OUR LAST DAY IN PARADISE

This morning I woke at 9am to the sound of rain pounding on the roof.  It didn’t worry me too much as it seemed that was what the weather did every morning and it always cleared by 11am to turn out to be a fine day but as sad as it is today was our last day in paradise.  Even though we have only had 3 nights and 4 days here, it has been a very relaxing break and Katie and I are now talking about coming back for New Year’s Eve in December.  Maybe not to this hotel, as there have been some small issues-nothing to warrant a  terrible stay, but to make us think about another hotel.  It is a shame as the hotel is in a great location and the hotel itself was spotless-just a few reception/staff issues that on a longer stay could make a bigger impact that what we had.  All that aside-we have had a great time and we had the whole day to snap some more sun as Moussa wasn’t coming for us till 5pm.  We will miss Diani Beach with its ribbon of flawless tropical beach, with white, fine-grained, gently sloping to the ocean and shaded with palms and casuarinas. The ocean at Diani, or rather the inshore shallows, is entirely protected by the fringing reef, massive and solid like a seawall.  Nothing can penetrate – no sharks, no other large marine life, and very little pollution.  When the tide goes out, a half-mile stretch of coral and sand between the reef and shore is exposed as a mosaic of rock pools.  Yes we will miss paradise, but I know with a fact that I will be back again-there is no doubt. 

We checked out of our rooms after breakfast at 10.30am and stored our bags at reception and as the weather was till overcast it was ideal to go for a walk and because Maggie (the beautician) had done such a good job with us all the other day, Katie and I had decided to visit her salon direct rather than her coming to the hotel and having to lose a chunk of her money as commission to them.  Because I was so sunburned I ended up passing on the massage, but I walked with Katie the 10 minutes to Maggies shop.  It was a little like dodging the beach sellers, but this time they were beside the main road as we walked with calls and cries of coming in to see their souvenirs.  It’s not the we aren’t interested in looking at stuff, the thing is we have access to everything that they are selling back in Nairobi and I am trying to not buy anymore souvenirs until I come back from West Africa as I have a feeling I am going to buy a lot of stuff on that trip.  The Nairobi stuff will always be here and I know that for a fact as I see everywhere 2 Masai statues that I bought 13 years ago when I did my first trip to Africa, and I got them in South Africa.  Yes the Masai stuff will always be here so we ran the gauntlet of the sellers with the call that we would look on the way back knowing full well that we would be catching a taxi back and could save face and the trouble if we were to walk back to the hotel.  Development on the Diani Strip has been fairly intense, not only in terms of tourist accommodation, which includes dozens of large resorts and several smaller beach hotels, but in a whole range of ancillary services. There’s a number of shopping centres, several banks and ATMs, a hospital, restaurants, hairdressing salons, laundromats, DVD rental stores, craft stalls, internet cafés, vehicle hire, training facilities and equipment for snorkelling, scuba diving, windsurfing, glass-bottomed boating and deep-sea fishing.  We found maggies Salon in between a quad bike rental shop and a bicycle rental shop, so while Katie got an hour massage, again my travel modem had proven its weight in gold and I listened to my IPod and read a book and the hour just flew by.  Maggie didn’t seem to concerned that I had changed my mind, but I felt a little bad, so I bought a necklace from her that she had on display just to make it up to her and an hour later we were on our way again.    

We decided to walk another 10 minutes to the Diani Beach Shopping Centre to have a quick look around at the 40+ shops that they have there and we couldn’t help it with me buying to hessian looking dresses and a beautiful bracelet and Katie snapped herself up a frog lamp made from coconuts and he was super cute.  We really didn’t have the shopping bug as the sun was now out in full force and we wanted to catch some rays before having to get ready for our pickup so we paid the 300KSH for the taxi back to the hotel and after off-loading out purchases at reception where our bags were now stored we got changed and hit the pool.  Again I had to be careful with my sunburn and I think the 2 worst places I was sunburned were my legs and up near my underarms.  So with that in mind I decided to cream up with my factor 36+ sunscreen and I spent the next 2.5 hours in the pool with my book in hand to try and keep my legs out of the direct sunlight.  It was so hot to sit on the sun chairs and it was cold to get into the pool for short bursts, but after you had been in for a while it was actually quite refreshing and better than sweating your arse off in the sun. 

Katie was in and out of the pool over the course of the afternoon and at one point I did make an effort to go and sit on the sunloungers when she got out at one point and as we walked back to our chairs the vervet monkeys that had been so cute and good all weekend all of a sudden turned into cheeky monkeys, literally, monkeys with attitudes and one was sitting on Katie’s sunlounge and it that took more than a simple shooooo to get him moving on his way.  We took that in our stride and as I was walking to my sunlounge I noticed that there seemed to be more monkeys this afternoon and they really weren’t too worried about our presence, where-as the last few days they were a little flighty and would take off with any sudden movements.  They seemed to be chasing the grasshoppers (which is cute) and there were a lot of small babies around so I slung my towel over my shoulder and took out my camera and started to take some photos.  Well one of the larger monkeys who we now assume was the mother didn’t like me taking photos and there was a micro second where we looked at each other and I saw what was coming and as the mummy monkey made a charge at me I grabbed my towel and took a few wild swings to stop the charge with a very girly squeal to match.  There was only one other couple in the whole pool area (this could also be the reason why there were more monkeys) and the only support I got from them and Katie was laughing, especially when mummy monkey took a second charge and again with the swing of my towel which was my only lifeline of not getting bitten and contracting rabies, my heart was beating a million beats and then I was finally saved, not by Katie or the guy of the couple, but of a machete wielding gardener that came running over to help.  Oh yes it is all fun and games until someone gets bitten by a monkey.  It was funny after I realised I still had my life and I told the couple to watch their backs and Katie was a little spooked (oh yes funny indeed) and moved a little closer to the pool where the monkeys don’t seem to tread as much. 

We did have plans to head to Forty Thieves for a last drink, but time got the better of us and the hotel gave us a room for us to shower in and after settling the bill Moussa arrived and we were on the road at 5pm on the dot.  We did a quick stop at Barclays Bank to top up on taxi money and then we travelled back the same way that we had come 4 days ago.  It took us 40 minutes again tracing back through the small villages that dot the main road to the ferry.  It is a surreal image to see such poverty after having spent 4 days in pure paradise only a short distance away.  This is Kenya, and as we drove it reminds me just how lucky I am, how I do have a privileged life and I do not take any day for granted.  We made it to the ferry in good time and didn’t have to wait at all as they were loading cars as we arrived.  The hive of activity around the ferry port is a sight to see.  There is a lot more foot traffic than cars and trucks and as the trip is so short, by the time the foot passenger’s board and walk the length of the ferry it is just about time to get off the other end.  There are people with luggage on their heads, handcart pushers, motorcyclists, and other vehicles that compete for space on the ferry. Because the ferry crossing is so quick, nobody gets out of their cars and literally 4 minutes later you are on the other side.  The ferry runs on a 15 minute schedule during the day and on hourly basis from 10pm to 5am. It is free for pedestrians but vehicles are required to pay a small fee based on weight. The average car pays approximately $2 for the crossing.  The same as the other day, when we arrived to the opposite side there’s a rush to disembark and it took us longer to get off the ferry than the actual ride. 

It was a Monday afternoon, so we got stuck in pockets of traffic in Mombasa city, looking very much like Nairobi traffic, getting us to the airport finally 50 minutes later at 7pm.  We thanked Moussa and paid him the 4000KSH (53AUD) for the transfer and as our flight wasn’t until 8.40pm so we found the Karibu Café before check-in, bought a pie and sausage roll with a water for dinner and we read our books until 7.50pm when we thought we had better go and check-in, and with no problems with security we were airside and through another security check point and at the departure gates at 8.10pm.  It actually wasn’t bad timing all round, and even though leaving at 5pm seems early for an 8.40pm flight, you really need to have a 3 hour window when you are leaving from Diani to the airport.  The departure lounge also had a café where you could buy drinks and it is a smart place to have a business with all the delayed flight that happen so regularly, it would be a very smart business to have in any Kenyan airport.  There was also a shop, like a mini supermarket that also sold some souvenirs, and like any airport in the world was totally OVER priced.  I saw a very similar necklace that I had bought at Maggie’s for 500KSH, had a price tag of 2000KSH in the airport shop.  Needless to say I had a very quick scan in there and went back to my seat to play solitaire until our flight was called.  We were supposed to board at 8.20pm and we were not shocked when we looked at the departure TV and our flight had been delayed until 9.15pm.  One hour is no big deal, especially in Kenyan terms; we just hoped that it wouldn’t get pushed out any further.  There was a Kenyan Airways flight that left before us and that pretty much emptied out the lounge, so Katie and I were thinking/hoping that we had a half empty flight based on the jet plane that I came down on  and the people left in the lounge.  Well we were lucky that the flight did boat at 9.15pm but that is where the luck stopped and we were on a dash 8 propelled plane and it was a full flight of 30 people.  Because it was also a smaller aircraft the flight that took 45 minutes down on the jet, took us 1 hour and 15 minutes to get back to JKIA, landing at 10.30pm.  Our bags again were unloaded in miraculous time and we were out of the terminal within 10 minutes.  Katie’s taxi guy was there and Isaac was also there waiting for us, so with a hug and a thanks to Katie for a great weekend I was home at 11pm with a smile on my face. 

So a MASSIVE thank-you goes to Katie, Jess and Jo for an amazing week-end.  You girls are amazing people doing amazing things and this trip will long be remembered and no matter where in the world we are, I know we will always be friends and that we will continue to have mini holidays which I can’t wait for the next one.  Kenya is known for its national parks, the wildlife, the tribes, the mountains but I think the beaches are very under rated and if you get a chance to come to Mombasa and her beaches, you HAVE to do it.  Do yourself the favour and I can guarantee that you will not be sorry.