Matatu To Watamu

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Matatus To Watamu

After spending New Year dancing around fires in Paje, we sped back up to Stone Town in a rainstorm, tarpaulin flapping around our ears as our Dalah Dalah screached through the home of the red colobus monkey. A super fast ferry back to Dar and, after a day spent sorting out bus tickets in Dar, we were heading north towards the Kenya border and to Mombasa. After a brief stop in Tanga, we hit our first unsealed road as another storm hit us and we slid our way through a muddy border post.

We spent a couple of nights in Mombasa getting train tickets booked, getting my beardy face trimmed and generally zupping around in Tuk-Tuks trying to see as much of the city as possible in a short time. Mombasa is full of Matatus with just THE most amazing paint jobs ans sound systems - like being at some kind of customised Nissan van Rally. 100 points if you spot the A-Team's van or the Scooby Doo Mystery Machine if you go there. We wanted to spend a good few days up the coast exploring Watamu's Marine National Park and snorkeling in more sheltered waters than those of the Mnemba Marine Reserve in Zanzibar so didn't stick around for too long.

Our first experience of a Kenyan Matatu was heaven ! In Malawi we were crammed in with sacks of maize, dried fish and neighbours armpits. The express Matatu to Malindi had....a roofrack (so we didn't have to hold our packs on our laps for three hours), it had one person per seat (unheard of in Malawi) and we even had . . . .seatbelts. . . which worked.. .and which we were told to put on ! The police in Kenya have relatively recently had a major crackdown on Matatus as they were becoming famous for being so dangerous (this was before the Mombasa trend for bling machines. All are now supposed to have seatbelts, be strictly limited to one person per seat and have a governor fitted to stop them going above 80 kmh. We'd later discover that these rules are easily skirted and that Matatu rides can still feel like a near-death experience.

Some of Kenya's roads are in a dire state. A few years of patching up and lots of rain have left huge potholes unrepaired which forces traffic to play a constant game of chicken. Lorries always win. Cyclists always lose. After a few hours of swirving (suddenly the seatbelts felt worse than useless as we force cars and bikes off the road) and trying to distract ourselves by trying to spot pineapples on the sizal plants (well they look a bit like pineapples) we reached Watamu. We had arrived in our first true resort town - a small village which has gradually been consumed by Italian resorts and private villas and slowly forced to retreat from the natural harbour needed to shelter the fishing Dhows.

We found a Kenyan-run guest house and went for a stroll to the beach - only to find ourselves trapped in a resort mini golf course with no obvious way out ! Arrrghhh !

We had come to see fish and had rather naive hopes of also seeing turtles laying eggs and possibly whale sharks. We were too early for the turtles and whale sharks but fish were everywhere and, as we cycled along Turtle Bay, on our painfully mal-adjusted "mountain" bikes, we looked out to the reefs and dreamed of floating gracefully and weightlessly amidst thousands of brightly coloured fish.

I coughed, spluttered and thrashed my legs, bashing my fin-less feet against a rock-solid Brain Coral and bleeding into the water as Kath tried to stop me swallowing sea water. My second attempt at snorkeling in the sea didn't get off to the best start as I discovered that a hairy face and a poorly maintained mask are not the best combination. Still, after changing masks and calming down a bit, we had the most amazing snorkel. Thousands of fish all around us and brief spotting of reef sharks from the boat.

We spent a morning around the Gede Ruins just to the west of Watamu - the strangest ruins, slowly being consumed by the forest (reminded me of King Loui's palace in the Jungle Book !). Particularly liked the palace audience court waiting room which served as the vent from the Sultans toilet - people waiting to be seen would have to endure the sounds and smells of the Sultans arse !

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Photos

Fort Jesus
The entrance bastion of Fort Jesus. Mombasa Old Town, Kenya

Door Knobs
Detail of door at Fort Jesus. Mombasa Old Town, Kenya

Tuk-Tuk
Katherine and Ali the tuk-tuk driver. Mombasa, Kenya

Katherine - I think
Katherine tries out the snorkeling gear, Watamu, Kenya