The first adventure was actually getting to the beach. Before leaving, Duncan predicted that the trip would take about 6 hours driving - not true at all! After about 7 hours we were close to the major port city of Mombasa when we ran out of gas on the side of the highway. No big deal - just put Cornel in a matatu, pick up some gas 20 minutes down the road, and hitch a ride back in an 18-wheeler - only an hour delay. Then, after getting totally lost in Mombasa, our car broke down and I found myself pushing it through the streets in the dark. Every guidebook will tell you to avoid the streets of Mombasa after dark, but we managed to leave the car at a gas station and take a taxi up to the coast north of the city, a place called Mtwapa.
After spending the night in a Kenyan guest house, we spent Friday at the public beach north of Mombasa. I found that there is a big difference between the public beach and the tourist beaches - primarily that everyone else at the public beach was African. It was a blast, though - we rode on a boat out to a reef and snorkeled in the gorgeous blue water, then hung out on the beach all afternoon, eating snacks cooked up in little shacks by the beach and enjoying the beautiful weather.
Friday night we picked up the car (which had been fixed) and made our way to the South coast, which turned out to be a drastically different experience. The area, called Diani Beach, is one of the most popular places for western tourists in Kenya, so the coast is dotted with luxury resorts and hotels. We drove to one of these and had an amazing breakfast in an open-air restaurant right on the beach, and then relaxed for most of the morning as the tide came in over Diani reef. Though the morning started clear, we were walking down the beach when a huge storm swept in, so we were soon drenched in the warm rain - oddly relaxing! Luckily it cleared off, so I spent the afternoon by myself on the beach as the Kenyans went off to visit friends, enjoying a great lunch and some much-needed peace and quiet. Diani turned out to be one of the most beautiful beaches I've ever seen, and it held on to a little of the African flavor, with monkeys running around stealing food and Kenyans walking their camels up and down the beach selling rides.
Sunday we left early in the morning to drive back to Limuru and, unsurprisingly, the trip took much longer than expected! This time we managed to avoid car trouble, but we ran into the most intense traffic mess I have ever seen. There is really only one highway in Kenya, running from the major port of Mombasa to Nairobi and then on to the rest of East and Central Africa, so almost all of the shipping traffic from the coast to this part of the continent goes down this road on trucks. Unfortunately, there are always parts of the road under construction, which means constant diversions onto dirt paths. Imagine all of the traffic on I-40 getting funneled onto a dirt road for miles at a time with no traffic regulation whatsoever - crazy! Then put overturned trucks in both directions blocking the road, and you get traffic jams of trucks miles long with cars offroading their way through the mud and dirt any way that they can to pass. It really is a free-for-all, but its amazing to see the creativity that Kenyans come up with in getting around these kinds of messes! After waiting for hours in a couple of different spots, we ended up doing some serious "mudding" in our suburu station wagon and eventually got back to the paved roads in Nairobi. While all this was going on, though, we were treated to herds of zebra, giraffe, wildebeest, and antelope on the sides of the highway, so there are always things to keep you entertained!
Overall it was an exciting and memorable weekend, and I have many more stories that came of it! Thank you so much for all of your prayers!
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