I know I said I Was Going To Addis

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I know I did. I even put it in the last blog myself.

But then...

I heard that the expedition I had left at 5 weeks was having a final party in Dyani to mark the end of their 10 weeks.

I was in Nairobi any way and a one day trip each way isn't actualy that far away in the grand scheme of African travel so I decided to pay a little suprise visit.

It was fun. I got to meet every one again and chill for a little while and not have to cope with jokes about becoming a permanent resident at Nairobi Backpackers.

But turning up was only part of the story...

I had left Nairobi with 3 other backpackers who were heading for Lamu. One of them had orders to try and persuad me to go to Lamu aswell but I really had to leave Kenya by the of the following week as my visa was about to run out. The plan was tro take the day bus to Mombassa (as we had found out that the night bus is actually relatively dangerous) spend a night there and then go our seperate ways in the morning.

We got to Mombasa late afternoon and found some where cheap to stay. The quality deffinatly reflected the price. We were lucky enough to have a bathroom to ourselves. Lets just say that there was a door, it would have been great if the door actually shut properly or didn't have parts of it missing. There was also a balcony. The fact that the balcony doors didn't lock properly didn't pose a security risk at all. The fan I didn't expect. Especially a working one. I only wish we could have turned it down. And dont even get me started on the shower or what remained of it.

That evening we tried to do some touristy stuff like visit Fort Jesus. Well actually that was the only touristy stuff that we tried to do. After finding out that we had to pay $10 US for a 33 minute light show we decided not to bother and go and get some drinks instead.

We asked the rickshaw driver to take us to a good bar. He suggested the Sky Bar. "sound good" we thought. Sky means roof top, open, good views etc. How wrong could we be?

We found some where else and after an hour two out of the four of us were ready for bed. IT WAS ONLY 8pm!!!!

The funniest thing is that the two who wanted to go to bed were normally the two qwho stayed up to 3 in the morning.

So there were 2 of us left and instead of going to bed we decided that we would be better served by finding some where near the 'hotel'.

As we sat there talking we noticed all the swahili foods that were being served and decided to have a go our selves...

First up was the grilled mbuzi(or nyami choma). Tasted like lamb, but a bit more chewey. It was also at this point that I noticed the two dishes of condiments. The first was some orange chutney stuff that I couldn't smell and so assumed was mango. The second was a bowl of freshly chopped grren stuff that looked and smelled like corriander. "MMM I like corriander" I said as I pilled it on to the next piece of meat I was having. About a a second after I bit into it I realised that it wasn't corriander. It was green chili!

Nyami ar Mbuzi is goat meat, for those of us who don't know any swahili.

Next up was a dish called scud. Scud is not a chemical concoction from Russia/Iraq. It is a tropical fruit cocktail with a layer of avacado puree on top. Then a dollop of some syrupy stuff. It was quite nice. In fact it was bloody gorgeous. If only waiter had thought to tell us that we could have ice cream on it aswell...

Then came what can only be best described as swahili pizza. It is a flour pancake thing wrapped around an omletty thing with mince beef in it. Also very nice.

The way back to Nairobi was almost uneventfull aswell. This time I had the privellage of sitting right a t the friont of the bus. My trousers almost went brown at what I saw...

Any way I found myself back in Nairobi and was all set to make the journey to Addis Ababa. I had nothiong holding me back and I really did need to leave the country soon. Bags packed and the England Sweeden game out of the way.

''Right. I 'm going" I said to myself in za determined kind of way...

Or so I thought...

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