Adventure to Mombasa!

Monday September 14, 2010

We drove up to Mombasa this morning - leaving Nairobi at around 8 and not arriving at our hotel/resort until 6. It was a long trip, traffic was insane, and we made two stops. There's no air conditioning in the cars here, so the windows were always open which was actually quite nice to get some fresh air.

Mombasa ia BEAUTIFUL. I've never been to a place so exotic in my life. Our resort is super ritzy, very classy. And it's a two minute walk to the beach from our hotel. Yesterday we all walked down to the beach and were going to walk to the ocean, but there is a large coral reef before you get to the real waves. Each of us had a guide - mine was named Charles. He showed me all sorts of really amazing sea creatures that were in the water, as we walked through. I held a sea cucumber in my hand! It looks like a cucumber, only it feels like a really wet worm. Charles said they're 95% water! Craziness. I also held two types of starfish - the one everyone thinks of when I say starfish, which is really cool looking. And one that's more stringly and kind of wiggles around in the water. They were all over the place. After we got a ways out there he told me to put on my flip flops because sea urchens hide under the seaweed. He picked a bunch up and let me hold them. It was really scary, actually because they're basically little balls covered in long spikes that are like razor blades. It moved around in my hand a little and I gave it back to him and he threw it away. I got stuck by one on my toe and bled a little, but that was the worst of it. There were some places when we were walking that literally all you could see were a bunch of spiky sea urchins. It was hard to walk in flip flops and I was kind of nervous about it so he held my hand the whole way out and the whole way back! It was really nice of him. We got out to the ocean and stood in the waves were crashing and booming around us. It was a magical moment for me.

Later in the afternoon we went to Fort Jesus, which is a Fort that was built by the Portugese in the 1500s I believe. It was really beautiful and I took a bunch of pictures. Then we had a fantastic dinner right by the sea side. I can tell this week is going to be simply amazing. We have class in the morning from 8:30 until 1, and then we have a little free time before doing our touristy things in the afternoon.

I'll update more later!

(left to right) Saskia, Emily, Megan, Amelia

Our swahili professor, Francis, and our Gender and Developmental professor,

Roseanne (or, as I affectionately call her, Rosie)

Emily hanging out at Fort Jesus

The beautiful view from our restaurant that night

"Old town" in Mombasa, reminded me of Italy

OUR GROUP!! (Left to right) Zach, Mimansa, Amelia,

Saskia, Me, Megan and Emily