KENYA TRAVELOGUE

NAIROBI

We flew from London via Dubai to Nairobi, where we stayed for a couple of nights. Nairobi was much as we had expected it to be, except for me it didn’t feel the least bit threatening. I guess some people referring to Nairobi as ‘Nairobbery’ is bound to make you feel a little concerned. We took a taxi from Jomo Kenyatta International Airport to our accommodation. We had chosen one of the budget hotels in the River Road area, several streets back from Moi Avenue. Once we had checked in we went out for a walk round town. Nairobi is one of the largest cities in East Africa if not the largest, and as busy as you would expect any large city to be. The roads and pavements were full of people going about their business. We walked into the centre of town and found ourselves outside The Stanley Hotel (formerly New Stanley), corner of Kimathi Street and Kenyatta Avenue. We went in for a drink, and I wanted to call my mummy to let her know we had arrived safely. The Stanley Hotel was one of the best upmarket hotels at the time of our visit, and it was a lot nicer than where we were staying, so we settled in for a few drinks. The famous Thorn Tree Cafe at the Stanley was very busy, the service was excellent and everything was going well until the power went off. The power stayed off for ages, so bored of sitting in complete darkness we decided to leave and pick up some supplies. We headed to a nearby supermarket and bought some water and other bits. I didn't feel at all concerned walking along the streets of Nairobi, it didn't feel any more threatening than London at night. With the exhaustion of shopping for water we fancied another drink, which we enjoyed at a place across the road from the Stanley. Nairobi was just a stopover place for us, we wanted to get to Mombasa.

MOMBASA

We had intended to catch a train from Nairobi to Mombasa, but the day before we had planned to book our tickets, sadly there was a major train crash which resulted in the loss of many lives. As the train lines would be closed for repairs, we booked a flight to Mombasa. We landed at Moi International Airport and took a taxi the 10km to the centre of town to our accommodation. Mombasa is a coral island and East Africa’s largest port. Approximately four million people work in Mombasa with around 40,000 of them actually residing on the island, the others commute across the Likoni Channel by ferry. To make all of our travels possibly we usually stayed in budget hotels, but on this trip we chose nicer accommodation. For the first couple of nights we stayed at the New Palm Tree Hotel, described as a mid range hotel, it was situated on Nkrumah Road which is the continuation of Moi Avenue. We could see as soon as we entered the hotel that many years ago it must have been a truly grand hotel. Even though now the years had not been kind to it, it still had lots of charm and an air of grandeur. Our room was up on the first floor, and was absolutely huge, clean and complete with ceiling fans but no mosquito nets, which later turned out to be a problem. Outside our room was the rooftop courtyard which had sun loungers scattered everywhere, we could imagine how this area would have looked in its heyday. Lots of rich tourists relaxing on the loungers sipping cocktails as they were cooled by fans wafted by young boys. We dumped our bags and went out for a walk round town. Mombasa felt very nice, warm and friendly. As we were staying fairly centrally there was lots to look at on our walk. We were soon strolling along Moi Avenue and attracting quite a bit of attention, probably because we were the only white people. As we often did whilst away travelling, we had arranged with American Express for our mail to be sent to the local American Express office. It was situated on Moi Avenue, we went in and eventually they found some post for us, letters from home, nothing exciting. There were lots of reasonably priced places to get something to eat and drink on and near Moi Avenue. The first place we stopped off at was the Mombasa Coffee House, which was the Kenya Coffee Board’s elderly establishment and apparently served a delicious Pineapple pie. Well that was correct, they certainly did serve tasty pastries, the coffee was pretty good too. We walked round some more having seen the famous pair of elephant tusks that arch across both sides of the road outside the Wimpy. Unsurprisingly the elephant tusks are not elephant tusks at all but pieces of aluminium made to look like tusks, which is good news for the elephants anyway! All along one side of Moi Avenue were small wooden sheds selling the usual tourist tat, more interesting was what was behind these little lock up curio stalls, the Africa shaped fountain of Uhuru Gardens. There were a few larger shops that sold traditional African crafts. One in particular on Moi Avenue had a fantastic collection on offer. We went in and had a look round, the owner was helpful and friendly and didn't mind us picking things up and touching everything. We returned much later on in our trip and bought lots of things, carved wooden masks, statues, cloth etc, all of which the owner packed up carefully in boxes for us to post home to the U.K. Our first night at the New Palm Tree Hotel was not the best nights sleep we have ever enjoyed, the room was fine, the beds were comfortable but as there were no mosquito nets we were constantly bitten by some unwanted guests. Normally it’s just a matter of putting the light on and splattering the little bleeders against the wall (bad Karma I know), but as the room was so huge with very high ceilings this was not going to be an option. There was only one thing to do, we would have to move, which was a shame as we were both happy staying there, all be it mainly because it had the lowest priced beer in town, but the bar was less than exciting so move we did. After a bad nights sleep due to our mossie foe we were up bright and early, so we went out in search of somewhere new to call home for the next month or so. We knew that there was a possibility of some decent reasonably priced accommodation over on Likoni, so we headed over there for a look.

LIKONI

We got on an early morning Likoni ferry, which was free for foot passengers, across to Likoni. Likoni is a bustling creek side suburb of Mombasa, the ferry trip was nice and we were keen to start looking at accommodation. The weather seemed to be even hotter than usual the day we went to Likoni, with every step we walked we felt more and more tired. As there was no bridge to make it easier to get to Likoni this meant that Likoni had not been over developed and built up with four/five star hotels. It was a rather run down place, mostly residential and populated by workers who made the daily commute across on the ferry to the island. There was some accommodation there and we walked about 3km as we checked them out. After lots of walking and with the realisation that we were not going to find anywhere we liked to move to we decided to stop for a drink. We were so thirsty and by now quite desperate to get out of the sun, so we went into the first place we saw. It was the YWCA, which thankfully it turned out that you didn’t have to be young, female or Christian, well I was one of the three (female), so they let us in! We were made so welcome and instantly brought lots of sweet hot thick milky tea, (we usually drink it black), but this tasted absolutely delicious, more like a meal in a cup than a drink! We sat for a while supping our tea, for which they would not let us pay, we must have looked desperate! At the time we visited, Shelly Beach was the main place to stay, but for us there was not really much suitable accommodation to choose from. Oh well, it was worth a look and it made a nice day out. We decided to head back to the ferry and back to our hotel. As we approached the ferry terminal we were rather surprised to see thousands of people waiting in line! This was certainly much busier than the journey over that morning. There were people everywhere, on the road down towards the ferry, and standing all around as far as the eye could see. We guessed that something was going on, but what? It transpired that the then President ~ Arup Moi, was on an official visit to the area. As we were nowhere near the front of the half hearted queue it took us hours to finally board a ferry, after watching several leave fully loaded without us. Finally we boarded a ferry, it was dark by the time we set sail back to Mombasa.

MOMBASA

We were both very pleased when we finally arrived back at the New Palm Tree Hotel, this would definitely be our final night there. After another night being bitten by mosquitoes we were up and out early to find somewhere else to stay. We literally went to every hotel in the Moi Avenue area, we wanted to be very central. We walked round for hours looking at rooms, haggling for a deal on the room rate, and stopping off for the odd drink here and there, well it was hot and thirsty work! By the end of the day we were absolutely worn out, but we had found our new home. We decided on the Manson Hotel, Kisumu Road, which was supposedly one of the upmarket hotels but actually fell into the same price bracket as the New Palm Tree Hotel, or at least it did originally until Richard used his charm on the receptionist. I think she was quite taken with him and his gorgeous smile and twinkling green grey eyes. The Manson Hotel was fairly new at the time and very clean, there was a TV lounge and a bar/restaurant on the ground floor. Breakfast was included, but for the month or so we stayed there I think we only ate there once or twice. It was not that the breakfast was not nice, it was, lots of lovely fresh fruit, eggs, toast etc but we preferred going out on to Moi Avenue to eat breakfast at Rozina House Restaurant. The owners of Rozina House Restaurant were so friendly and the food was very reasonable, fresh and delicious. We didn’t actually do that much on our trip to Kenya, in fact I often say to Richard that we don’t so much go for the travelling as for the experience of tasting the different beers and other alcohol based refreshment! Once we were settled in at the Manson Hotel, we did visit some of the local attractions and go on a couple of Safari adventures, well we didn't travel to Africa just for the beer!

FORT JESUS

We walked from our hotel to the fort. Fort Jesus looked rather bleak and was showing signs of decay, but once we were inside we could see that it was once more than just a fort it would have been more like a small town. Once a very important part of life in Mombasa, it changed hands nine times between the early nineteenth century and 1875. In 1631, at the time of the first takeover, the revolt resulted in the killing of every last Portuguese. The Portuguese, waiting in Zanzibar, did regain occupation as the Sultan did not have any support from the other towns under Portuguese domination, and he fled the fort. For the remainder of the seventeenth century they continued to hold Mombasa, primarily consolidating their control of the Indian Ocean trade. With the Omani Arabs gaining power and as English, French and Dutch ships began to appear on the horizon, time was running out for the Portuguese trading monopoly. In 1696-1698 Fort Jesus was besieged into submission by the Omanis. Almost three years later all the defenders, Portuguese corps and about 1500 Swahili loyalists, had died of starvation or from the plague. In 1728 disenchantment with the forts new Arab rulers resulted in a mutiny among the African soldiers at the fort. Back came the Portuguese for just one year, until the fort was again besieged, shattering Portuguese power on this coast forever, the Portuguese did not put up much of a fight this time. Then came the new Omani rulers, the Mazuri family declaring themselves independent of Oman. The Busaidi family had recently seized power in the Arabian homeland. Civil war in Oman prevented the Busaidi family from taking any action against their over seas agents. Through lack of unity there was to be no lasting independence on the coast. Intrigue in the Lamu archipelago led to the Battle of Shela and the invitation to the Sultan of Oman, Seyyid Said, to occupy its own fort, a disastrous move. With the backing of Britain the Busaidis attacked Mazrui Mombasa continuously during the 1820’s. In 1824 a British Officer, Captain Owen, caused a stir when fired with enthusiasm for defeating the slave trade, extended British protection on his own account, even though the British officially supported the slave trading Busaidis. This protectorate of Owen’s caused diplomatic embarrassment and not surprisingly was withdrawn rapidly. The Busaidis government were installed when the twelve tribes of Mombasa fell into a dispute over the Mazuri succession and called in the Busaidi leader, Seyyid Said. In 1840 he moved his capital to Zanzibar from Oman, and now that Mombasa was garrisoned the bulk of the coast became his domain. Surviving members of the Mazrui family went to Takaunga and Gazi. British influence was sharpened after they quelled the mutiny of al-Akida, commandant of the fort, in 1875. With British leadership established, they leased the coastal strip from the Sultan of Zanzibar and Fort Jesus became Mombasa’s prison up until 1958. Now Fort Jesus (8:30am-6:30pm) is a much quieter place, a large museum, monument, with trees giving much needed shade inside behind its gigantic walls. An Italian architect is responsible for the angular construction, the idea of which was that as any would be intruders attempted to scale the walls they would always be under fire from the bastions. The Omani House, situated in the far right corner as you enter is where you can get a great view from the roof out over Mombasa. The Hall of the Mazuri has beautiful stone benches and eighteenth century inscription. There was a cafe where we sat for a much needed drink, not alcohol for a change, we enjoyed some delicious lime juice. The museum also had a restaurant serving meals and light snacks. The museum is situated where the soldiers’ barracks block would have been. There were pottery displays, some of which had been imported from China, many of which are apparently over a thousand years old. There was an interesting stall constructed using the vertebrae of a whale, along with lots of other objects. There was an ongoing exhibition on the wreck of the Santo Antonio de Tanna, which sank in 1697 whilst attempting to halt the siege of the fort. About 7,000 objects had been recovered from the ship, which was still resting nine fathoms down in the harbour. After walking round the fort for hours we walked back to our hotel, tired and ready for a shower.

Harbour Boat Trip

We boarded the boat along with two other couples. It was unusual for us as to have gone on something like this as we prefer to do things by ourselves. The boat took us round the harbour and we enjoyed lovely views of Mombasa. During the trip we pulled up along side a floating market where local people offered us various craft work. We didn't buy anything but one of the other couples on board bought some jewellery. We sailed round a little longer before we docked for lunch. It was just us three couples eating at the restaurant, which specialised in seafood, for lunch. Most of the courses were served to us in shells or coconut cups. The food was nice, and it was soon time to board the boat again for the return trip. It wasn't the most exciting day we have had, but nice enough. We briefly popped back to our hotel before heading out on to Moi Avenue for a drink.

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We spent a lot of time eating and drinking in various places on or near Moi Avenue, one of our favourite places was Le Bistro, Moi Avenue, open from 9:30am-midnight. It was owned and run by a lovely couple, he was originally from Germany and used to be a chef, and his wife was originally from Somalia. Le Bistro was very popular with local people for food and late night drinking. When we first started going in there we were the only white customers, until one lunch time we met and got chatting to a man who was the manager at the flour mill. As the owner used to be a chef in Germany the food was particularly good. The menu was broad with lots of grilled dishes and delicious salads and lovely fresh seafood. It wasn't long before we became friends with the owners, probably due to the sheer amount of time and money we used to spend in there! They set up a bar tab for us which was much appreciated, we could drink and eat to our hearts content and then just pay our bill at the end of the night. Although they officially closed at midnight we often stayed behind chatting and drinking until the early hours. The funniest evening we ever had at Le Bistro was when Richard, myself and another guy we had met, had been happily drinking, laughing and chatting with the owner and his wife. We were in there all night and it was beginning to get light again, so we thought we had better leave and let the owners get some sleep. We settled our bill and the guy who had also been buying lots of drinks was given his bill. He said that he didn't have any money on him! We couldn't believe it, what a cheek to have sat there all evening ordering drinks knowing full well that he could not pay for them. By now one of the owners had gone, leaving his wife to lock up. She was not happy that this guy couldn't pay his bill, but agreed to let him come in tomorrow with the money. I know it wasn't really our business but we thought that he would probably not return and we didn't want to let him get away with not paying for his drinks. The restaurant had a Masai Warrior as a door man and we had thought that he was probably just for decoration for the passing tourists. It turned out he was a genuine Masai Warrior, and his weapon was real and ready to sort out this matter. By now our drinking ‘pal’ was looking quite worried, he said he had the money at home. So Richard suggested that the Masai man walked him to where he lived to collect the money he owed for his bar bill. They set off, as we waited for them to return the owner said she was pleased that we were forcing him to pay as he had done this before! Everyone was just so laid back in Mombasa, I don't think they liked to make a fuss. Anyway ages later the Masai and his victim returned, they did not have the money, apparently when they got to his home, conveniently he couldn't find his keys! The owner of the bar didn't want him to be injured by her doorman who was ready to some damage, so Richard made a suggestion. He said lets strip this guy of all of his clothes and keep them until he returns with the money he owed. She thought this was an excellent idea. So she told the guy to strip, he reluctantly took off his shoes, he said they were his only pair, then he removed his trousers, jacket and shirt. Richard and the owner thought he should be totally naked, so they told him to remove everything! He wouldn't, so the Masai doorman, the owner, and Richard grabbed him and stripped him, he was struggling and pleading, saying that he would catch his death walking home naked. I couldn't help, as I was too busy laughing as this mad spectacle unfolded. His underpants were just about to be removed by the Masai when the owner relented and let him keep some dignity, then he was thrown out into the night. She said he would feel very ashamed walking home, as anyone who saw him would know that he must owe someone money. We walked back to our hotel enjoying the cool early morning air.

We went into Le Bistro the next morning to see if he had returned with the money as promised, he had not been seen. In fact right up until we left Mombasa weeks later he had not paid them the money he owed, and his clothes were still behind the bar! Hopefully now he will think twice before ordering drinks he hasn’t got the money to pay for. We felt bad as we had been chatting to this guy so we offered to pay his bill, it didn’t seem fair that the owners should be so out of pocket. But they wouldn’t let us, they said that it was their fault as he had done this before, and they should have made him pay after each round. They also said we spent so much time in there that their profits were up a lot! Our time in Kenya was not all about drinking, we were looking forward to going on Safari. We spoke to a couple of tour operators until we found one we thought we could deal with. Fortunately the tour operator we chose was based on Moi Avenue, a couple of minutes walk from the Manson Hotel. We went there early one morning to book some Safari adventures. We liked the sound of Shimba Hills and Tsavo, so the bargaining began. Once we had agreed on an acceptable price we booked our two Safari adventures, one would be a day trip, the other an overnight trip. We were quite excited now that it was all arranged, it would be nice to get out of the town, breath in some fresh air, and hopefully see lots of animals. I always kept in close contact with my mummy whenever and wherever we travelled. As well as receiving letters from her via the American Express office in Mombasa, I liked to e-mail her. There were internet cafes locally but on this trip we had taken our laptop with us. The staff at the Manson Hotel were so friendly and helpful, even calling an engineer in to sort out the phone line for us, so that we could use the computer in our room. We had already arranged before we left London for a dial up internet account with Africa online, which meant that it would not cost the hotel anything, we were billed directly for everything. It took a bit of sorting out, these things are never as straight forward as they should be, but eventually we were up and running, excellent. I e-mailed mummy to let her know that we were off on Safari ... Yippee!

SHIMBA HILLS NATIONAL RESERVE & SHELDRICK FALLS

The first Safari we went on was to Shimba Hills National Reserve. We had chosen to go alone, so there was just Richard and myself and our driver/guide, we set off in a huge four wheel drive. Shimba Hills was perfect for a day trip as it is so close to town, only about 30km from Mombasa. We couldn’t wait to get there, and listening to our very nice and knowledgeable driver made the journey pass quickly, it seemed to take about five minutes. Shimba Hills is 74 square miles in size, and around 500 metres above sea level. There is accommodation at Shimba Hills at the Shimba Hills Lodge which overlooks a beautiful lush green glade of dense rain forest. The reserve consists of both open grassland and dense rain forrest with amazing views across the Indian Ocean. Shimba Hills were gazetted as a National Forest in 1903 with the grassland area being incorporated in 1924. It was in 1968 that most of the reserve was double gazetted as the Shimba Hills National Reserve. The reserve has 153km of road all of which was pretty bumpy, so sore bottoms for us, even in a comfy four wheel drive. It was not long before we spotted our first animal, an elephant. Needless to say we held the camera to our eye and it pretty much stayed there for the day. There was an amazing amount of animals, I think we saw at least one of every animal they have there. Our driver was amazing, he seemed to have x-ray vision, pointing out everything for us long before we had spotted it. He stopped frequently for us to get a clearer look, and often reversed for us if needed to take photos. The morning seemed to fly by and we went to the lodge for a break and a much needed drink. We got our driver a drink, but he didn’t want to come inside the lodge, he was happy to stay outside chatting with some other tour operators. Our driver said he would be waiting outside whenever we felt like returning to the car. We sat out on the terrace at the lodge talking about all of the wonderful animals we had seen so far. This trip was in the days before we had a digital camera, we couldn’t wait to get our film developed. We had taken lots of rolls of film of many different animals, elephants, giraffes, zebras, lizard, roan antelopes, sable antelope, ostriches, warthogs, and buffalo. The lodge at Shimba Hills had been built in a very respectful and thoughtful way, basically it was a large tree house nestling in amongst the trees. The interior was very rustic with lots of exposed areas of stone, and it had a very relaxed quiet feel to it. After rehydrating ourselves we headed outside to find our driver, he was ready and willing to drive us round some more. I think that we had been lucky enough to have seen most of the animals already but we didn’t want this wonderful day to come to an end. We drove round and saw lots more animals, our driver stopped suddenly and jumped out of the car all excited, he picked up a tortoise to show us! As we had no doubt seen practically all of the animals at least once our driver took us to a waterfall. It was called Sheldrick Falls and it was lovely, when we arrived there were only a few other people all splashing about in the wonderfully cool water. Apparently it is not unusual for elephants to come to the falls so it is advisable to go with a ranger. We sat on some rocks in the shade enjoying the change of pace, it was so cool and fresh by the water. We didn’t swim in the water but we did dip our toes in, and our driver took some lovely photographs of us with the waterfall in the background. By now we were feeling hungry and tired so we asked to be taken back to our hotel. Needles to say after all of the fresh air and with the intenseness of the day we slept very well that night.

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Obviously for this trip we had to take anti malarial drugs. We had taken them on previous trips but unfortunately this time they made me seriously ill. I felt very unwell most days, our doctor had told us that, ‘don’t quote him on it’, but the side effects can be relieved by drinking alcohol! Seriously, who would have thought a doctor would suggest alcohol as a good thing? Anyway, on one particular morning after having a terrible nights sleep, complete with terrifying nightmares, I thought I would try his remedy. It was barely 10am, we left our hotel and walked out onto Moi Avenue, and headed straight to a bar where we knew one of the barmen very well. Thankfully he was on duty and was more than happy to pour me a lovely large cold glass of beer. It was odd for me as I am not really a drinker at home, my favourite drink is water. The beer certainly hit the mark though, it wasn’t long before I began to feel human again. This trip to Kenya practically turned me into an alcoholic, most days I was actually drinking more than Richard, and that’s not something that ever usually happens! I dread to think how many bottles of Tusker Beer I must have drunk over the month or so we were away. Good job it was quite weak at about alc 4.2%! With all this beer being drunk we did actually eat quite a lot of food on this trip, often three meals a day which is very unusual for us normally. Apart from enjoying lots of delicious meals at Le Bistro, we ate out a lot in the evenings at a place called Recoda. We had read about the food before we got to Kenya, and one evening soon after we first arrived in Mombasa we visited the Recoda in Nyeri Street Old Town. This branch was small and packed when we arrived early in the evening. The owner was very friendly and helpful, making suggestions of what to eat. There wasn’t really a menu, I guess the local people just knew what food was on offer. We were happy to let the owner bring us several dishes to try. We sat at a rickety pavement table as lots of mismatched plastic plates were placed before us. It all looked and smelt fantastic. I would say that Recoda was the best restaurant for Swahili food in Mombasa, and this one in the old town was one of the oldest restaurants in Mombasa too. It originally opened in 1942, and there were some photographs on the walls from this period. We loved our food, we ate a lovely creamy bean dish, some cassava, salad, and lots of tasty hot bread. This restaurant in the old town was only open in the evenings and the menu was mostly fish based. There was another branch of Recoda right near to our hotel on Moi Avenue which was open all day and the menu was much more meat based, which we preferred. The first time we went into the Recoda on Moi Avenue we were shown inside and seated at a table, behind the counter were several young boys cooking up a storm. There were lots of different piles of food, most of which it was obvious what they were. We pointed to the food we fancied, and it was freshly cooked for us. We had asked for a couple of bottles of coke, which were brought to our table straight away. The young boy who served us our drinks, tried to clear the table with the back of his hand. It had scraps of food on it, which meant that it was of great interest to quite a few insects of various different shapes and sizes! We told him not to bother, he was fighting a losing battle, anyway I would prefer the insects to be on the table where I could see them than on the floor crawling up my legs! He shoved some more insects off of the table and more appeared from nowhere! I thought it was all very amusing, which was weird as before now this would have put me right off of my food.

I guess I must have been getting used to all the bugs, after our many travels to this continent. Our food arrived, and it was even tastier than the food we had eaten at the old town Recoda. This time we had ordered some diced meat on skewers similar to kebabs, some fried creamy potatoes, rice, salad, and lovely hot bread. We smothered the meat with seriously hot pepper sauce and dug in. We seemed to be of interest to the young boys who worked there, they stood watching us the whole time we were eating. In all the time we stayed in Mombasa we never once saw any other white people eating there so I guess we were an odd sight. After polishing off a whole table full of food and about five bottles of coke we asked for the bill. It was so cheap, you would not have been able to buy a couple of soft drinks in London for that price. We ate there at least three times a week after that first time, but we always sat outside, where there were hardly any bugs! It was a very popular restaurant and when we ate there very late at night, there would be lots of cars coming and going picking up bags full of delicious takeaway food. It didn’t feel like we were away, we felt like we were at home in Mombasa. All of the people we spoke to were so warm and friendly. We never saw any white people in any of the cafes, bars or restaurants we frequented, except our miller friend, but we did get the odd glimpse of pale skin. Often whilst sitting in the window seats at Le Bistro we would look out across Moi Avenue and see groups of tourist getting out of mini vans or taxis. They would walk all along looking at the craft stalls, sometimes buying things, and then as quickly as they had arrived they would jump back in their transport and be whisked back to the ‘safety’ of the large resort hotels. It seemed such a shame as I think they would have been surprised by how calm and friendly the area around Moi Avenue was. I guess that a lot of the hotels let them believe that it is dangerous, they don’t want them to spend their money outside the hotel. We walked round our little area of Mombasa daily, there were so many interesting people and places to see.

MACKINNON MARKET

One morning we decided to walk to Mackinnon Market, it was a good walk from our hotel, and nice to stretch our legs. As we expected the market was very busy and noisy, and full of bright colours and strong aromas. It was quite a large market selling everything from tropical fruit, various spices, and tea and coffee. Richard almost had his pocket picked whilst we were walking round, but I guess the little lad must have been new to his craft as he came away empty handed! We had seen the beautiful material that a lot of African women wear as skirts or wraps on all of our African travels. We wanted to buy some, and there was a good choice on sale at this market. The trouble is being a westerner, as soon as you seem slightly interested in buying anything you are usually swamped with people trying to sell you something. Here in Mombasa it wasn’t that bad, well not as chaotic as some other countries we had visited. We began looking at some fabrics, which are called Kangas. I couldn’t decide on which ones I wanted, not surprising as I am very indecisive, there were just so many different designs and colours to choose from. Richard saw one he really liked and picked it up to feel the quality of the fabric. The pattern was very nice and the cotton was surprisingly thick. Traditionally most Kangas have some writing on them, usually one sentence of a local saying. The material Richard chose had some writing on, and as our Swahili was limited we tried to find out what it said. Usually the saying is related to the picture on the Kanga, as this one was. They are often funny too, this one was funny and not inappropriate so the bartering began. A deal was done, we left with big smiles. Richard has a collection of loud Mambo (Australian brand) shirts he likes to wear and he wanted to get this Kanga made into a shirt. We walked out of the busy market and back toward our hotel looking for a tailor. There were lots of tailors in all of the places we visited in Africa, and it wasn’t long before we found one in Mombasa. We went in and Richard explained to the tailor what he wanted, we left the tailor Richard's Mambo shirt as a rough guide. The tailor said it would be ready tomorrow, wow, that seemed quick. We weren't expecting the shirt to be top quality. We just had to buy some buttons and drop them in to the tailors before it closed that day. We found an excellent shop that sold ribbons, lace, everything to do with sewing, and also buttons. Buttons bought, we took them back to the tailor, who had already started on the shirt. When we collected the shirt the next day we were very impressed, it was really well made. The tailor had even cut the kanga up to make the best of the pattern and the Swahili saying. Most Kangas are two pieces of the same pattern as this one was, so there are two of everything. As there were two Swahili sayings the tailor had cut the material so that Richard's shirt had the saying on the back across the top of the shoulders, and then again around the bottom edge. It looked fantastic, and it was so well made, Richard still wears it today after all these years. Although we spent a lot of time doing nothing, we always seemed to be doing something in Mombasa! It just felt like the days were twice as long as normal, we were having a great time. We had enjoyed our first safari so much that we were like excited children waiting for the second one. This safari was going to be an overnight one, so we temporarily waved good-bye to the Manson Hotel.

TSAVO NATIONAL PARK

We were picked up at our hotel very early in the morning. The vehicle was a mini van, and there were already four people on board. There was a married couple from Germany, and two sisters from Pakistan. This was all of us, so it wasn’t too bad, and there was lots of room inside the van to spread out. The journey to Tsavo passed quickly, we spent most of it chatting to the sisters, and marvelling at the fact that we were still alive considering the amount of near misses our driver seemed to have with other vehicles! Still in one piece we arrived at the park, we were all excited with cameras ready. Needless to say the German couple were at the front of the van, and were already standing up with the top halves of their bodies looking out over the land through the sun roof! Tsavo National Park is large, it covers over 53,870 square miles about 20,800 square kms, so a bit bigger than London Zoo, in fact bigger than London! It is said to be Kenya’s largest national park, and it is divided by the Mombasa/Nairobi Road and the railroad into Tsavo East and Tsavo West. There are 1,250 miles of rough dirt tracks in Tsavo East and Tsavo West. Obviously with such a large expanse of land and high grass, and with large distances between the dirt tracks we were told that spotting the animals would not be that easy. The area south of the river, a triangle of flat open wilderness with Aruba Dam in the middle, is one of the best places to spot animals, and is very popular with lots of safari operators. It wasn’t long before we saw our first animals of the day, giraffes. As we drove round scanning the scenery for more animals we were not disappointed. We saw so many wonderful animals, most of which we were very happy to have been able to see fairly close. I guess they must be quite accustomed to the vans full of tourists clicking away with their cameras, they mostly ignored us. In the first hour or so I think we saw every animal that roamed the land, giraffe, baboon, zebra, antelope, elephant, and many more. The one animal we had really wanted to see was the lion, as we had not seen any anywhere yet. The other four people on the van said they too would like to see some lions, so our driver said he would try and make it happen. He contacted some of the other tourist vans in the park to ask where they were and ask if they had spotted any lions. After about half an hour we were contacted by another driver who said he had seen some lions. Our driver wasted no time in getting us to the location. The roads were not made for speed, and although he was by no means speeding our driver did make haste. It was not that comfortable driving that fast over the rough ground, but we hoped that it would be worth it. We approached the area where the lions had been spotted, and by now there were three vans there in total, all carrying expectant tourists hoping for a sighting of a lion or two. It was completely silent as everyone scanned the surrounding area hoping to spot a lion. Eventually a lone lion was spotted, she was coming towards the vans. She came so close, we could have reached out and touched her. A few minutes passed and she was joined by some more curious lions. We were all so pleased that the lions seemed interested in us, maybe they thought we were their lunch ... tinned!