The Road to Mombasa...

Nina mtalii... that is, I am a tourist. At least, this last weekend I was a tourist; a full out camera toting, English speaking, restaurant critiquing tourist. It's not that there's anything wrong with being a tourist (in fact at the moment, tourists are rather rare here owing to all the violence, which means most of the tourism industry is hurting and tourists are pretty much treated like royalty). But still, it feels a bit funny to abandon all my cares in Ngong and retreat off for a not-really-all-that-well-deserved break (afterall, aren't I sort of already on a break). So that means, this blog entry really won't be very interesting at all, I have no inspiring or intriguing tales of health care or cultural differences in Kenya, only a few funny stories about being a tourist. C'est la vie!

We (being myself and three other volunteers; Cameron, Crystal and Christina, the same group I went up Mt. Kenya with) headed out to Mombasa on Friday evening via the oh so scary night bus. The bus is oh so scary partly because it is at night and we have all heard the horror stories about the night time hijackings and robberies on the road to Mombasa; it is partly scary because it means we have to wander through lower Nairobi after dark to get to the bus station, something we have been throughly warned not to do; and it is partly scary because the road to Mombasa is not so much a road as it is a clearing of the brush that may be wide enough for a motorbike, but certainly doesn't look wide enough for a coach, let along the fact that it is supposedly a two lane highway! But such is Africa! Our bus was not hijacked (apperently that warning applies more to cars); and wandering through lower Nairobi was an exhilarating experience complete with advances from drunks and at least half an hour of wandering around lost until I was brave enough to try my Swahili to ask for directions ("sasa, sister, Accra road, iko wapi?" "kwanza kushoto, moja kwa moja, asante"); and the dirt road brought us to Mombasa hungery, sweaty, tired and covered in a thick layer of grime, but otherwise unscathed.

We arrived in Mombasa at 5:17 am, with call to prayer echoing through the still deserted streets of this predominantly Muslim coastal town. I found the atmosphere quite exciting and exotic (as most Westerners with romantic, dark continent complexes probably do), although in reality, Mombasa is really just a smaller version of Nairobi - painfully industrial, chaotic and hectic, visually unappealing and really fairly grimy. Apperently the town was given a facelift last year from the Mombasa marathon (buildings refinished, roads resurfaced, new street signs) but the visual effects only lasted a few months and even the residents are again complaining of Mombasa's unattractiveness.

We actually stayed about 30 kilometers south of Mombasa at Diana beach which required about an hour's matatu ride and a trip on the chaotic Likoni ferry. The ferry, which although free, is slightly treacherous as it groans in a very unreassuring way and is known as a bag snatching hotspot. It is packed with locals on their way to work and we were quite surely the only white people - leading to sea of faces staring at us suspiciously (apperently the tourists don't take the ferry on foot, they take taxis or hire boats, of course the usual tourists here are rich Brits with more money than they know what to do with). I liked the ferry though, it was exciting, with the salt air replacing the grime of the road on our faces.

We stayed in a really great backpackers guesthouse called Stilts (as recommended by countless other volunteers). Stilts is named such because all the buildings are on stilts to lift them up into the tree canopy where the breeze blows and keeps to keep you cool at night (which is a blessing since Mombasa is much hotter and more humid than Nairobi). Of course being up in the trees means you are also up with the monkeys... which both we and the monkeys find wildly entertaining. We were cautioned to hide our food carefully as the cabins are pretty much open and the monkeys are "seriously smart"... but of course no matter how carefully we hid our food under our piles of clothes, we returned to our rooms to find our belongings everywhere and our chocolate bars just empty wrappers on the floor. Somewhere out there, there are monkeys getting very fat on Cadbury's.

Our accomodation was just a few hundred meters from the white sand beach and clear blue waters of the Indian Ocean. Not being a fan of the ocean myself (it's out to get me, I'm sure) I was mostly content to hang out on the beach... of course I'm also guilty of getting bored easily, so after about an hour of sun bathing, Cameron and I decided to walk out to the sand bar ("it doesn't look that far" we assured ourselves). Hours later, we made it back to the shore; we never actually reached the sand bar but we did step on about sixty sea urchins (there are still quills in my foot), get wildly sunburnt, almost drown in the rising tide and I managed to destroy a huge chunk of coral with my foot which is now a pussing cellulitis on my right ankle. It was still a good adventure and we saw lots of interesting sea creatures like starfish and jellyfish and crabs and snails, but like I said, the ocean is out to get me.

The next time we went to the beach we wised up and rented a dhow (a traditional hollow canoe with a sail) and the accompanying locals to sail us out to the sand bar. This is really the way to go. For a couple dollars three friendly (often singing) guys sailed us around the open water for a while, then took us to the sand bar where we relaxed, went snorkeling (more crazy kinds of fish than I saw in Cuba even!) pestered the local fishermen with questions and explored the less treacherous coral reef. It was a lovely day!

We also made an excursion into Mombasa to visit Haller park; a former cement quarry that has been converted into a nature walk and conservation park. We were toured around and told all sorts of interesting facts about the flora and fauna. It was so good to see that conservation and the environment are also on the minds of Kenyans, especially considering these are areas that often fall by the way side in developing countries where immediate needs can often be more pressing. At the park we saw giraffes, tortises, hippos, antelope, buffalo, crocodiles and heaps of different birds, snakes and reptiles. Feeding time for the crocodiles was particularily exciting with them leaping out of the water to catch hunks of meat dangling from a rope.

Of course the highlight of Haller park is Maizee and Owen... the world famous ancient tortise/baby hippo couple that made headlines after the Owen the hippo, orphaned and rescued from the sea after the tsunami adopted Maizee the tortise as his surrogate mother. Maizee is actually the anglisized name; the real tortise doesn't have a name as the park only keeps them to maintain the lawns and they called the tortise Mzee to the media, which just means "old person". Anyway, the two aren't together any more as Owen finally wised up to the fact that he is a hippo not a tortise and he is now living with the other hippos; still a cute story.

Well, after another throughly enjoyable trip down the road back to Nairobi (this time slightly worse as we travelled during the day and the heat/humidity was aweful) I am safely back in Ngong and back to work at the hospital. My tourist break was really more tiring than refreshing but still, I'm glad to have seen more of the country.

Kelsey Aaron