From the ferry to Mombasa. This picture was illegal - no photos from the boat! It reminded me a bit of Stockholm.
For our last day in Mombasa, we woke up early, piled in the truck and headed north to the National Museum office in Kilifi, so that the project team could combine their notes. As per normal, I was along for the ride. We arrived at the office early, and I got a chance to check out some of the baobabs up close and personal. When I mention ‘office’ in previous postings, I mean office in the loosest sense. Don’t think of a complex and a parking lot. Instead, think of a house out in the middle of the woods that you get to via dirt roads, and you have to walk through knee high grass in order to make it to the porch, which invariably will have a number of locally made benches and tables for guests and meetings. The giant grey trees surrounded this particular office, but because of the abundant rainfall along the coast, they were covered in lush green vegetation. It was interesting to look down through the forest paths and discern the size of the baobabs in contrast to the few smaller trees scattered about. It was like the way hunters describe seeing elephants in the thickets. You can’t really see the whole animal, only a piece of hide, a leg or an ear, but by piecing together glimpses, it comes as a surprise to see that a massive animal is so hidden by just a few shrubs.
The meeting concluded, and we were free for the day. I was all for seafood lunch. I have read stories from the early 1900’s about Mombasa oysters as big as your hand, fresh prawns, and lobster speared out on the reef. I was having visions of yellow fin tuna fresh off the morning boat, sliced raw and spread on a plate like rose petals. I was fantasizing about slabs of snapper over a charcoal fire with lemon and butter, when the butter hisses down into the coals and the fish is just falling apart. Unfortunately, I read too much and I am spoiled from living in New Orleans. Just as the locals do not drink the coffee grown in the highlands, neither do they partake of the bounty of their seas. I figured that it would be a cinch to find a guy in a shack, cooking fresh seafood for tourists for cents on the dollar. Wrong. The only places to get good fresh seafood are at the resorts tucked back in the bays or set prominently on the white beaches. Worse, the prices are American. Although I was privately willing to shell out some serious shillings to get a good taste of the local seafood, I could not expect everyone else to do the same. In all honesty, the diet of the people living on the coast does not differ all that much from people living in the interior, that is, ugali (really thick, bland grits if I haven’t explained it before), cabbage, rice, kale, and some form of protein (recently, its been beef stew). The only difference is that the fruit from the coast is unbelievable – the mangos and avocados are to die for.
We wound up going to an open-air restaurant next to a gas station (yes, the environment left something to be desired) that actually served pretty good food. Typical of Mombasa, flies were everywhere, so it was tough to savor the meal, though it had a good flavor. True to form, the table ordered ugali (it’s the staple around Africa in some form or fashion, though it may go by different names). I refused to leave without eating something with gills. I forget exactly what the name was, but they brought me a small parrotfish (I think), fried whole, and covered with a coconut sauce, which was very tasty. However, I was having trouble enjoying it because I could not reconcile myself with not having two dozen oysters. Such is life. In all actuality, given all the trash and run-off that must surely be washing into the coastal waters, oysters would not have been a good idea anyway.
As a bit of random information, Mombasa is known for voodoo, and in particular, its cats. As opposed to inland where dogs are generally wandering around, cats abound on the coast. Most restaurants have one or two weaving amongst the table legs. I looked down at breakfast on Thursday morning, and a mother and her whole litter of kittens was sitting at my feet and staring up at me with green and yellow eyes. As the story goes, these creatures are not cats. They are people (calm down all you Twi-Hards). When I tried to shoo all the kitties away, every single Kenyan at the table told me I had to stop because if I was not careful, someone would walk up to me later in the day and ask why I had been so cruel to them. The voodoo may or may not be true, but the real question is why any self-respecting feline would live in a coastal city where there are no fish??
After the late lunch, we retired back to the hotel. Leah, two of our friends and myself put on our swim suits and drove down to the Mombasa public beach. We did not have high hopes given the number of people hawking goods back in Diani, but as for me, I’ll never pass up a chance to go check out a new beach. True to form, there were tons of people aggressively trying to sell trinkets and food, but the best were the guys giving camel rides. That’s right, camel rides. There were at least four camels being led up and down the beach. I would love to have done it had not left our cameras behind at the hotel. It was pretty cool because when you told the handlers you didn’t want a ride (‘hapana’ means ‘no’), they would just hang out for a while chewing on some sort of leaf that keeps you awake, and the camel would kneel right down on the sand and chew its cud, within arms reach. I’ve never been that close to a camel and did not realize how big they are. Very neat creatures. Super long eyelashes.
The project group.
Anyway, the beach was very nice, except that it was crowded. The beaches here abound with coconut palms, whose leaves rattle pleasantly in the wind. The water is crystal clear, and only about thigh deep for at least one hundred yards out, where the white sand bottom ends abruptly in deep blue. Boats are anchored here and there in the shallows to take tourists out to the reefs. To the south was a resort straight out of Mykonos ( . . . with a vision of a gentle coast . . .). It was all white walls and arches, and sat up on a rocky spit of shore where the waves crashed right up against the walls. I couldn’t help but imagine sitting up on the walls, feeling the wind blow, drinking a cold gin and tonic for my sunburn, and eating fresh, herb pizza from an Italian brick oven (I was, and continue to be in food lust). We settled for cassava chips with red chili.
Leah and I waded out into the water to have a swim, and my first thought after getting in was to head over to the rim of blue water to see how deep it got. Good idea? Probably not, but it was a test of will power. We eased closer and closer, expecting for the water to slowly start creeping higher and higher before making the sheer drop-off into the depths. Who knows what could be patrolling the edge of the deep water? I’ll admit that I was getting a little nervous as we got within 20 feet, and then 10 feet of the edge, until I realized that we weren’t looking at deep water, only a massive grass-bed! The water was still only waist deep!
Feeling tough, we toweled off, and headed back to the hotel and some cold Tuskers. After several adult beverages and a late supper, we decided to go check out a club called Lambada that was just up the road. All the Kenyans had heard of it, and its claim to fame, the swimming pool in the middle of the dance floor. I have found most Kenyans to be remarkably conservative. The same description does not apply to the Coast. Mombasa is hot, even now in their winter, so like any beach town, people don’t wear any clothes. Most of the women wear the colorful wraps called lessos, and nothing else. Plus, the city caters to the influx of northern hemisphere tourists escaping winter. Mombasa is a little bit like the south Florida of Kenya, just with less development and less capital. Think about the Miami club scene circa 1985. Better yet, think of the movie Scarface, in the scene where the two assassins come after Al Pacino in the club, and he shoots their legs out from under them. Now add some lasers, a dj, and random 80’s hits redone as Euro dance mixes and you have Club Lambada. Oh, and don’t forget the swimming pool in the middle of the dance floor and the wall of multicolored Playboy ‘bunny’ symbols. I can only speculate on how crazy that club gets in the high season. Anyone want to go to Mombasa in December??
We finally called it a night, and I crawled back into bed under the mosquito net, looking forward to being back in a non-tropical climate the next night. I was satisfied that I had gotten a pretty good look at the Kenyan coast, though the only thing was not being able to go into the first growth Sacred Forests. Maybe next time!
Best!
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