Advertisement
Published: June 22nd 2007
Edit Blog Post
Baby Donkey
So Nelly!! (We've taken to calling anything good or cute 'Nelly' after my fave kid at the orphanage) Last weekend was another very tough weekend (large amount of sarcasm there)! We headed off on our postponed trip to the very idyllic Lamu island. The weekend involved much relaxing, eating, swimming and other such laziness, which I shall summarise for you:
On Thursday morning we jumped on a matatu heading up to Malindi airport - from which we had a 25 minute flight to Manda Island (just next to Lamu) and then quick boat ride across to Lamu. An encounter at Malindi airport deserves mentioning, however, and serves as the title for my blog this week. While we were waiting for the plane, a white man in his 60s or 70s struck up a conversation with us. He proceeded to tell us that he had been living in Africa for the last 30-odd years, but had never seen a racist white person. We initially tried to argue this point, but upon realising that he would not be dissuaded from his views, listened with great amusement as he shared his views with us. He was also convinced that the president of any country could not be racist, because the president already had all the power (I’m not sure how
Eric the Eel
Tight, tight pants and large manboobs (sorry you can't see them!). Check out the love handles though! that stops him being racist). It is actually the masses who are the racists. This made very little sense to us, and we had to try very hard not to laugh at him.
Anyway, we arrived on Lamu on Thursday arvo, Katherine all prepared for a big weekend in her lovely white pants. She likes to claim that, “nothing spells holiday like white pants,” but I think they spell rich Brighton lady more than anything. So from Thursday to Sunday (which was the intended length of our stay in Lamu), we did the following:
•Drank close to 400 litres of juice: Lamu is famous for its amazing fresh juices, which they serve in steins!! They are the best juices I’ve ever had. My favourite combinations being orange/pineapple or orange/passionfruit. We are desperately searching for similar juices on the coast now.
•Ate (well at least Katherine did, I was smart enough to include some variety) prawns at nearly every meal. This backfired on K, however, who came down with a severe case of food poisoning which left her feeling VERY shabby from Sunday afternoon until Monday evening. I prefer not to call it a case of food poisoning, but
Lamu View
A dhow on the water in between Lamu and Manda islands. the very painful act of her actually transforming into a prawn, due to eating so many. At least we think it was the prawns… could have been anything. We didn’t really learn our lesson, though, as we had prawns for breakfast at home on Tuesday morning (clearly, prawns are very cheap over here!).
•Spent a large amount of time beaching (not sure if that is an acceptable adjective) and swimming. On Friday we walked round to Shela, which has beautiful beaches. And on Saturday we had a full-day dhow trip round the neighbouring islands, which included eating very fresh fish which was cooked on the dhow, stopping for swims and walks on deserted beaches. Was a very good day! On the dhow trip we also encountered a Kenyan called Duncan, who arranged the trip for us. We, however, call him Eric the Eel due to his terrible terrible swimming ability, which reminded us of the guy from the Olympics a while ago. Eric also had the world’s biggest manboobs! Unfortunately you can’t really see them in the picture I have attached because it is a bit too dark. But, be assured, they were spectacular!
•Much shopping. I bought a dress,
Lamu View 2
View of Lamu and our hotel (called Sunsail) from the boat. you’d all be so proud! And we had some things made by the very cheap tailors.
•Ate a large amount of chocolate mousse (see picture) from one restaurant. We were served by a waiter called Douglas who always seemed to walk the long way around the table and do things in a very odd manner. But he reminded me of our favourite waiter in Kilifi, whom we call Pizzazz, because he does everything with a flourish and gets very upset if anything is even the slightest bit out of place.
•On Friday afternoon we were stopped by a fairly plump older man called Ali Hipi who invited us to his house for dinner on Saturday night. He regularly invites tourists to his home and he and his family cook for and entertain them. He was adamant that he is written up in the Lonely Planet guide (which we have subsequently found out is true), but we couldn’t find him anywhere in ours. Turns out he is in the Kenya guide, but not the East African one. Anyway, he promised that we would, “eat until we could eat no more,” and that he would sing for us until we said, “stop,
Donkey Canon
A man tying his donkey to a canon, just in case it tried to run away. Ali, Hipi, you’re killing me with your golden voice!” We politely declined this offer.
•On Sunday morning we had a donkey ride around Lamu (there are no cars, etc. on Lamu - donkeys are the only form of transport) which included going through the backstreets and areas where the houses and schools are situated, which was really interesting. The actually donkey riding itself was very amusing, however. My donkey, named BullBull, and I got on very well. Conversely, Katherine and her cantankerous donkey, Maria, did not see eye to eye. Within 20 seconds of Katherine getting on, Maria had bucked her off. Fortunately K was able to put her many years of gymnastics to good use and land on her feet. It turned out Maria was pregnant, so we thought that might excuse her behaviour a little bit.
•Drank only a few beers - most people on Lamu are Muslims, so very little drinking goes on. There are only a few restaurants which serve alcohol.
On Sunday morning we found out that our plane back to Malindi had been cancelled (flights were cancelled for a few days in a row, due to technical problems), so our return was delayed
K and the kids
K having a chat to some of the kids we met in the alleys of Lamu. until Monday, which was a bit unfortunate as Katherine was meant to be back for work. Kenya Airways put us up in quite a nice hotel for Sunday night, though, which was quite nice. On Monday, the plane wasn’t running again, so we had to get a boat to the mainland and then a bus back to Kilifi. Kenya airways had chartered a bus to Mombasa, because there were a lot of stranded tourists. 5 or 6 hours in a bus (with armed guards - don’t worry mama, it was just for a short stretch of road where there are often bandits - nowhere near where we are) was far less appealing than a quick plane trip, especially given how K was feeling, but at least we got to see a lot of the Kenyan countryside and monkeys in the wild. Unfortunately my camera battery was flat by this stage, so I couldn’t get any photos.
And that’s about all I have to report from Lamu. Not much news in Kilifi at the moment, other than the fact that Katherine and I have taken to having breakfast dessert. It is a great idea to eat chocolate cake after breakfast.
Thong girl
Another of Lamu's kiddies. Although probably not very good for us. We went to Mombasa on Saturday to get some art supplies and a stereo for the kiddies (am anticipating hearing a lot of Lion King over the next few weeks), and we did some ten pin bowling, which was good fun. Then on Saturday night we went to a goat roasting. Unfortunately we were running quite late and only got there in time for the liver and the heart which wasn’t very appealing. And on Tuesday night we went Scottish dancing…hilarious!!
We also went to circuit training on Thursday night. Some of the people at the lab have sessions at their house on Tuesday and Thursday nights. It was bloody hard work, and given our lack of exercise of late, we were feeling a tad sore on Friday morning. But we need to get fit considering it’s only about two and a half months before we attempt to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro.
That’s it from me. Word to your winter (suffer in your jocks; the weather is beautiful over here).
Salama.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.188s; Tpl: 0.016s; cc: 10; qc: 65; dbt: 0.0719s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
cons
non-member comment
SO NELLY!!!!!!!!!!