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Nairobi --> Mombasa --> Malindi (with daytrip to Gede and Watamu) --> Lamu --> Malindi --> Mombasa (with daytrips to Diani and Tiwi beaches, Shimba Hills National Reserve) --> Nairobi

We continued to look around Nairobi although the one thing that is noticeable is that there is a lot there but not really much to see. Anything historic has been introduced to the wrecker's ball and replaced with more modern, shiny buildings. It basically leads to a city which looks alright but lacks character or appeal. There is, however, Nairobi National Park which offers safari delights for people who don't or can't go to other, more famous (and better) parks such as Maasai Mara. We went there to recce the park - almost as expensive as MM but with something lacking (we later heard that it's not so full of animals). There's also a safari walk (which Paul later did) and an animal orphanage. What else is there to say about Nairobi? Not much really.

Mombasa was next, gateway to the Indian Ocean coast. What a difference from Nairobi. There's an old town for a start which hasn't been pulled down - it is easy to just spend an afternoon lost wandering around the small and windy alleys of Mombasa. The local council agrees too (although not about getting lost) and they've kindly posted walking tour routes throughout the area. If I was a better historian (or had a guide) then I'd be able to tell you about the various types of architecture and the periods they came from. What I do know however, and thanks to the information nailed to the wall in Fort Jesus, is that Mombasa was originally a Swahili town until the Portuguese turned up. The Portuguese took over and built Fort Jesus - so named because the overhead (plan) view is of a crucifix - and ran the town. Eventually someone had the idea of inviting the Omani Arabs to come and conquer the Portuguese which they did. And then they settled in Mombasa. All of this means that Mombasa is one big melting pot of Muslims and Christians, Arabs and blacks. This can make getting a beer a little harder than it should otherwise be but the upside is a small island city that is quite captivating and easy to spend time in.

Having feasted upon the delights of Mombasa we set our sights to the north: the noteworthy Lamu. To get there we headed first to Malindi, about halfway between Mombasa and Lamu. Malindi, as a town is just a dot of shops and souvenir stands although it happens to be located within a short distance of an incredible beach bedecked in white, fine-grained sands. It was a pleasure to walk up and down the beach with the exception of the odd interruption from a boat captain of a souvenir seller - unfortunately it wasn't the tourist season and there were few other tourists for them to target. That in itself isn't so annoying; however their sales tactic of chatting to you like you're their long-lost friend is. It invariably ends with them trying to guilt-trip a sale ('I haven't sold anything today', 'I've been here since breakfast, not that I ate any' etc.) or extract a promise to help them in some way. It was a small price to pay. There are plenty of tourist resorts backed onto Malindi beach although they are all tastefully made and fit quite well into the whole beach, palms and sand setting without at all appearing gaudy or out of place.

We did a daytrip to the ruins of Gede (pronounced ged-ay with a soft 'g'). Where's it from? Omani Arab of course! It's a quiet little area at the end of a quiet road from the quiet town of the same name. The ruins were interesting without being exceptional and the lack of signposted information meant that the building names were known to us but not their history. Gede was made into quite a joy by the presence of a troop of small monkeys who are quite tame and lounge around the entrance. 'Do not feed the monkeys (as they may be dangerous to you)' said a sign at the entrance. As we were leaving an Italian couple pulled up in a tuk-tuk taxi, jumped out with a bunch of bananas and proceeded to feed the monkeys. The Italians were unharmed (despite making the monkeys bounce around to get their treats) and the monkeys were, naturally, super cute and cuddly.

We continued to the town and beach of Watamu. This is a small version of Malindi with a quaint little town nestled by the beach. There's few hotels there and the beach is small but still delightful. Good for a few hours walking around and yes, there are boat captains waiting there with the same tricks.

On to Lamu. We caught an early - is 10 am early? - bus and arrived at the port opposite Lamu Island early in the afternoon. The public ferry was leaving in a little while so we piled on and paid our low, low fare to get to Lamu town. The ferry got us through a combination of petrol and tide power (they had some engine problems and spent a large part of the journey getting the siphon from the jerrycan working). Whilst on the ferry we met a group of fellow foreigners who had traveled from Nairobi where they provide volunteer work, such as teaching. When we arrived at Lamu we clubbed together and rented a house for three nights for a per person price less than the hotels we had found - and we had use of the fridge and kitchen. Good news if you want a cold drink, but bad news if that drink you want is a beer. Yep, Lamu is a Muslim town although we later found that thte police association, of all places, sold beer.

The group that we met - David, Carson, Pascal, Henning and Theresa - also met a boat captain call Abdul, aka Captain Shark (Adbul's own nom de guerre), who offered them a good deal on a dhow ride. Would we like to join them? Sure thing. They paid a deposit for the food for the trip and we were set to sail the next day. The next day Captain Shark arrives early at our house to say that he can't sail today: he has to attend a friend's funeral. Sailing is postponed to the next day. We also had an arrangement with Captain Shark to have a traditional Swahili meal at a local house which went ahead that evening. The food was fantastic: a combination of salads, vegetable dishes and fish. After the dinner had finished Captain Shark had a small announcement to make: the trip he was offering was 'unofficial' (done without his company knowing) but they had found out and we'd need to register the trip for a small extra deposit to get the trip onto the company's log. We could do that the next morning, the morning of the boat ride. The next morning Henning pays the additional deposit early and we later convene to meed Adbul for our dhow ride. He isn't there on time and, as the minutes pass we start asking around. Apparently he was last seen a little earlier on a boat heading to the mainland. We speak to a number of the other boat captains and tourist guides around on the waterfront and they're shocked and annoyed (Captain Shark's giving them a bad name) - they promise to keep their eyes open for him and in the meantime arranged a replacement dhow ride (which we also paid for). That evening we tried to find Shark by going back to the house where we had had the traditional Swahili meal; Carson, from Canada, in particular was offering locals nearby the chance to earn 100 shillings (just over US$1) if they called him when Captain Shark turned up; we were after all some friends who wanted to surprise him. Unfortunately for him, Captain Shark was staying well away and he never got that call. They also spoke to the tourist information office, which even comes with a tourist policeman, but can't get anything more on Captian Shark. The group of five had to head back to Nairobi for work but Paul and I chose to stay on for another few days. The next day, we get a call from the tourist police: they've recovered some of the money Captian Shark took; could we come and collect it? It turns out that the tourist policeman went to Captain Shark's grandmother who happily revealed that her grandson had turned up with a wedge of cash and left it at her place; and here it is, you can take it. The policeman had recovered 2000 shillings (US$27, or 80%) of the deposit paid which put a smile on a lot of faces. Captain Shark, who was last seen riding a donkey through a village one hour's walk away had a nasty shock awaiting him when he returned to grandmother.

Lamu is basically Mombasa condensed and with all the modern buildings and stuff left behind. It sits on the seashore and the seashore is in turn stuffed full of dhows waiting for tourists to come along and ride in them. You'd expect that the seafront would be full of boat captains trying to sell a boat ride and you'd be right. However, for reasons which I can only speculate about, they mostly don't create the hassle and bother that the boat captains at Malinidi and Watamu do. The selling atmosphere wasn't unpleasant and that just made Lamu even better. The dhow ride that we did - the replacement for Captain Shark's aborted adventure - was an absolute dream: the weather was fantastic, the crew friendly and coincidentally also great cooks.

Armed with a police-retrieved deposit Paul and I returned to Mombasa via Malindi. We spent more time in Mombasa, specifically taking the the beaches to the south - especially Diani and the even less spoiled Tiwi - and tried to find out about the elephant sanctuary nearby. The elephant sanctuary was harder to get to than we first expected mainly because we took the wrong matatu. It passed close by but left us with a walk of four or five kilometres to the sanctuary. The first car we waved down stopped and gave us a ride to the sanctuary; as it turns out the driver runs a Japanese car import company and car hire firm so he didn't want to miss the opportunity to get two foreigners into his car so he could talk business. We checked out the sanctuary information and, heading back to Mombasa with our new driver, went straight past Shimba Hills National Reserve just a few kilometres later. On balance we decided to visit the National Reserve instead of the elephant sanctuary because the costs were almost the same. We hired a car from the same guy and headed the next day to Shimba Hills. We spent about five hours driving around Shimba Hills with a guide. We found that the safari was a bit of a paradox: it's there to preserve animals but, for the tourist who's come to see them, the animals are too well preserved and can be jolly difficult to find and see. The bush can be quite thick and all it takes is for an animal to stand a couple of metres inside from the periphery and they're almost invisible and certainly not able to be photographed. Other animals are just plain shy to the point of being terrified of anything alien. I'm referring to the elusive water buck which we saw although our usual view was of a pair of horns, the top of a head and some eyes peering out from behind a shrub. Or, when they bolted, their distant back ends. There is a total elephant herd of about 250 in Shimba Hills although seeing them, despite the obvious difficulties you would expect an elephant to have when trying to hide, was nigh on impossible. Apparently they stay tucked away during the daytime due to the heat and then make an appearance towards the end of the afternoon. Eventually we saw a total of two (perhaps three) elephants, always in the distance and typically obscured. Our total safari experience was made good, however, by the large number of bush bucks that we met by the sides of the road and the herds of buffalo and sable antelope that could easily be found on the aptly named 'Buffalo Ridge'. Apparently the pasture is kept healthy and juicy for the grazers as the rangers burn off older pasture so that new shoots appear. We have heard that the volcanic Hell's Gate National Park is teeming with animals so we may check that out too: watch this space.

Following our Shimba Hills safari we next headed to the beaches south of Mombasa, specifically aiming for the highly rated Tiwi beach. Our public transport took us probably a good four to five km south of where we wanted to be so we did the obvious and walked up the beach. There were not so many boat captains here but sadly, sellers of souvenirs ('curios' in the local jargon) abound, especially on (and south of) the more touristy and frequented Diani. I did give in to temptation and had a 15-minute leg massage which was worth every penny (not that I paid many pennies) as I passed one particular tourist Mecca. Tiwi beach proved to be as good as the reviews although, unfortunately, we were warned (both by the guide book and by a local) of the possibility of getting mugged on Tiwi beach or the road to/from Tiwi. The solution was simple: go back to Diani and back to the main road from there.

Back in Nairobi we met with David (from the Netherlands) from the Lamu group and reunited him with the money that Grandmother Shark had returned. Having lunch together we found out a little more about him: he's a volunteer teacher in the Kibera slum, the largest in Nairobi (there are at least three) and pipped to the dubious honour of the largest in Africa by one in South Africa. (An aside: in case you're wondering how someone foreign can teach in Kenya, all the children are taught in English, except for Swahili lessons. Mr Boniface, the headmaster of South Horr Primary told us this and from what we've heard since it seems to be standard). We were curious about his experience there and asked quite a few questions prompting him to invite us to visit him there in the slum. We would have gone the next day except ... Paul became a victim of crime for a third time on this trip when he had is mobile phone pick-pocketed. He had gone out to get some food at night and, literally 100m from our hotel and on one of the main roads where the minibuses park, a pick-pocket pushed him off balance from behind and grabbed his phone from his pocket (this was at 9pm). Paul followed him shouting 'police' and 'thief' except no-one (and there are plenty around) did a thing so the pick-pocket just walked into a nearby shop, took off his coat (and presumably Paul's ex-phone at the same time) and left them there. Despite calling the police, visiting the station that evening (to eventually arrive back at the hotel after 11pm) the phone was not retrieved. Paul then spent the next morning back at the station and has since had to visit several more times to get paperwork completed. He would have claimed on his travel insurance ... except it had expired about one month previously (d'oh!).

The pick-pocket drama now in the recent past we were able to re-arrange the visit to Kibera. We also happened to arrange the visit on Kenyatta Day, a Kenyan public holiday named after Kenya's first president / dictator post-colonialism, Jomo Kenyatta. The fact that after nearly forty years of independence Kenya's only onto it's third president, Kibaki (who was inaugerated in 2007 after a power deal negotiated by Kofi Annan to stop the violence / genocide following the 2007 presidential elections) shows what a massive and corrupt gravy train Kenya politics is. Apparently there is work - started some ten years ago - ongoing to revise and improve Kenya's constitution but I don't think anyone's holding their breath. Kibaki turned up to Nairobi's stadium, along with many other suit-clad dignitaries, did a lap of the stadium in the back of a pick-up, and gave a speech. There was a fly-by by Kenya's airforce which we could hear from the quite of our hotel room where we were lazing. Later, we met with David and his group (of different volunteers) and headed to Kibera.

Kibera was everything I expected it to be and some things that I didn't. Basically there's about one million people all shoehorned into a fairly small area which is a big sea of corrugated iron and mud brick - and occasionally concrete - huts. The slum is surrounded by otherwise ordinary looking suburbs and housing - in fact the government had decided to clear the Kibera slum and so built a massive set of apartment buildings nearby. They then filled them with middle-class tenants because - you guessed it - they were corrupt and someone decided to make some money selling nice new apartments (albeit next to Nairobi's largest slum). More apartments are being built. There are no roads - only footpaths - with the 'main roads' through the slum barely large enough to take a car. In any case there is no paving so now that the El Nino (unseasonal) rains have started parts of the slum's 'roads' are a complete mudbath. We were guided by a local called Tom, who also lives in Kibera, and who works for an NGO called La Vie Foundation which promotes basic community self-help and services in the slum. Examples of the work he's involved in: reclamation of a large bog on the east end of Kibera so that locals can grow their own veggies; rehousing people, especially the elderly, should something untoward happen such as their mud hut collapse; and disaster management (eg keeping people away from dangerous power lines, dispersing crowds of rubber-neckers so professional help can work).

The houses - and we were welcomed into about three or four houses owned by people known to Tom - were inevitably very basic: lino flooring over dirt, cardboard of any description - advertising posters, packaging - used as wallpaper / insulation. The beds and sleeping areas are separated from the entrance area by bed sheets suspended from the roof. Overall there is very little space, yet the interior is used to dry the washed clothes if there isn't space for a clothes line outside which there often isn't. The number of people in a house varies depending on the number of children the parents have: the most we heard of was two parents and four children (three children in one bed and the parents and smallest child in the other). As people often come to Nairobi seeking a livelihood they may leave their children at home in another town - this was also mentioned. How much do they earn? Not much: the people we spoke to were earning in the region of US$4 per day which then went on paying food and other items. One of the main problems with earning money, aside from the amount, was that the income is irregular: some days they earn no money so they don't eat.

Electricity is available in some houses but not others: if the roof is made of sacking then some light enters although one place - which had corrugated iron roofing - was pitch black. Paraffin lamps or coal are used for cooking. As there is little street lighting - or electricity for that matter - then crime at night is a distinct problem (although apparently one which has improved dramatically over recent years). How to deal with crime? Mob justice, in particular catching the (alleged) criminal and setting him / her on fire. This means that someone runs off to get hold of some accelerant and matches once a(n) (alleged) criminal has been caught so that punishment can be dispensed. One of our group, Philip (from Germany), who had been teaching in Kibera for nearly three weeks mentioned this. "Have you ever seen this?" I asked. "No", said Philip, "but I've smelled it".

The strange irony about experiencing Kibera first hand is that it should be full of people who are angry, sullen and generally pissed off with the world and their lot in life. Anything but. The people were invariably very friendly (noting, of course that we weren't walking around at night) and smiled a lot. How to explain it? The only backgrounder that helps me here is the comment in Lonely Planet that education in Kenya is taken very seriously and parents will often work hard (eg by leaving their children to be cared for by extended family and go to Nairobi to work) to ensure that the kids go to school. Perhaps there are enough people there who chose to do this, as strange as it sounds, although they obviously prefer better conditions. And on that cheerful note, this blog is now up to date; cheerio until next time.