Mombasa; and The End!

There are no lights on the Nairobi-Mombasa highway, and a thousand stars, and bumps. 2am coach stop: the confusion of an African ‘service station’, all hung with gaudy fairy lights, maybe I’m tired but it really is surreal. Stumble off coach in a daze, deafened by un-popped ears (we are travelling downhill all the way from Nairobi) to use the drop toilets, nice. It is a total hotpotch of people; there are strange corked bottles for sale in dark corners, enormous plates of greasy chicken, mandazi, ‘bisquits’; the pink flickering lights of the ‘pimped up’ coaches and matatus blur your eyes…I don’t want to get left behind.

Arrive 5am in Mombasa, feeling very tired indeed! And in great need of a shower. A tuktuk carries us through the dark and dusty streets – all rather dreamlike, and so hot and humid! Welcome to the ‘New Palm Tree Hotel’!, complete with white balcony, and roof top all hung with bed sheets (gosh, socks dry quickly here), air-conditioning and hot showers.

We visit the Old Town and Fort Jesus (built by the Portuguese following their invasion of this coastline in the 15^th Century – eventually an Omani 33-month siege ended their two-century rule, and today Mombasa, although predominantly Swahili, still has massive Arabic influences (actually the neat green parks and whitewashed streets have a definite European feel; despite the hanging creepers and somewhat un-European trees!)). There are beautiful old winding streets to be explored (all seem to have their own resident crowd of kittens), with carved wooden balconies and Zanzibari doors, fascinating (inlaid with heavy spikes as protection against the war elephants which were deployed here so many years ago) – leading all the way down to the old harbour and the blue Indian Ocean. It is so hot! A tropical storm is coming…

Mackinnon market spills out onto the surrounding streets, and is a chaos of an incredible variety of tropical produce (all weighed on copper scales, you bargain hard for ‘good price’…) – baobab seeds (‘vimto’ flavour), dried mango, sugar cane, dark and sticky tamarind roots, green coconuts (the unripe cousin of the brown and hairy; lovely to drink, like water), black cumin and a hundred other spices – cinnamon and cloves from Zanzibar, red coffee, green and pink peppercorns, teas, masalas, bright pink paprika, vanilla pods; also piles of macadamia nuts and the speckled beetle nut (a mild stimulant when crushed and eaten); beautiful chillies laid out in the sun to dry, symmetrical rows of passion fruits, tomatoes, lemons and limes, papayas, wafting coriander, women carrying great bundles of lemongrass on their heads, coconut cakes, bizarre long green ‘dhudi’, and other fruits that I don’t even know the name of. There is an inside market hung with swinging beef carcasses; outside you can buy fried lobster tails, tilapia, fried taro roots, chappatis, weaved sisal baskets; another room is full of chicken cages and clucking (a new load have just arrived, packed and cowered in the boot of a tuktuk – they are carried in in bundles by the feet, passive as usual…); men are making the traditional leather sandals worn here (inlaid with beads and tiny cowrie shells). The cloth market street is famous throughout Kenya for its kitenges (waxed versions similar to Kangas) and kikoys (bright woven cotton scarves worn by the men as skirts). All mad and bustling; women in their veiled black ‘bui-bui’, stall holders shouting and selling hard; all complicated by the presence of honking, brightly coloured tuktuks driving all over the place…

Next day: make our (tuktuk) way to the busy bustle that is the Likoni ferry (the only way to the South Coast; as Mombasa itself is an island – we queue up with the rest of the crowd – women balancing ridiculously big loads on their heads, men pulling ridiculously over-full banana carts. In the confusion on the other side we manage to locate a matatus which is travelling to Tiwi beach – the road passes through the market which looks as impressively confusing as Mackinnon’s (all a mass of bamboo-roofed stalls) - there are many mango trees along the way, too, quite odd, actually, with their tear-drop shaped deep-pink loads . I’m still rather flu-y, despite the heat!

Taxi from the road – coconut, baobab trees, and vervet Monkeys swinging in-between. Twiga Lodge borders the white sands of Tiwi beach, which is littered with empty coconut husks and tiny hermit crabs, and lapped by the balmy warm blue-clear waters of the Indian Ocean – wow!- completely picture perfect. I ride Armet the camel (dressed in a gaudy orange saddle, each handlebars decorated with a brightly perched bunch of pink bougainvillea) –  saggy knees and beautiful, sorrowful eyelashes – perhaps he’s just hot. It’s a gentle life, on the coast….

The following day we make a small hop along the coast so as to ‘cover’ the whole area. There are 26 ‘colobridges’ along the road – for the benefit of the colobus monkeys which live here and don’t know how to check both ways. Diani beach is absolutely stunning, with pure white fine sand - it is still windy and lying on the beach, this is blown deep into my ear. Hair-like-straw. The beach boys here are nothing if not persistent, ‘sisterrrrs…’, selling everything and anything! The campsite cook makes us a delicious ‘Zanzibar’ soup, made from ‘eddy’ fish, coconut milk and saffron.

‘Shoppin, shoppin’ – I buy a wooden giraffe keyring from a man who is carving them on the spot from a solid log of ebony, black and polished, and as heavy as an iron bar.

We are punted out to the coral reef in a hollowed-out mango tree (it has ‘stabilizer’ wings on each side – a good thing as it doesn’t look particularly seaworthy…) – it is hard work against the wind and we are buffeted by the salty waves – they are pure turquoise and warm. The bigger deep blue surf far out marks the start of the reef (which blocks shark access to the beach…oh good! … there are fishermen here hauling in huge nets of white snapper. Snorkel, mask and flippers on: putting your head under for the first moment reveals an utterly magical underwater world, familiar from the TV….the water is literally ‘hung’ with Zebra and Spiro; Angel and Nemo fish; shoals of tiny electric blue flashes moving in unison; and hundreds of other colours and species, all going about their daily business. Our guide dives down to pick up a sea urchin and cracks it open with a stick on the sea bottom – I hold it as they all flock to snatch mouthfuls of the caviar-like yellow intestine spilling out – it is empty in  seconds. There is a patched-yellow sea snake carving its way along the sea floor, and a red pure plastic star fish; another star fish is about 2 inches thick – orange plastic on the bottom and red velvet on the top with black sticky circles. Care must be taken not to tread on the black spiky sea urchin (which would cause a nasty sting – luckily we ‘needn’t worry’ as the antidote, papaya milk, is ‘available’). Huge, fluorescent blue-rimmed clam shells clamp ruthlessly and tightly down on a piece of coral placed inside; there are giant other-worldly orange puffballs of coral; shimmering pink barnacled shells with a surprise disgruntled resident who reaches out to pinch your finger… Patches of clear sand are littered with the debris of dusty shells carcasses, bunches of green sea spaghetti and pink ribbons of weed. A definite highlight of my trip.

I buy an octopus for 700ksh from a man on a bike (caught fresh from the deep sea, along with lobsters, using a snorkel and spear). They are hung in a great inky bunch by a string through their bulbous hippo heads - the man removes the brain and ?intestines (more black ink spills out). Then we have to go to the beach to ‘tenderise’ it by flogging it against the sand – what a pitiful limp sandy specimen. A good washing in the sea reveals its original pearly-white star shape, large tentacles with suckers in symmetrical neat rows thinning to a fine grey point (complete with mini suckers). The campsite cook is very obliging and cooks it up as a delicious salty coconut curry – it is very meaty and chewy.

Up at dawn to see the early beach – there are hundreds of tiny almost-transparent crabs, perfectly invisible against the sand – they disappear down their round crab holes before you tread on them.

Freshly baked bread and a pint of avocado juice for breakfast- just what I need (fair wipes me out though!). Another fisherman arrives to sell some freshly-caught calamari to the cook – these are even stranger beasts than the octopus – blue-rimmed, golf-ball sized eye balls and a glittery-pink-white latex body. Today we sit by the pool at the hotel (feels very luxurious) – all very relaxing until the monkeys arrive to cause trouble… budget lunch is my bag of left-over rice from dinner – at least, until I let my guard down – furry paw swipes and the robber scarpers up the tree. Just to rub it in, he sits on a branch in eye line, stolen bag balanced in front, and champs away most unattractively…small grains of rice rain down on me – how annoying!

Matatu back to the island where we have a lovely evening with Sakeena ( a friend from Birmingham) at a really  nice North-Indian restaurant – I am recommended to try the biriyani (famous on the coast line – flavoured with the beautiful spices – saffron, cloves, cinnamon, and sprinkled with almonds, served in a traditional ‘Handi’).

Back in Nairobi, I am renamed ‘Mwamboi’ (a Kikuyu name) by the AA staff, owing to my love of githeri… (Or, ‘Mama Bean’ for short). There is a new advertisement on the main road outside publicizing a company of ‘sign writters’ (talk about shooting yourself in the foot). Tomorrow I fly home – the staff are packing for ‘Rhino Charge’ at Samburu (a big annual event where vehicles ‘charge’, Rhino-style, in a straight line  for 3 days across whatever terrain is planned for them) and  I am sorry to be missing it!

May 31^st; Oti drives me to Jomo Kenyatta, early early. The end; to what has been surely the trip of a lifetime. So much to remember. Kenya, asante sana!!!