Special Price for You....

Greetings from Mombasa!

I really like saying “Mombasa.”

Mombasa.

Mom-BASA

MOM-BA-sa

Mom-Ba-Saaaaaaaa.

Okay, so spending time in Mombasa is sort of like planning a relaxing beach vacation in Mexico and then spending all of your time in an extra dirty, run-down and mostly Muslim version of Tijuana.    The best beaches and resorts are a distance from the city. 

We found a nice hotel in Bamburi Beach, which is about a 25 minute tuk-tuk (a motorized bike with a carriage attached to the back) ride north of the city.    The Kahama hotel is set one layer back from the three key exceptions:

1. Our room has three beds but only two blankets and the staff seems unwilling to see this as a problem;
2. Every three hours a paralyzing smell of sewage wafts through the room, and
3. There is a late-night bar/restaurant attached to the hotel that blares music so loudly until after midnight that I tend to confuse the pulsing bass with my heartbeat.

Other than all of that, we’ve found a good place.   There’s a quick path to the beach, and we have a beautiful salt-water pool. 

We’ve been getting up at 6am to walk on the beach (Emily runs, and Dami and I walk) and enjoy the sunrise over the Indian Ocean.   It really is beautiful.   If you get there before 8, you beat all the vendors, whose primary sales tactics involve obscene harassment.   You can’t walk 5 feet without a salesman shoving something in your face, following you and relentlessly asking questions or trying to convince you to go for a ride in a glass-bottom boat.  It’s too bad, because the level of harassment – particularly towards white people – precludes any remote opportunity to enjoy an otherwise beautiful beach. 

We’ve learned to be off the beach by 8 and to spend the day by the hotel pool, which is wonderfully relaxing. 

We’ve also learned to appreciate the value of paying a little more for a hotel on the beach – that offers lounge chairs on private property and security guards paid to keep the vendors away.    When we head to Zanzibar tomorrow we’ll pay the few extra dollars to secure that privacy.

Today, our last full day in Mombasa, will be spent lounging by the salt-water pool here at the hotel.   Being here, really allowing myself to relax, makes me realize just how deeply tired I am.