Mombasa was a great break from the sometimes day to day droll of Eldoret. We stayed right on the Coast at Diani Beach. Highly recommended as a place to hang your hat for a short while.
When we arrived in Mombasa we were ferried to our destination, set up camp in this beautiful house There are only two houses on this compound with one swimming pool. The pool water is almost hot but when it is 36 degrees out with high humidity it does the trick! (see photos below) My beautiful wife was again having a very hard time managing the maid, the cook and the gardener. Darn!
To access the beach we had to walk for about four minutes down a gravel road, enter the 40 Thieves bar and grill and then step onto this vast white sand beach. The water on the Indian Ocean is turquoise and has a high depth visibility this time of year. The rains are fast approaching so we were there at the "winding down" of tourist season. The area has its own Portuguese contingent, English, German then some other European countries who tend to holiday here. The down side is that the beggars on the beach are incredibly persistent and eventually you just have to ignore them or firmly tell them to go away and you would like to be left alone! The bar is well staffed, has good food at moderate prices. You can sit at a table and look over the Indian Ocean and fade away! Incredible. The water is like you bath water at home.
When one goes down the main road of Diani Beach, a ten minute walk from our compound, you will find tourism at its best. The locals harass you to buy their goods, not as bad as on the beach, there are some very good fruit and vegetable stands to purchase fresh greens. You will then hit strip malls and think you were down in Corydon Avenue in Winnipeg. The items here are high prices and upscale. (we did not buy) The contrast again from poor to filthy rich is acute.
Our dinners generally constituted copious amounts of fresh caught sea food, fresh salads and local fruits. Heaven can wait!
Briefly back to crime. If you come here to holiday as a "newbie" I would strongly suggest you do not go out at night at all. Dust can be risky too. The area has a large tourist population with money and that in turn brings a criminal element. Just after leaving we found out that one woman from Tanzanian was brutally mugged and subsequently hospitalized. She was coming out of a supermarket at dust, had a large amount of money on her (why I do not know) and was obviously spied as a target.
So we did a lot of nothing sitting, reading, eating, playing and viewing the sites. Enjoying the flowers and fragrances of Jasmine and Patchouli wafting through the air.
One really neat thing we did was have a fancy dinner at a place called "The Cave" which is adjacent to the 40 Thieves bar. You enter this structure then walk down a winding stair way into a a hollow coral cave. The area is fully set up for fine dinning and as an added bonus you look straight up from your table and see the stars from a volcano like opening at the top. Incredible! The food and service was well done and the price was "mzungu targeted." Translation - white traveler targeted.
En route back to Mombasa we traveled through the regular (now) shit hole scenes of poverty. With a population exponentially larger than our area in Eldoret the garbage in indescribable. Lori, Alex and I traveled back over the ferry from mainland to the island of Mombasa. Our last "tourist" stop was at Fort Jesus established by the Portuguese in the beginning of 1600. This was fantastic (see pics below) The place has doors that are older than Canada! The place has urinal/crap holes built into the walls of the fortress that are older than Canada! It's incredible. Cannon everywhere, barracks and a fairly good gathering of historic paraphernalia related to the era covering off 1200 to the 1900's. When I closed my eyes I could envision the battles the Portuguese had with the local tribes, I could envision the trade, the markets set up in the center of the fort, the garbage, the rats!!! Must have had rats...The Portuguese getting there asses kicked by the French, then the French getting there asses kicked by the British and on and on it goes. The view over the harbor one way and the view over the old city the other. Wow! Wow! I can hardly believe I am fu--ing here!
We grabbed a bit to eat in the old city, where you can imagine the shit being thrown off balconies onto you (the groundlings) in days gone by. Eighty percent plus Muslim now, most Christians are low key. It is a city that you can generally walk around at night and feel fairly safe.
Oops, I lied. Just as we left there were two bombings in Mombasa. One at the bus terminal and one where we had just been. Apparently there was a Christian prayer group thing happening and some fundamentalist Muslim faction either tossed a grenade or set off a explosion. Thank you God! Even by my terms that one was a bit close for comfort. Its a bit of a reverse of the 300 years of crusades when 'Christians' killed everyone at random.
Just to reiterate this does not happen as often as you would think and what we see in North American news is not even close to what the true sense of this beautiful country is all about. (That was a support tourism in Africa ad sponsored by Jim Siddall).
We hit the air port in Mombasa and traveled to Nairobi where we stayed the evening.
That morning we traveled to a Baby Elephant Rescue Shelter which in its own right was heartfelt. Same old story, family gets killed by poachers because some dumb ass in Asia thinks his cock will get hard if he sprinkles some ground up Elephant tusk dust on his dick! Now the shelter is pretty cool (see pics) and it takes roughly five to ten years to slowly re-introduce the little guys to their family of origin (should any have survived the massacre). It was good to see some folks giving two shits about the wild life here.
We made it through security checks, to the air port in Nairobi (the biggest shit hole in the world with a concentration/refugee camp of roughly 800,000 people, best guess for now). Alex and I ate a KFC (no shit) while my wife had her hair done at an incredibly fancy mall. No contrast here. Hoped on the plane and then home sweet home!
So those are some pics, and not in order but hey! Please come back and visit Kenya. Our next stop we hope is Rwanda or maybe a Safari somewhere. Take care, love most of you, try to be nice today!
When we arrived in Mombasa we were ferried to our destination, set up camp in this beautiful house There are only two houses on this compound with one swimming pool. The pool water is almost hot but when it is 36 degrees out with high humidity it does the trick! (see photos below) My beautiful wife was again having a very hard time managing the maid, the cook and the gardener. Darn!
To access the beach we had to walk for about four minutes down a gravel road, enter the 40 Thieves bar and grill and then step onto this vast white sand beach. The water on the Indian Ocean is turquoise and has a high depth visibility this time of year. The rains are fast approaching so we were there at the "winding down" of tourist season. The area has its own Portuguese contingent, English, German then some other European countries who tend to holiday here. The down side is that the beggars on the beach are incredibly persistent and eventually you just have to ignore them or firmly tell them to go away and you would like to be left alone! The bar is well staffed, has good food at moderate prices. You can sit at a table and look over the Indian Ocean and fade away! Incredible. The water is like you bath water at home.
When one goes down the main road of Diani Beach, a ten minute walk from our compound, you will find tourism at its best. The locals harass you to buy their goods, not as bad as on the beach, there are some very good fruit and vegetable stands to purchase fresh greens. You will then hit strip malls and think you were down in Corydon Avenue in Winnipeg. The items here are high prices and upscale. (we did not buy) The contrast again from poor to filthy rich is acute.
Our dinners generally constituted copious amounts of fresh caught sea food, fresh salads and local fruits. Heaven can wait!
Briefly back to crime. If you come here to holiday as a "newbie" I would strongly suggest you do not go out at night at all. Dust can be risky too. The area has a large tourist population with money and that in turn brings a criminal element. Just after leaving we found out that one woman from Tanzanian was brutally mugged and subsequently hospitalized. She was coming out of a supermarket at dust, had a large amount of money on her (why I do not know) and was obviously spied as a target.
So we did a lot of nothing sitting, reading, eating, playing and viewing the sites. Enjoying the flowers and fragrances of Jasmine and Patchouli wafting through the air.
One really neat thing we did was have a fancy dinner at a place called "The Cave" which is adjacent to the 40 Thieves bar. You enter this structure then walk down a winding stair way into a a hollow coral cave. The area is fully set up for fine dinning and as an added bonus you look straight up from your table and see the stars from a volcano like opening at the top. Incredible! The food and service was well done and the price was "mzungu targeted." Translation - white traveler targeted.
En route back to Mombasa we traveled through the regular (now) shit hole scenes of poverty. With a population exponentially larger than our area in Eldoret the garbage in indescribable. Lori, Alex and I traveled back over the ferry from mainland to the island of Mombasa. Our last "tourist" stop was at Fort Jesus established by the Portuguese in the beginning of 1600. This was fantastic (see pics below) The place has doors that are older than Canada! The place has urinal/crap holes built into the walls of the fortress that are older than Canada! It's incredible. Cannon everywhere, barracks and a fairly good gathering of historic paraphernalia related to the era covering off 1200 to the 1900's. When I closed my eyes I could envision the battles the Portuguese had with the local tribes, I could envision the trade, the markets set up in the center of the fort, the garbage, the rats!!! Must have had rats...The Portuguese getting there asses kicked by the French, then the French getting there asses kicked by the British and on and on it goes. The view over the harbor one way and the view over the old city the other. Wow! Wow! I can hardly believe I am fu--ing here!
We grabbed a bit to eat in the old city, where you can imagine the shit being thrown off balconies onto you (the groundlings) in days gone by. Eighty percent plus Muslim now, most Christians are low key. It is a city that you can generally walk around at night and feel fairly safe.
Oops, I lied. Just as we left there were two bombings in Mombasa. One at the bus terminal and one where we had just been. Apparently there was a Christian prayer group thing happening and some fundamentalist Muslim faction either tossed a grenade or set off a explosion. Thank you God! Even by my terms that one was a bit close for comfort. Its a bit of a reverse of the 300 years of crusades when 'Christians' killed everyone at random.
Just to reiterate this does not happen as often as you would think and what we see in North American news is not even close to what the true sense of this beautiful country is all about. (That was a support tourism in Africa ad sponsored by Jim Siddall).
We hit the air port in Mombasa and traveled to Nairobi where we stayed the evening.
That morning we traveled to a Baby Elephant Rescue Shelter which in its own right was heartfelt. Same old story, family gets killed by poachers because some dumb ass in Asia thinks his cock will get hard if he sprinkles some ground up Elephant tusk dust on his dick! Now the shelter is pretty cool (see pics) and it takes roughly five to ten years to slowly re-introduce the little guys to their family of origin (should any have survived the massacre). It was good to see some folks giving two shits about the wild life here.
We made it through security checks, to the air port in Nairobi (the biggest shit hole in the world with a concentration/refugee camp of roughly 800,000 people, best guess for now). Alex and I ate a KFC (no shit) while my wife had her hair done at an incredibly fancy mall. No contrast here. Hoped on the plane and then home sweet home!
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| Pool Side at the Love Shack |
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| Follow path from Love Shack to here |
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| Pass through bar area onto beach here |
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| Long Walks on The Beach |
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| Love You always My Boy! |
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| Mommy and her Boy |
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| Now That's A Hot Chick! |
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| Low Tide Offers a Different View |
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| Life's A Beach |
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| Cargo on Indian Ocean Heading to Mombasa |
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| Dust at the Love Shack |
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| Mom and her Boy in the Warm Water |
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| Another Chance at Life - If only I could SMILE! |
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| Rugby? Maybe? |
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| Young Ones at Play |
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| These are Big Babies |
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| Rhino's are solitude animals - This baby one was rescued and is blind. |
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| KFC IS LIKE THE BORG - RESISTANCE IS FUTILE! |
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| The Military hard at work - What do you think the guy on the right is doing with his hands in his pockets. |
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| In the ZONE with KFC - A life well lived! |
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| Illiterates are a wee bit of a problem in Kenya - Can you eye spy the type error? |
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| Fort Jesus |
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| The young chick in the middle is my adopted daughter Mary |
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| This is a big Fort |
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| A gun portal |
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| Reproduction of a dead soldier or prisoner |
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| Funny thing is the real dead guy is buried below this guy! |
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| Alex looking down a poop chute built into the Fortress wall |
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| Adds new meaning to pissing on your enemies! |
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| About 47 degrees with humidity. Hot Chick! That's my wife Mr...! |
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| Another Hot chick! My daughter you jerk! Mary has the locals going guh, guh! Should carry Pongo! |
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| Down the arch way and to the right was the original prison cells! |
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| An excellent military vantage point for bombing the crap out of your enemies! |
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| Those indents on the walls are the lavatories. Still pissing on your enemy! |
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