18 July 2007

Kenya!

Girls, they wanna have fun, oh girls just wanna have fun!
-Cyndi Lauper

Lauralew and I recently got back from an awesome week-long trip to Kenya!

We started out our trip by taking two back-to-back bus rides, first from Kampala to Nairobi, and then from Nairobi to Mombasa, which is on the coast.

Us with the bus:

Our trip there started out with an interesting hiccup: as we were crossing the bridge over the Nile (still in Uganda), Laura opened her window and pulled out her camera to take pictures, and our bus was promptly pulled over by armed military guards who came on board and confiscated it. Our bus then crossed the bridge, and I got out on the other side, where I managed to very shakily (guns freak me out) convince the guards to give me back the camera and let me delete the pictures. So, no pictures of the Nile that day. I still have yet to find out the reason…after the incident I vaguely remembered that when I was in training we took a trip out there and our trainers told us to be careful, but we all took pictures without any problems…I think it’s much more about the bridge than it is the river, but it’s still a mystery to me. After that, we happily continued on our way to Kenya without further incident, with the other people on the bus shaking their heads at the crazy white people and their haphazard picture taking.

Kenya is really beautiful, it’s the stereotypical “Africa” that everyone pictures. In the western parts it’s savannah and grasslands- we saw big monkeys and zebras on the side of the road as we were driving through the countryside- and as you get closer to the eastern coast it gets more and more green.

When we finally arrived in Mombasa (it took about 24 hours all together) we crashed for the night and then headed to Diani Beach the next day. The beach was gorgeous! We started out our day by collecting shells and making a great sandcastle. It’s not tourist season just yet, so we pretty much had the whole place to ourselves:
(Unless you count lots of sand crabs!)

Most importantly, there were camels! Who can pass up a camel ride on the beach of the Indian Ocean? Not us:
Me with my best camel impression:

We spent the whole next day hanging out on the beach too. It rained a little bit, so we hung out at a great restaurant right on the beach, drinking milk tea and comfortably dozing on their great couches:

It was still cloudy, but eventually it stopped raining, so we left the couch and played in the waves, and took what is probably the best picture of my whole life (first try, too!):

That night we had dinner at the comfy couch restaurant, and then later went to a nearby restaurant for drinks:

The restaurant where we had drinks is in a coral cave! It’s so awesome- pictures really don’t do it justice, but here’s me at the entrance:


And Laura in one of the main caverns:

The next day, we got up early to see the sunrise over the Indian Ocean:

Shortly thereafter, we took a day trip out to a marine reserve to go snorkeling! First, we rode out to the reserve on a boat called a dhow. The water was really blue and the boat ride was fun, but the water was incredibly wavy- some people got sick, but Lauralew and I managed to hang on to our stomachs despite the crazy rocking! Finally, we made it to the marine reserve, which is near an island. We grabbed our highly attractive gear:
And then jumped out of the boat and set off snorkeling! At first I was taking in gulps of salt water and was convinced I was a miserable failure at using the breathing tube, but after a while tried Laura’s tube and discovered the magic that is snorkeling. (Luckily someone else wasn’t using their tube, so after my discovery we both ended up getting good tubes!)

Snorkeling was AMAZING, it was a really big highlight of the trip for both of us. The coral was awesome, and there were so many fish, so many shapes and colors! (We were also delighted to see cichlids, which my dad has an aquarium full of back home.) It’s too bad we couldn’t take pictures, because they would have been really great. It was the first time snorkeling for both of us, and I bet it won’t be the last! After snorkeling for a bit everyone got back on the boat, which took us to the island for a fabulous lunch. Laura was pretending to be a lobster:


Here’s the view from the restaurant:

After stuffing ourselves with lots of good food, we took a tour of the island, which has a small community and really cool coral gardens:

They used to be underwater, but now it only fills up twice a month, at half moon and full moon. The green stuff is sea grass- we had some of it for lunch, and it was soooo good!

From the island we went back to the mainland, and back to our guesthouse, still in amazement at what we had done that day.

The next day, we got up and went to Mombasa, which is a really cool town. We walked around a bit- in one part there are some giant tusks over the road:

We were planning to leave the next day, but after discovering that the bus to our next destination only left at night, had to cram a lot into a few hours. We hopped in a tuk tuk and rode over to a part called “Old Town,” which is a historical Swahili district. There are lots of really cool carved doors:

We walked around the narrow streets with storied buildings (it reminded me of Europe) and stopped for some very tasty food- coconut potatoes, chicken biriani, pilau, kebabs, mango juice…mmm, delicious.

We also visited Fort Jesus, which was originally built by the Portuguese, then taken over by Omani Arabs, then protected by the British Navy, then again taken over by the Sultan of Oman. After that it was a government prison, and now it's a historical site and museum!

The fort is huge- it’s made of coral bricks that are two and a half feet thick!
There were some kids playing soccer right beside it- can you imagine if this was your soccer field?

After our short tour we headed for the bus station, where we headed to a town called Kitui. Kitui isn’t a place that tourists visit, but Laura and I stopped there because our good friend Tori from back home is currently there! Laura and Tori and I went to high school together back in Tyler—Laura and Tori were in the same class—and Tori is now in training to be a Peace Corps Volunteer in Kenya! (Small world, huh?)

Tori goes to her site in just a couple weeks, but right now lives with a host family while she’s in training. So, we met up in town, and then walked to her house. Tori’s host family is so nice, and she fits in really well with them- they were incredibly welcoming, and fed us a great dinner- really tasty pilau, and they even killed a chicken for us!

Laura, Tori, and I:

Tori had training classes and we could only stay a little, so we spent the night at her host family’s house and then had to leave the next day. It was so great to see Tori and meet her family, even though it was for a short time!

From Kitui we took a minibus to Nairobi, which is great- it’s a real, actual city! It has skyscrapers, sidewalks, trash cans, nice public parks, roads without potholes, a public bus transportation system, there are no awful motorcycles weaving in and out of traffic, and the streets have street signs…I was seriously impressed, because I thought stuff like that didn’t really exist in this part of the world- there’s certainly none of that in Uganda! Being in Nairobi made me miss Chicago, a lot.

At a park:

We walked around the city a lot, went to a big craft market, caught a movie, and generally had a great time! One fun thing we did was go paddleboating in one of the parks, haha! Here’s us, zooming around a little lake:
We also went out dancing at a really nice disco- we happened to go on a night with a famous deejay, so it was quite a bit more expensive that we thought it would be, but we consoled ourselves with the fact that part of the proceeds from the event were going to charity. At one point during the night the deejay yelled, “WHAT’S UP NAIROBI!!!?!!” and Laura commented, “That’s something I’d never thought I’d hear in my life!” The deejay himself wasn’t actually that great, but the other people there were super fun and we had a great time dancing all night long!

We slept in a bit the next day, packed up our stuff, played cards in a park, grabbed lunch, and then went on an afternoon safari drive at Nairobi National Park, which is just outside the city.
It’s crazy to see ostriches (on the left) and zebras (two on the right) in the grasslands against the backdrop of the Nairobi skyline!
Of course seeing animals is exciting, but even the scenery itself is breathtaking:

We went with a tour company, and there was no one else going on the afternoon drive that day, so we had the whole vehicle to ourselves!

Us at a lookout point:

We didn’t see lions or anything, but we did get to see warthogs, baboons (with baby baboons!), ostriches, lots of different things in the antelope family, gazelles, birds, zebras, and giraffes! I think the giraffes were our favorite part- they’re so interesting!
We also saw some crested cranes (the national bird of Uganda!):

Another ostrich:

Zebra:

A big baboon:

A giraffe having an afternoon snack:
After our tour we made it back to Nairobi just in time to grab a quick bite for dinner before our bus left for Uganda. The bus ride home was pretty uneventful…we made it back tired from the journey but all in one piece! So, that was our vacation…Laura and I enjoyed ourselves immensely and we both highly recommend Kenya to anyone visiting Africa! :)