Mombasa and the great train adventure!

Well this will sadly be my last post from East Africa. I can't believe how quickly the time has flown by; I have managed to fit in so much; work and play alike! My last few days have been surprisingly eventful. I arrived in Mombasa on Wednesday, exhausted after the long night bus ride, and met the girls in the hotel. We set off fairly early to a beach on the South side of Mombasa - a public beach that is much more favoured by locals than tourists. The morning started off very hot, and humid, but cloudy, and we were already pretty sweaty by the time we got on the first matatu. The Mombasa matatus are a lot easier to navigate than those in Nairobi, where there seems to be absolutlely no indication as to their destination, and we had no trouble finding the right one. Unfortunately, for resaons known only to the East African matatu drivers, they often only take you halfway to the stated destination, and we were pointed in the direction of matatu number two. We reached the ferry, a free ferry service connecting the two sides of Mombasa, just as the rain started. Two matatus later,we finally reached our destination; Kim4Love beach - named after the DJ that performs there regularly. The beach was picture perfect,with soft white sand, turquoise water and palm trees dotted about. There were lots of burnt out buildings set back from the beach, that looked like they used to make up one of the posh resorts that line this coast, but are now deserted. There were very few people on the beach, and even fewer tourists. We settled in for a hard day of swimming, sunbathing, and for me...sleeping! We were approached by numerous 'beach boys', local boys who chat to tourists, with the ultimate aim of getting some money out of them, either for snorkelling trips, taking their photo, selling various handicrafts, or just stealing. Some of them were just very annoying and refused to leave us alone or take no for an answer, but on the whole they were very friendly (the nature of the job), not too pushy and interesting to talk to, so we kept a close eye on our belongings at all times, and even bought some aloe vera leaves from one of them, when he helpfully informed us that we were all burning; perhaps not the most intelligent purchase of the trip, paying good money for wilted leaves, but they were fun company, so it made up for it!

We were just sleeping on the beach when a local guy limped up to us, asking for some pain tablets. He said he had fallen out of a coconut tree that morning and needed to get to a hospital, and wanted some money to get there. He did look in a lot of pain, and his shoulder looked a bit odd, but we didn't quite know what to do - if he was genuinely hurt we obviously wanted to help him, but at the same time were not naive enough to immediately believe his story. In the end we gave him a very small amount of money, enough for a matatu to the town; his response was "I'd love to say thank you but this is nearly nothing"...that's gratitude for you! We told him that it was enough to get him to a busy enough area to find someone to help him, and watched him limp on his way. We did spot him again later with a homemade sling, and perhaps we were a little too cynical, but you can't be too wary!

We had lunch at the rundown cafe on the beach, we waited about an hour for burgers - the only thing on the rather large menu that they actually served; but when they arrived, they were the nicest burgers I have ever tasted! We spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing on the beach, and then Matilda and I decided to take a camel ride - which was a lot of fun, although we did feel like real tourists!

Just as we were about to leave the beach, the heavens opened, and in seconds we were absolutely drenched. We hadn't even noticed the clouds drawing in; it had been baking hot sunshine until a few minutes earlier. We had rather an uncomfortable, damp ride home, this time on 5 matatus and a ferry, and arrived home to (yet another) power cut at the hotel. We were hot, tired and sandy from the beach, and it was too dark to use the shower by this time, so the only thing for it was a swim in the pool to get clean enough to go out for dinner. The hotel staff brought us a candle to see by, but there was nothing to stand it in, so we had to take turns at being candle holders whilst we got ready! Eventually we made it out for dinner, and went to a local Indian barbecue restaurant. It was nothing special but was nice enough, and by the time we got home, the power was back on.

The next day,we decided to head to a much nearer public beach called Pirates Beach. We arrived at about midday, and found the beach at low tide. The beach was huge but seaweed covered, and waterlogged, and there wasn't really anywhere to sit. We eventually found a dryish spot not far from the water's edge, and set up for the afternoon. A few minutes later, a European woman came jogging down the beach, calling at us "Ladies....the water's coming!" We looked up, and to my surprise, I could actually see the tide coming in. I have never seen anything like it, water was flowing fast up the beach, and we actually had to immediately grab our things and run up the beach away from it. Even the second spot we found, at a seemingly safe distance was sea within minutes! We decided to go up to the top of the beach at this point, and found a dry spot there for the afternoon.

After lunch, and some extremely cheap nail art from one the beach boys, we headed back to the hotel for a swim before getting ready for the train. I had decided to get the night train back as the night bus had not been an experience I wanted to repeat, and the girls were booked on it already. I organised a ticket from the hotel reception, and we were taken to a different hotel on the way to the station to pick it up. Of course, when we arrived at said hotel, they had no idea who I was, but told us to wait anyway, presumably whilst they sent someone to buy me a ticket anyway. It never materialised, so we headed to the station. I went to the booking office, where the woman greeted me "are you Beverley Panto?" Very strange indeed - obviously there had been some sort of booking made, just no ticket to be found! Somehow though, I managed to pay for the same ticket again - I had not parted with any money by this point, and we went to find out compartments. It was very Harry Potteresque...we had a double compartment,each with two bunk beds, a sink, a fan and a few cockroaches thrown in for good measure. We were very excited, and sang and danced with Leonard - the guitar playing station entertainer while we waited for the train to depart,which it did....on time!!! It was so much fun leaning out of the windows of the slow moving train, waving at the children at all the villages we passed and eating mangoes in our little private room. We were in first class, so dinner was included, and at 7.15 on the dot, a man came down the train with a dinner gong, announcing that dinner was served in the dining carriage. We went to find a seat, and found three seats, at a fully laid dining table, next to a English/Kenyan guy called Chaz. He was born in Kenya, but now lives in Leicester, and we all got on very well, chatting away through the meal. Dinner was a three course meal, but was a whole new experience on a ricketty moving train. By the end of the meal, we had butter in the water glasses, red wine and tea all over the table and food down ourselves, but we had had a lot of fun in the process! By the time it reached about midnight, we were tired and decided to try and get some sleep. We got ready for bed, falling all over the cabin with the trains movement....and try using a squat toilet on a moving train....fun! The beds looked very comfortable, and we anticipated a good night's sleep; but of course it was not to be. I think I jinxed the whole journey when I stated what a great decision I thought it was to get the train rather than the bus. At about 3 am, we were jolted awake by the extremely sudden halting of the train. It felt a lot like we had hit something, and the engine turned off soon after. Matilda and I lay awake for about half an hour, debating what could have happened, and then we started to reverse. Confused, we decided to try and get back to sleep while the engine was off, and there was relative silence. The last thing I noticed out of my window before I fell asleep were two strange coloured lights. I awoke about two hours later to the sound of lots of people walking around outside the train. It seemed that they were all walking in the same direction, but I didn't think much of it. I did however notice those same two lights. I had heard that the train often makes lengthy stops,so again didn't think too much of it, but when I woke again an hour later to see the same lights, I started to suspect that something was wrong. In fact, the train immediately in front of us had derailed, and we had either hit it or emergency stopped to avoid it. It was completely blocking the track,and by 7am, we had managed to find out that there was a crane on its way from Nairobi to try and clear the tracks and we wouldn't be going anywhere until then. Nairobi was still hours away by road, and the most optimistic ETA was 8pm that night, so we went for breakfast to debate our options. We met Chaz again in the dining cart, and he pointed out that the generator was run by the engine, so for as long as we were stationary, there would be no fans, and the train would massively overheat before long. Even in the early morning, the heat was beginning to feel uncomfortable, and the smell from the toilets was starting to waft down the train, so we decided to abandon ship. Chaz went to investigate our transport options, and within ten minutes, we were packed up and our luggage was being hauled onto the roof of a very old, very full bus. We waited until the bus had reached absolute maximum capacity, by African standards, and were on our way. The first half an hour of the journey was pretty uneventful, although I did notice that we were bumping a lot, relative to the road quality. Suddenly though, we were jolted violently for a few hundred yards. We couldn't see the road in front,so we couldn't tell what was going on, but it terrifyingly,it felt like we were about to tip off the road, and when we eventually came to a stop, there was a strong smell of burning. We got off the bus as quickly as possible, and all stood on the side of the road trying to see what had happened. A huge piece of the bus had fallen off, apparently the prop shaft,and there was smoke coming from underneath the bus. We couldn't believe our bad luck - we needed rescuing from our rescue vehicle! Chaz immediately took charge, and managed to get everyone's luggage down from the roof, and even got us a refund on our ticket price. We had met an English couple on the bus,and a guy from Liverpool, and us mzungus stuck together, whilst trying to figure out what to do now....standing by the side of a dust road in the middle of nowhere, with 50 or so other people, all needing to get to Nairobi. By some miracle, an empty matatu...something I have never before seen, was driving past, headed for Nairobi. I'm not a religious person, but this surely had to be an act of god!! Madeleine managed to flag it down, and only half an hour behind schedule (well, plan B schedule) we were on our way, in a comfortable, breezy, well driven matatu. We even made a snack stop! Apart from two sweaty hours in the Nairobi traffic jams at the other end, we made it back to the YMCA with no further complications, Chaz managing to sweet talk the station staff into giving us a hefty refund for the train fare on the way.

It was a true African travel adventure,and apart from the very brief 'life flashing before eyes' moment,it was actually a lot of fun. We met lots of great people and only arrived in Nairobi about 5 hours later than planned!

I just had a quiet night last night, had an extremely welcome shower, and then met Paul for dinner, and today I have just been doing some last minute shopping, and saying my goodbyes to all my new African friends!

I will post again from the UK, and hopefully won't have anything too eventful from the flight to tell you! But from Africa, Kwa Heri!!!