I thought I'd share our trip to Mombasa. We arrived at the airport: 4 adults, 1 toddler and 1 infant with lots of stuff. We left from an air strip - not an airport. It was a plane that was small, but okay.
We landed about 10 minutes from our hotel. We were met by someone from the hotel and left in a nice air conditioned van. The resort was fine, we were taken to a room that was not what we had paid for. We were supposed to have rooms on the beach, but we were nowhere near the beach. Lisa told the hostess that we needed new rooms. The manager came, and showed Lisa papers that showed no beach rooms. Now Lisa pulled out the papers that showed we had paid for beach front rooms. Someone had charged us for beach front and didn't expect us to make a complaint OR someone made a mistake! In Kenya you never know. Finally we got beach front rooms, really individual little cottages. The water was wonderful. The food was okay and the service was not so good.
The people there were very interesting. They have very few Americans, so we were constantly asked if we were from England. There were lots of French and I think Germans and Italians and several conferences of African associations. The clothing they wore was fascinating. There was one man, we think he was a king or tribal chief. Lisa was getting embarassed by my trying to casually take his picture. The older men wore their speedos - very interesting. The older women wore two piece bathing suits. Now these women did not have very flattering figures, very large muffin tops as my friend Carol Duffy would say. There was a man, probably in his late thirites or forties, who was the pool boy. It was his job to account for all the towels used, he got them from storage room in back of the kitchen. He also had to place all the cushions on the chairs and place all the umbrellas. Once you got a lounge chair and an umbrella, it was yours for your stay - no acceptions. It took us a day to get the umbrella.
There were plenty of monkeys on the grounds. Lisa and I rode the camels on the beach. She and Mike did the negotiating. We would sit on the beach and see these women walk up and down the beach trying to sell scarves. It is probably close to 100 degrees and they have layers of clothing on and go up and down that beach. The poverty is beyond what we are use to. On the drive to and from the air strip, you see thatched huts and tin huts; I cannot imagine what the temperature is in them. Once you were off the beach, where you got a great sea breeze, you were overwhelmed with the heat.
I should tell you about trying to get a drink there. We tried a pina colada - not made the American way. They pour two shots of liquor in a medium size wine glass, then put the coconut milk and other stuff in a blender with two or three ice cubes and spin. They then add this to the alcohol and call that a frozen drink. I tried to tell the bartender out by the pool how it was done, and he just didn't get it. He said you would lose the alcohol . I took a picture of some of the staff and the chef wanted me to send him back his picture. You can see one of our waiters who was pretty good.
Out next door neighbors were French. I have never seen people argue like they did. They were yelling and screaming right on the beach. They were talking so fast that Kristoffer couldn't translate for us. So Lisa and I made up some stories about them. At first we thought they were on a romantic weekend trying to save their marriage (that wasn't going to happen). Then we figured she was the mistress and was yelling because he told her he was leaving his wife!!!
Lunch was by the pool and dinner was buffet style in the main dining room. Our rooms were right next to the "exclusive" restaurant. So we made reservations for dinner one night. Well the restaurant was exclusive alright - we were the only ones there!!!! Both Noah and Grace were asleep and we had the waiter and chef to ourselves.
The trip home was interesting. We went back to the air strip in 95 degree weather and waited. The plane arrived close to being on time. So we got in line with the babies to get on this 16 passanger plane. We waited in the heat for approximately half an hour. There was a problem because a passanger had a dog and was told that the plane was pressurized and it wasn't. At this point three other planes landed on the strip and these people didn't know what to do with so much traffic. The lady was able to get on another plane with the dog and made it back to Niarobi before we did, because we had a stop before we arrived back here. The first part of the flight was terrible - so hot - the last hour and a half were okay. I just had the rosary going!!! I know that got us here safe!!!
I know that Lisa will edit this and put in the appropriate pictures. I'll try to do this again. I want to show you some more pictures of Charles' home - no goats yet!
Grace was excited for the plane ride.
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