(No photos can do these 3 days justice)
Saturday April 4th: Ngara to Mwanza
The trip had started so nicely with a visit to the local Saturday market in Ngara to pick up some snacks for the six hour journey ahead. The eight of us (yes 8) and our luggage are all loaded in Liz’s Landrover and we’re bumping along nicely on our way to Mwanza on Lake Victoria. That is until we “bump” into one of the locals on his bike. He’s lucky to be alive after veering in front of us at the last second and the crunch we hear gives us a sickening impression that the worst has happened. Luckily he’s alive with just a few cuts and bruises but his bike is a mangled mess. We take him into the nearest town and visit the police station (Liz agrees to pay for bike repairs and some cash that he dropped .... bill of $27 despite there being no way of Liz being able to miss him) and then the hospital. A short delay of four hours but we’re back on our way to the next town we’re we stop in at the local church for a late lunch and a look at the new church roof ...... another hour later and we’re on our way again.
I’ve decided a good time to visit this part of the world will be in 2010. That is when they will have finished the hundreds of kilometres of new roads that we are getting a great opportunity to see as they are being built. This means we’re on the temporary, windy, narrow, pot holed, bumpy, dusty road to the side of the new, flat, straight, smooth bitumen. Excellent.
Unfortunately our earlier delays mean we miss catching the car ferry into Mwanza by 30 minutes which results in us back tracking for an hour or so and then heading off to find another car ferry. Only now it’s dark and the lights on the Landrover aren’t working so well which means slower progress but still the inevitable massive crunches that bust the backside as we hit unseen potholes. We eventually arrive at midnight!
Sunday April 5th: Mwanza to Nairobi
We borrow the Landrover and head into town to find out about busses to Nairobi. There’s one leaving at 1pm and it will only take a very short 15 hours! When we arrive at the bus station the bus is jacked up with one of the wheels lying on the ground beside it .... the “coach” has seen better days. It is with a fair amount of trepidation and outright fear that we hug Liz goodbye and set off on the next leg of the “journey from hell”. Our fears turn out to be ......... well founded. One of our seats is constantly in the reclining position meaning we get a good view of the ceiling. We stop regularly to drop off and pick up passengers. As night comes, so does the rain and cold. There are only so many ways of shifting position on a bad bus seat and the knees from the person behind are a constant reminder that we have obviously done something very bad to someone, somewhere to deserve this type of punishment.
Monday April 6th: Nairobi to Mombasa to Diani
The odyssey continues. We arrive, exhausted in Nairobi at 6am. It’s cold and the rain is bucketing down. The bus (just another 8 hours we are told) leaves at 9am .... which turns into 10am and takes 10 hours. Yet another major highway is being built .... we get the crap bumpy road beside it. Mombasa is one big, hot traffic jam. We negotiate with a taxi driver to take us to the beaches south of Mombasa but first we must get on the ferry to cross the harbour in peak hour ..... we arrive at our final destination at 8.30pm, we left Liz’s place on Saturday at 8.30am, 3 days ago!
The trip had started so nicely with a visit to the local Saturday market in Ngara to pick up some snacks for the six hour journey ahead. The eight of us (yes 8) and our luggage are all loaded in Liz’s Landrover and we’re bumping along nicely on our way to Mwanza on Lake Victoria. That is until we “bump” into one of the locals on his bike. He’s lucky to be alive after veering in front of us at the last second and the crunch we hear gives us a sickening impression that the worst has happened. Luckily he’s alive with just a few cuts and bruises but his bike is a mangled mess. We take him into the nearest town and visit the police station (Liz agrees to pay for bike repairs and some cash that he dropped .... bill of $27 despite there being no way of Liz being able to miss him) and then the hospital. A short delay of four hours but we’re back on our way to the next town we’re we stop in at the local church for a late lunch and a look at the new church roof ...... another hour later and we’re on our way again.
I’ve decided a good time to visit this part of the world will be in 2010. That is when they will have finished the hundreds of kilometres of new roads that we are getting a great opportunity to see as they are being built. This means we’re on the temporary, windy, narrow, pot holed, bumpy, dusty road to the side of the new, flat, straight, smooth bitumen. Excellent.
Unfortunately our earlier delays mean we miss catching the car ferry into Mwanza by 30 minutes which results in us back tracking for an hour or so and then heading off to find another car ferry. Only now it’s dark and the lights on the Landrover aren’t working so well which means slower progress but still the inevitable massive crunches that bust the backside as we hit unseen potholes. We eventually arrive at midnight!
Sunday April 5th: Mwanza to Nairobi
We borrow the Landrover and head into town to find out about busses to Nairobi. There’s one leaving at 1pm and it will only take a very short 15 hours! When we arrive at the bus station the bus is jacked up with one of the wheels lying on the ground beside it .... the “coach” has seen better days. It is with a fair amount of trepidation and outright fear that we hug Liz goodbye and set off on the next leg of the “journey from hell”. Our fears turn out to be ......... well founded. One of our seats is constantly in the reclining position meaning we get a good view of the ceiling. We stop regularly to drop off and pick up passengers. As night comes, so does the rain and cold. There are only so many ways of shifting position on a bad bus seat and the knees from the person behind are a constant reminder that we have obviously done something very bad to someone, somewhere to deserve this type of punishment.
Monday April 6th: Nairobi to Mombasa to Diani
The odyssey continues. We arrive, exhausted in Nairobi at 6am. It’s cold and the rain is bucketing down. The bus (just another 8 hours we are told) leaves at 9am .... which turns into 10am and takes 10 hours. Yet another major highway is being built .... we get the crap bumpy road beside it. Mombasa is one big, hot traffic jam. We negotiate with a taxi driver to take us to the beaches south of Mombasa but first we must get on the ferry to cross the harbour in peak hour ..... we arrive at our final destination at 8.30pm, we left Liz’s place on Saturday at 8.30am, 3 days ago!
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