...Ryan and I arrived in Kenya. We met up with Marya and found our ride outside. I was sad it was dark, so we quickly went to bed to start our adventure in the morning.
For the first two days we were pretty awesome tourists, going to visit the Giraffe center, Elephant Orphanage, and National Park Safari walk which unbeknown to us was basically a zoo.
The coolest though was a center that teachest about traditional Kenya tribes. They preformed dances and chants and songs and it really made me want to go back in time to see it when it wasn't in an auditorium.
We also stopped by the local Masai market. Hundreds of vendors called you, welcomed you, and grabbed you, begging you to look at their often homemade products. They must be used to rich tourists though because their prices were ridiculous. I bought a few things, but not until we bartered the price close to 70%!
Wednesday Ryan headed home and Marya and I to the train station for a ride across the country. The train ride was unbelievable, top five experiences.
We arrived to the old station, with a cracked floor, antient toilets, old letter boards...and we met our ride. An old, rickety, brown train.
We pulled out of the station right on schedule and every inch of the train creaked and jolted and swayed and made us question its reliability, but all part of the adventure.
The toilet? A hole onto the tracks. My dad had told me when he rode the train 30 years ago thats what they had for a toilet. Somehow I guess I expected some improvement. Haa.
As we rolled out of Nairobi, we saw a different side of it. A side unseen to the common tourist surrounded by big buildings and well dressed businessmen.
We passed slums, tin houses, and people living among the most garbage I'd ever seen. Pictures really don't do it justice. In places, people honestly set up tents in the garbage dumb.
My heart broke for them yet at the same time I've never been filled with so much joy -- as we passed, kids ran out to meet us. They smiled huge toothy smiles and waved with all their energy. It wasn't just the kids though. The adults, wearing old yet modern clothes, carrying baskets on their heads, or bags of food to take to their families, smiled the most beautiful smiles and I longed so deeply to know them, and not just pass by.
We continued past "shops" - little tin roofs over every pot and pan and sock imaginable. Right by the tracks, nearly too close to see. The city gave way to desert with tumble weed and gazells and zebras roaming, and the people became scarce. Every few miles there would be a settlement in the middle of nowhere and the kids would wave and the teen boys would blow kisses.
We couldn't pull ourselves away from the windows, until the sun sank below the horizon leaving the sky purple and orange and red and fading to the brightest stars I've ever seen.
After a delicious, fancy dinner we went to bed early, eager for the morning sunrise and more views.
Its hard to sleep on a noisy old train, even though we had a nice sleeper car with comfy beds. Every bump or screech we would wake up. At 3:30 we stopped for two hours to wait for another train, giving us a chance for a nice nap and then...It was morning.
It was a different world. The flat desert had turned into green trees and hills in the distance. The houses were mostly natural and occasionally brick; the women wore more traditional clothes, colorful dresses, the soil so red among the green.
One of my favorite moments was when the train stopped for a good 30 minutes and an entire school of kids ran out to see us, laughing and talking and staring. They didn't speak English, but sometimes smiles say it all.
Finally, 20 hours later, we arrived in Mombasa to the most madness I've ever seen. The bus station was packed with colorful, rundown vans that followed no rules. Everyone fought for the tourists and then to get on the road. After getting on a van run by kids higher than kites, it took a long hour to manuever out of the van jam and through the city of two lane turned five lane (everyone going every direction and passing on the shoulders.)
We drove to a beach town called Mtwapa where we got a moterbike (called bodabodas, name originally border-to-border) to our hostel...finally.
The beach was one of the most beautiful I've been on. Walking out to the sand during low tide, the ground was all rock with fossilized fish and coral and shells. Because of the rocks, the ocean left shallow puddles everywhere creating perfect reflections of the sky.
After some time soaking in the beauty, Marya and I went for a walk through the village. The hostel was quite a trek from the main town, and the "roads" were dusty and curvy with chickens and kids running everywhere. The kids all grinned and yelled, "jambo!" Which is hello in Swahili.
The boys in the town were uncomfortably intense. You could tell that tourists were a rarity, espcially young girls traveling solo. They didn't reach out, often they ignored our hellos, but just stared. We walked a bit, talked to some kids and older women (the older women were (almost) always soo nice and welcoming everywhere we went) then headed back to the hostel where we hung out with Marvin, a high energy local who never, ever stopped smiling.
We ate a delicious dinner of...really weird food...while fighting off countless hungry cats before heading to our little cabana, sleeping in a cozy bed under a mosquito net, the pouring African rain waking us in the night before finally, the morning I'd been waiting for for so long...
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