4th – 12th March 2013

We arrived at the airport in plenty of time and waited for our flight. We had been shocked and appalled by the cost of travel in Africa and it had meant us changing our considerable plans for ones of less grandeur.

To give you an idea of the prices it cost the same price to fly to Kenya from South Africa as it cost to fly back to England!

The flight was 4 hours to Nairobi and then an hour from there to Mombasa and Kenyan airways was great! Food and drinks all the way there and movies on tap. As we landed in Nairobi we were slightly worried about making our connection as we only had a short window. We rushed off the plane, and ran to the customs desk…where of course we were sent to fill in a declaration form. We went and scribbled as fast as we could on our forms and took them back to the man behind the desk.

He sloooowly read the forms and asked us for our visas. We exchanged worried glances and explained we did not have one. He rolled his eyes, the way customs officers MUST be trained to do and explained that we would have to pay him $100 USD.

Of course we didn’t HAVE any USD as we were in Kenya! We also didn’t have Kenyan Shillings but he wouldn’t accept those anyway. I instantly thought I was having my leg lifted and demanded to know why he wanted to be paid in dollars and he explained that the KYS exchange rate changes so frequently that from day to day they would either owe the country money (which came out of their pockets…or so he led me to believe) and other days they would have too much.

I gave Alex the nod as there was no way out of it and he ran off to get the money. I was in a blind panic worrying about our connection but as per, I had the easy job. Alex had to go to a cash machine and withdraw KYS which he then had to take to an exchange desk, pay the exchange fee AND change his KYS to USD. Of course, on withdrawing the cash he noticed that the exchange place was closed so he had to bribe a customs official to take him back into arrivals to use the exchange desk and to bring him back into customs!

He ran back to my side huffing and puffing and handed over the $100.

The man stamped our pieces of paper and waved us on. We ran and collected our bags from the carousel and burst into the gate for our connecting flight. We showed the calm ladies at the desk our tickets and we flapped into the waiting area.

We checked our computer clock against the TV and we still had another hour to wait! I was in so much trouble for making us rush around! Anyway, we got to sit in peace and watch the elections on the TV.

We had been warned by friends and family not to go to Kenya as they were holding the elections. After the trouble in 2007 their worry was understandable but completely unnecessary. We had asked for advice from the people we would be staying with and had checked the embassy websites for warnings not to travel. We felt that we would be safe and followed all the guidelines suggested.

We had accommodation arranged, a pre-arranged taxi waiting for us on our arrival and intended to stay put once we arrived until the elections were over.

We watched the green and red lines slowly run across the screen as we waited for our connecting flight. The tiny plane collected all 10 of us, mainly locals and we soon landed in Mombasa.

Alex has been before to Kenya and had spent a lot of time warning me of the crazy bustling city of Mombasa. I stepped into the airport, held my breath and waited for the noise, the smell and the hustle and bustle to drag me along but nothing happened!

I opened my eyes to see 10 or so people waiting to collect their loved ones and our taxi driver holding a sign with our name on it…and all I could hear was silence!

We walked to the taxi and we drove silently through the deserted ghost town of Mombasa. Our taxi driver explained that a curfew had been put into place for the elections and everyone MUST be off the streets after 6pm to reduce fighting, drinking and political demonstrations. The curfew had worked. The streets showed signs of hell bent mayhem, clapboard buildings, sheds and shanties all propped up in the spaces between concrete block buildings. Dust and litter blew along the ground like tumble weed and even the stray dogs looked nervous to be on the streets!

The pitch black, silent city struck fear into me and even our taxi driver seemed worried about being out. We calmly took the usually packed ferry across the channel, a mere few meters wide but with no facilities to build a bridge the ferry remains. Going back and forth on his mini voyage every time there are enough people on it to fill a small football stadium.

We completed our long journey in relative silence peering out of the window for any sign of life and finding none in the black night. When we arrived in the early hours of the morning we were shown around but struggled to get our bearings in the dark. We dropped our bags, showered away the grime of travel, collapsed in our bed and fell soundly asleep.

I woke up with a start when I heard people coming into the house. Alex reminded me calmly that there were staff that worked in the house and they would be arriving to start their day.
For just $40 a night we had rented a 3 bedroomed house with a pool and with three members of staff to look after us. A chef, a gardener and a house keeper. We had tried to explain that we wouldn’t need so many people to care for us but that is just the way it rolls in Kenya. The staff all believe that everyone in Europe has staff…I have no idea what they think we do for a living to afford such luxuries but its just the way it is.

So we settled in as much as we could and felt strange about having people to wait on us hand and foot. We met with Trudi the owner of the house and she explained to us that the world in Kenya had come to a stand still because of the elections. She suggested we go with a taxi to collect our shopping and let us know which was was safe to walk on the beach. She told us there was no reason to worry and that the area was a quiet town and that they had few problems there.

We wandered the beach and ordered some fish from the fisherman and Shaban, our chef prepared it for us to cook on the BBQ that night. We relaxed away our first night in Kenya under the stars and shared our red snapper with a cat we named Gollum…because, seriously, he looks like Gollum…and looked forward to a few days of R&R!
We didn’t do a great deal of anything for the week that we were in Ebony Villas. We relaxed, swam and sunbathed, we caught up on blogging.

We ate out at the Forty Thieves one day and relaxed there on the beach all day watching the kids play in the water and the beach boys walk their camels, selling their wares. The elections were still going on and several Maasai had come along in all of their regalia to watch the TV at the bar. They watched the voting being counted (for the 5th time) in silence leaning on their staffs.

Alex went fishing with our French Neighbour Jean (pronounced John) and listened to his fishing and cooking tales and he invited us to join him and his crew for a day out to the sand bar at the weekend.

We jumped at the chance and went out into the lagoon in their dugout canoe called a Dhow.
The sand bar was beautiful and we snorkelled and collected shells and starfish…which the crew tried to feed us…I declined and saved all of the starfish and went and put them back where I found them in the hope that they would live another day.

We were out in the direct heat for sometime and as the tides had changed we had to zig zag our way back across the lagoon. Of course even though we had regularly applied suncream, worn hats AND covered up in T-shirts we were well and truly crisped a lovely shade of red on our return.

We ate dinner with Jean, he cooked us some of the fish he had caught, a lovely Dorado and a Sail fish so that we could taste the difference. I went to bed feeling too cooked and Alex soon joined me for a movie night and we both called our Mums to show off our burns!

After a week of relaxing we decided to make a move and have a drive around the coast.

See our picture diary on the next blog to see what we got up to.