Travel Day 1: Nairobi – Kakamega
Didn’t sleep at all last night - - Megan and Mimansa stayed at my house and we were way too excited! Walked with our packs to the bus pick-u8p at 7:30am. Bus left Nairobi at 8:30 AND WE’RE OFF!
8 hours on the bus: Megan and I talk, do crosswords, read the newspaper and eat chips. Mimansa takes Dramamine and passed out next to some stranger. Arrive in Kakamega town around 4:45pm. Make a chaotic search for a matatu and drive to the forest. Then pay for our nights in the forest and renting our tent (1750Ksh total for five days - - about $23 USD!). When we finally got to the site and set up our tent it was 8pm or so. Still early, and we were hungry so we started a fire and made #1 Exciting Meal We Cooked Ourselves in Kakamega: noodle and wild rice vegetable soup! Tomatoes, onion, potatoes, carrot, noodles and rice. Food, unpack, bed.
Kakamega Day 1
#2 Exciting Meal We Cooked in Kakamega: EGGS!
Megan and I bought one dozen eggs. Six of them we hard boiled, six we kept raw. We cut an egg carton in half and wrapped the eggs up in there, then put them in our sufuria "big metal cooking pot" and carried them. They survived! Megan and I were ecstatic. Megan and I did part of a crossword - we’re doing them a lot lately.
Kakamega Day 2
Today I spent about five minutes trying to convince a lizard to get out of the bathroom so I could use the facilities in peace. I finally got Mimansa to scare him away. (This becomes a trend for this portion of our tip.) We met a nice couple tonight - Dani and Dave, who lent us this tool that helped take the pot out of the fire. Today we walked 2.5km to and from the forest. We found two beautiful waterfalls, and sat by them for a bit. Then met two guys who are also staying in the forest - one guy from Israel, and one from Australia. They had met a week or so ago traveling, and decided to continue on together! Two nice guys.
Kakamega Day 3
Spent all morning and afternoon building and keeping up our fire. We hiked in the early evening (4:30 - 6:30ish) up to this giant flat rock that we could sit on.
#3,4,5 Exciting Meals We Cooked in Kakamega: Ndengu with onion, garlic and tomatoes (local dish), Apples with cinnamon sugar and honey on them in little foil packages. POPCORN!
HUGE STORM tonight. Megan and Mimansa were in the tent when it hit, I was outside. I moved all our stuff into the little kitchen shelter and waited for them. It was a pretty big storm, and it took a bit before them came out of the tent. I made fire in the kitchen, but left the one outside going in the hopes that the hot coals under the big pot would be enough to boil our drinking water - - it was! Stayed in the kitchen until 2 or 3 in the morning, chatting and sitting by the fire. The baboons made crazy sounds all night. Did I mention we live RIGHT by them? Cool!
Kakamega Day 4
Woke up late and made breakfast - hash browns, scrambled eggs, coffee. FIRST SHOWER TODAY. For all of us, I think! Very cold and too close to nature. Each of us took a solo hike after lunch until evening. Megan went on past the big rock place, Mimansa went to the waterfall, and I wandered around everywhere.
Ate dinner, went to bed.
Travel Day 2: Kakamega - Nakuru
Woke up SUPER EARLY (around 5:30) to pack up some remaining stuff before our pikipiki’s (motorcycles!) came at 6:30am. That’s right…I said motorcycles. We hired three of them to come pick us up and take us to town before our bus left. Very cheap. Very fast. Our bus left at 8:30am and got to Nakuru at about 2:30. We then found a matatu to take us to Jalarem Temple, the Hindu Temple Mimansa arranged for us to stay at for a few nights. That evening we had some tea, napped, ate dinner, found a kitten, named him Solomon and slept.
(We found the little cutie while I was standing on some grating, which catches rain water. He was stuck down there! I rescued him.)
Nakuru Day 1
Today we slept in late and did a bunch of laundry! At around six o’clock we went up the road and found a place for dinner. It wasn’t very good Christmas dinner (unfortunately!). Then we took a matatu into town, and struggled to find the Cathedral we were going to for Christmas Eve Service! (At my insistance.) The service was nice and ended at around 9:15, we then took a matatu back to the temple. Went to bed!
Nakuru Day 2
Happy Christmas everyone! Today we did some laundry, ate a lot of excellent Indian food, played with Solomon and read all day. This is all we did.
Travel Day 3: Nakuru - Nairobi - Embu
Got up at 7:45, ate breakfast and packed up. We got a matatu and headed to Nairobi, arriving there at noon-thirty. We went straight to the K Room to drop off our sleeping bags, and pick up some stuff we’d left there that we might need in Lamu but didn’t for the first half of our trip (e.g.: swim suits, nice clothing, etc.) I then went and got a couple things from town: iced coffee (a must), two bouquets for Roseanne and her family and a card for all of us to sign. We then met up with Amelia (who had been climbing Mt. Kenya - no big deal…) and the four of us walked to our matatu stop to go to Embu. We took the matatu for about three and a half hours and met Roseanne at a petrol station in Embu. She was SO HAPPY to see us! We were excited as well. We then drove with her to her house and met her parents - they’re so wonderful! We gave them the flowers and we inside to unpack our stuff.
Roseanne and her mom had laid out four thin mattresses on the floor of the study for us to sleep in, and they also put a big water cooler in there which was lovely! Their house is beautiful. We met (one of) Roseanne’s grandmother, who lives in a little place behind their house. Roseanne showed us a bit of her family’s farm, which is HUGE! They grow so many things: coffee, tea (the only cash-crop), macadamia nuts, cabbage, onions, potatoes, tomatoes, avocado, corn, etc. Wow! We went to bed happy, and full of delicious home-cooked food.
Embu Day 1
Today we woke up early and Megan and walked out of the house (there’s a little gate) to the other side of the road. Roseanne told us if you’re out there really early (circa 6:30am) the clouds are so few that you can see all of Mt. Kenya - - the peaks and all! It was beautiful.
After wishing Mt. Kenya a good morning we went back in the house and woke everyone up. It rained for the majority of the day - so we sat around inside and talked with Rosie, did laundry, ate tons of Kenyan food and drank chai. After we ate lunch, Roseanne took us on the grand tour of her family’s farm. It was SO COOL and SO HUGE. We learned how to pick tea and helped some people do that for a bit. We then went to Roseanne’s sister’s house, and met her and Roseanne’s son, Wayne - - who we affectionately call “Lil Wayne” after the rapper. Went home, ate dinner, star-gazed, bed.
Embu Day 2
Roseanne made us get up early today so we could go to the tea factory. We got a tour! Did some tea tastings (yes, there’s a specific way you taste test tea - it’s weird), and bought some grade A tea for a cheap cheap price because her dad’s a tea farmer. Hung out in the afternoon. After dinner we tried to convince Roseanne that we were going to have a “slumber party,” a term she didn’t really understand. I told her that’s where a bunch of girls sit around on a bed in their Pjs, talk about the feelings, boys, share secrets…she clearly never read Judy Bloom as a child. But she stayed up and drank wine with Megan and I anyways, which was lovely.
Embu Day 3
Today we went traipsing around in Mt. Kenya National Forest with Rosie. We found a little stream and played in it. Roseanne was kind of freaked the whole time because, apparently, though I believe it is a lie, there are elephants in the forest. Really! Look it up. We made fun of it for the whole day:
Megan: WOAH! What’s that!?
Roseanne: AH! WHAT!
Megan: Ha-ha, nothing. But you totally thought it was an elephant, didn’t you?
Afterwards, Roseanne’s sister called her and said she had somewhere cool to take us. We drove for a bit, then hiked around in these hills when finally we saw it! Waterfalls! It was so cool. We sat on these huge hills and looked at the waterfalls for a bit, Amelia went down and investigated the fall for herself. It was so beautiful and peaceful. Then home. Then dinner. Then sleep.
Travel Day(s) 4 and 5: Embu - Nairobi - Mombasa - Lamu (exhausted just typing it…)
Got up around 9 and pack up our stuff. Made up excuses to stay longer at Roseanne’s (her too!), but finally left her house and she drove us to Meru, where we got on our matatu. Before we left there we gave her the card we’d gotten, which instructed her to choose a restaurant and a date in Nairobi because we were taking her out (and treating her) to dinner to thank her personally. She was thrilled! We were all pleased to have had such a wonderful time, and sad to be leaving. One more leg of our trip!
Arrived in Nairobi and had some dinner. Our bus left at 10:30pm, but left late (of course - it’s Kenya). Eight billion hours later we arrived in Mombasa. (Okay, not eight billion.) Our second bus (from Mombasa to Lamu) left at 8:30am. This was the longest bus ride of my life. There were people FILLING the aisles, standing, sitting, some people actualy sat on my shoulder for a while. It was hot hot hot because it’s the coast, and by the end of the ride our skin was dust-covered and we were sweaty, tired, uncomfortable…but happy to be almost there! Got to the very coast and took a dhow ride to the island itself.
EXHAUSTION. But it’s New Years, so we stayed up until midnight (playing silly card games and drinking chai), yelled “happy new years” and went to bed.
Lamu Day 1
LAMU IS BEAUTIFUL!!! Right on the Indian Ocean, great seafood, donkeys everywhere, cats everywhere, cute little streets, street vendors. It’s excellent. We slept in today, and had a late breakfast. We then went to meet Emily and Cameron (Emily’s boyfriend) who came to Lamu to meet us from Tanzania. We took a dhow ride to Shella beach, on another part of the island, to relax for the day. There were big parties going on all day because of a dhow race, so we sat on the balcony of this ritzy resort, drank tusker and mzungu-watched. We then went back to our part of the island, ate dinner, and went to bed.
Lamu Day 2
Mimansa and I went shopping for the morning and early afternoon today. We then met Megan and Amelia for chai (we’re addicted by this point, thanks Roseanne!). Met Emily and Cameron for some dinner (I ate fried calamari - ew). Mimansa and Amelia went to bed early (as per usual) while Megan and I went upstairs, met a nice British couple and chatted with them for a bit. Had some laughs, went to bed.
Lamu Day 3
Today we ate a late breakfast at Mangrove Café (our breakfast spot) - - 100Ksh (about $1.30) for toast, eggs, and chai. Yum! We spent the whole day on Shella beach: reading, swimming in the ocean, tanning, creating mischief. The usual! Got back to Lamu late and had dinner at Whisper’s Café, which had the best coffee ever! We’ve termed it the “Java House of Lamu,” which basically means it’s a really ritzy, white-person place. No Africans actually eat there. It’s just so we could get our fix of normal ketchup, good salad and iced coffee. Then chatting, then bed!
Lamu Day 4
Today we got up and had breakfast at the Mangrove Café again. In the afternoon, Megan and I went to the Museum of Lamu, which was kind of cool. In the afternoon Megan and I sat on this concrete wall and threw some concrete pebbles at fiddler crabs. Two little kids saw us doing it and then started themselves! Bwahaha! Infecting the youth with our hooliganism. We all four threw little stones at the crabs, who would fall into the ocean and resurface (still alive, don’t worry) seconds later. In the evening we went on a sunset sailing trip to celebrate Amelia’s birthday! It was so beautiful. Our captain’s name was Captain Smiley. On the sail back we all sang songs with our “crew,” three other guys. Very funny. A mix of some very interesting songs: You Are My Sunshine, Cama Camelion, Jon Denver, Angels We Have Heard On High, and Jambo Bwana, which means “hello mister.” Came back, ate some yummy seafood for dinner and went to bed late late late.
Lamu Day 5
Did nothing today. Mimansa and I went shopping for the final time, read a lot by the beach, and just hung around all day. Packed up our stuff in the evening and went to bed early.
Travel Day 6: Lamu - Mombasa - Nairobi
We woke up early and left our hotel, then took a dhow to the mainland where we caught our bus at 9:30a.m. We arrived in Mombasa at 5:30p.m., had some dinner and got ice cream, then got our next bus at 9:00p.m. Rode all night long, and finally arrived in Nairobi at 5:30a.m.
Goodbye already?! We all departed from each other, and found our way home. I got home and fell fast asleep until mid-day.
In some ways the trip went by SO fast. But I feel that way about my entire experience in Kenya. It was so wonderful. The exotic and amazing Kakamega rainforest, the peaceful temple in Nakuru, spending time with our beloved friend Roseanne in Embu, and finally a relaxing few days spent on the beach. I couldn’t have asked for a better, more amazing, more enriching, trip. Nor could I had picked better traveling companions. And I feel so incredibly lucky and blessed for all of these things.
Talk with you all later. Love you love you love you. Miss you all the time.
