kilometres from the city! Some of our shots had high-rise buildings in the background, and airplanes from the nearby airport flew overhead. (These are waterbucks. They tended to shy away from us.)

A few hippos were out for a swim in this pond. Our driver told us that hippos are quite dangerous, since they're strong and, contrary to appearances, can run very fast (up to 20 miles per hour; they can run at the bottom of a pond too!). We stuck around for a while, hoping they'd do something exciting (and ready to drive away like hell if they tried to involve us in the excitement!). They yelled at us a few times, but didn't do anything else all that interesting. And they were a bit too far away to really take proper photos.

We then saw some male ostriches get into a little squabble over a high maintenance female.

There was a rhino sighted by others in the park, and we could see it in the distance, but we could never find a road that would get close to it. We started a bit too late in the day to see everything we wanted, but we did get to see a few amazing animals and have a little adventure. I did just discover this blog though, which has some more exciting pictures and stories in Nairobi National Park. And the sunset at the end was worth it.

<3

Travel Thursday: Kenya {City Transportation}

Happy Thursday! Today I thought I'd write about transportation in Kenya, because I found it one of the more interesting things about Nairobi. All of the photos in this post are taken from a moving vehicle between Karen (the suburb where we stayed) and Nairobi.


Transportation is very affordable: from about 20 to 50 Kenyan Shillings (around 30 to 75 cents). Also, there aren't really markers for the stops; you just have to know where they are.

There are two main ways of transportation in the city in Kenya: buses and mutatus. Buses run quite a few routes throughout Nairobi and its suburbs. The routes are set by numbers, which are usually signaled by a number on a laminated piece of colored paper posted in the window or held by the tout. But sometimes you can't find the route number, and it's always better to double-check that they'll be stopping at your stop. There are generally two people working on the bus: the driver and the tout. The tout is the one who comes around to your seat and takes your money, gives you a ticket, and then takes your ticket when you leave. The only photos I really took are from the bus, because they're a lot bigger, so I had some personal space and felt more comfortable.

The other, much more interesting, way of getting around is by taking mutatus. Mutatus are basically small vans that are run in a similar way to buses: by a driver and tout. They're smaller, so they fit fewer passengers. The tout hangs out of the window and/or runs alongside it near each stop to try to get people into their mutatu. To this same end, many mutatus are highly decorated and often even themed. The outside will be painted different colors, possibly with some designs. Music is played really loud inside the car a lot of the time. (Recently a law was passed requiring mutatus to keep they're music down. But some of them just play the music really loud anyway and either turn it down when they see a police car or bribe the police.) Sometimes there are even fluorescent lights under or inside the car, or even flatscreen TVs! Some, especially within the city limits, have themes. Music themes are common. We rode in one with a Bob Marley theme. It was yellow with red and green detailing and lots of Bob Marley painting, and the music played inside was, of course, reggae. You have to tap your tout's shoulder when your stop (or wherever you want to get off, if it's not officially the stop) is coming up.

Mutatus are known for being crazy on the road. They are willing to do anything to get where they want to go as quickly as possible, since more times on the route means more money. The drivers will speed and drive on the other side of the road or on the shoulder if possible. And they honk their horns when traffic slows down.


Actually, the can be sketch in a few ways. Sometimes they just pull over and tell you to get out and that they're not continuing the rest of the way. It's not too big of a deal, except if it's at night because Nairobi is very unsafe at night (and, being at the equator, night comes early). Also, a lot of people get robbed in mutatus (and buses). They will get quite close to you and open a newspaper over your lap or something and then take your wallet or whatever. It's very common, so you have to be extremely careful. Pocket pickers are very smooth, and it's said they could steal your socks without taking your shoes off. And you can't really even say something because often there are a few of them on the mutatu/bus in a group, and if you say something they might hurt you.


(Oh, and sometimes - unrelated to transportation - pocket pickers crowd around a person, pick them up, slip their shoes off and take them, and then leave. They will even sell a pair of shoes by asking the buyer to pick a pair of shoes that someone is wearing, and then they'll go take the shoes off the person wearing them!)

One of Nairobi University's campuses, just outside the city.

I loved taking the public transport in Nairobi. It was exciting and interesting! But (aside from the pocket pickers and dangerous driving) it did have its downsides. You can't really take any bags, unless they're quite small, because it would be too hard to maneuver and you're more likely to get robbed. Also, it was a bit tiring.


<3

Travel Thursday: Kenya {Nairobi}

Kenyan Parliament Building

Nairobi is Kenya's capital & one of Africa's major cities. People in Nairobi are not very comfortable with technology, except for cell phones. You can top up your mobile minutes from pretty much everywhere! We even saw some mobile top up stalls from the train in the middle of nowhere. I guess that's a good way of providing phones to people, since it's much more complicated to set up landlines all over. So, because technology is a bit foreign in the city, I didn't take many pictures. It just felt weird.

But most of the city just looked like this:

Syano took Jonty & me to the site of the 1998 American embassy bombing. The event is a huge one in the lives of Kenyans, & Syano said he new of schoolmates or schoolmates' family members that had been injured or killed in the bombing. Since then, the embassy has moved outside of the city in a walled building to protect Nairobi's inhabitants, and on the site there is a lovely memorial park.

Mostly, we just wandered around in the city. It's relatively big, but you can walk from one end to the other if you want to. I think its suburbs are quite expansive; we stayed in Karen, which is about half an hour's drive away. The city itself was, well, a city. It sort of reminded me of the less picturesque parts of San Francisco. There were lots of business, banks, & mobile phone stores. Not all that much shopping, really, expect for some indoor shopping areas that mostly had independent clothing stores. And Nakumatt, which is basically the African Wal-Mart (and is quite possibly owned by Wal-Mart).

It was pretty darn difficult to find some sunscreen, & actually impossible to find cheap sunglasses. (Yes, somehow Jonty & I managed to leave our sunglasses at home when we went to AFRICA.) As a result, my skin got very burnt (in a square neckline shape too, ugh), & my eyes were not too happy. That equatorial sun is damn strong. Oh, & it was 25 degrees C (77 degrees F), & everyone was wearing suits with jackets & closed-toed shoes. I was sweating in jeans, a tank top, & sandals!

I didn't get a chance to go into any of the slum areas because Syano pressed that it is a bad idea, especially for an American, since two of the Islamic fundamentalists that carried out the 1998 bombing were found in that area. But I do have some pictures I took when I went through on the train, which I'll show when I talk about our train ride to Mombasa.

 Next Thursday, I'll say a bit about transportation (& the massive culture surrounding it) in Nairobi. With lots of pictures!

<3

Travel Thursday: Kenya {Day One}

Hi lovely readers! Guess what! Today is the day that I start sharing my Kenya photos and stories. I'm sorry for holding off for so long--but I hope it was worth the wait!

Today I'll give a little bit of info about the flight & my friend Syano's house and family.

Since we flew with Swiss Air, we had a stopover in Zurich. Going from one terminal to the next, we had to go through security (damn overly safe Switzerland... no, I take that back--I actually love Switzerland), and security took my fresh squeezed orange juice and newly purchased water bottle. Lame.

Anyway, the flight from Zurich to Nairobi in the daylight was amazing.

Just after taking off, we flew over the beautiful Alps.

This is our first look at Africa!!! It was such a cool feeling to see the Mediterranean edge up against a continent we were about to experience for the first time.

After hours of boring desert, we finally saw fertile land. We new we were getting close.

After wandering the airport for a while (Syano & his sister Mueni were stuck in traffic), we jumped in the car and drove through town at night (so we didn't get to see much yet). We arrived at his house, met his parents, and ate some fabulous food.

His mom is an attorney who runs her own law firm that works especially with child-related cases (e.g. adoption) and that is run without the huge competitive pressures usually put on lawyers in their first years. His dad is a Member of Parliament who used to be the country's church leader and spoke out against the way the country's politics were run. As an MP, he is now slowly making progress in making changes. He has a wonderful family that we were lucky to have as our hosts.

Their staff member Chalo was also a very nice guy. He sliced us fresh pineapple in the mornings and made some of the best dinners I've ever eaten. And he was good company in the mornings when Syano's family was at work and the boys were still asleep.

Their house and neighborhood were incredible, too.

There was even a pool in their complex.

We tried to take advantage of the warm weather & pool as much as possible.

Well, darlings, that's all for now. I'll be back next (Travel) Thursday with more about Kenya.

<3