Nairobi, weekend four (july 3 to 5):

if my description of this weekend is anything similar to the number of pictures i took, go ahead and get yourself a cup of coffee and a snack now, you might need it before you finish reading ...

we left a bit early on friday after to catch the overnight train to mombasa that left nairobi railway station at 7pm; being the first time i've been on any significant train ride (that i remember), this was quite an epic journey; just to think about traveling through east africa on the "iron snake", through tsavo national park, to the indian ocean blew me away; another girl from upperhill came on the train with us (but was staying in mombasa after we left, so stayed at a different location than us for the weekend), so we were 4 to a sleeper car with two sets of bunks; we went for cheap and so brought our own dinner instead of buying on the train, but had breakfast included in the morning; traveling through the middle of tsavo at night was especially spectacular because of the lack of light; it was also a clear night so we had no trouble seeing the milky way across three-quarters of the sky and an absolutely uncountable number of stars everywhere else (even better than a good, clear night out at camp mennoscah) ... a full breakfast in the diner car in the morning put the cherry on the top of the train ride; we talked to a guy who had been eating earlier and got to watch a couple herds of elephants while sitting and eating ... definitely worth the 14 hours on an old rickety train

after arriving in mombasa just after 9am, we took the ferry to the south shore (free and necessary to get from the south shore to mombasa proper), a matatu to tiwi town, and a short taxi ride to twiga lodge (on tiwi beach); we were initially at twiga lodge by a view of palm trees, white sand, and blue ocean; after getting out of the taxi and going to the office to check in, we were then greeted by a waiting set of monkeys who descended on the open taxi and began to steal things from the trunk; we chased them back into the trees on the side of the driveway and never found out what they took, so no real harm done ... twiga lodge is essentially a resort and camping grounds on tiwi beach to the south of mombasa; for pittance per night, we stayed in a four bed bungalow with a 30 second walk to a white sand beach on the indian ocean; there was a coral reef from the beach out to about a quarter mile, so no significant waves reached the shore; the beach wasn't spotless (lots of washed up seaweed and coconut tree rubbish), but it was very picturesque with the perfectly blue ocean and the cliffs to the north and farther to the south; tiwi beach is a tourist hotspot, but much less so than diani beach, the neighbor directly to the south; prices are better here and there are fewer people, all in all a much better experience (aka, if anybody ever vacations in kenya, you should go stay at twiga lodge and hang out on the beach)

we decided to chill out at twiga that afternoon/evening, so after putting our stuff in our cabin and changing into shorts and sandals, we walked north along the beach and up along the rocks past the beach; since the tide was low, we were able to walk quite a ways on the coral floor along some small cliffs that were perpetually covered in small crabs and overhanging shrubbery; the point we turned around was when a native snorkeling guide walked by the other way and warned us of getting robbed at machete point if we went much farther while carrying cameras and the like; there were a couple cool caves, and some sweet tide pools with small fish, random crabs, and a few sea urchins, and of course tons of washed up coral and shells all along the beach ... the water was pleasantly cool (warm as bath-water according to maddie), so we went swimming after walking up and down the coastline; the tide was just starting to come in so maddie and i walked out to close to the end of the reef to be greeted by 10 to 12 foot breakers that boiled down to 2 or 3 feet after hitting the edge of the reef, however still powerful enough to pick me up and carry me a few feet ... and of course we saw argentina get thrashed by germany that evening, followed by spain squeaking by paraguay

i actually got up early for once on sunday morning, with the goal of seeing the sun rise over the indian ocean; the clouds had evidently been prevalent the last few mornings and so we were fortunate to get a rather spectacular showing (just more clouds than necessary, pictures to come soon); the day was then spent in mombasa looking around downtown and doing a few tourist-type activities; we got scammed for a tour of fort jesus (pronounced and shaped like the man on the cross), a fort the portuguese built on the coast in the latter half of the 16th century and used as a base for their slave trade in the indian ocean; the bottom two-thirds was carved from the coral and the top was added on at different times with brick, mortar, and concrete; after that we walked around old town for a while where practically all the old buildings from british colony days are still standing and in use as housing with small shops on the ground floor ... the funny thing was that i never even thought about american independence on sunday, and didn't really miss the fireworks (surprising since it's usually one of the favorite holidays); i guess the sunrise will have to do for all the fire in the sky this time around


as a feat of extraordinary measure and against all odds, i again got out of bed in time to have a seat on the beach before the sun came into view on monday morning; prompted by the spectacle of the morning before, we were slightly disappointed due to a significantly greater presence of clouds in the first 20 degrees above the horizon; before heading back to mombasa to catch the night bus back to nairobi that evening, we got taken out on a hand-made fishing catamaran (sorry, no pictures) by a local fisherman to go snorkeling not far from the beach; though extremely enjoyable, we all swallowed a bit more sea water than desirable due to choppy 3 to 4 foot swells (and because i've never been very good at controlling my movement in water, aka without two feet on solid ground); after 2 hours on the boat (and in the water), we went in to mombasa and walked around asking for small engines (it's monday after all, some work has to be done?); we also ran into problems of finding the small size we were looking for, but found a couple places that would possibly be able to import something or have some centrifugal clutches (which had been just about as hard to find in nairobi as 50cc engines); then we waited around in a western-style restaurant/cafe until 10pm when we headed to the bus station to catch an overnight charter bus back to nairobi

quite an epic weekend in my book, and quite a weekend vacation; i caught myself in disbelief several times wondering how i could be on a beach on the east coast of africa (among other things); there's been so much that we've done and so many people we've been able to meet, it's amazing to be here working on this project; and it's even harder to believe i'll be back in kansas in less than three weeks