Sunday
Sunday was a fairly early start with the first activity of the day being a 'team discussion' about the events of the previous night... I think that may be covered in another post so I won't go into any details.We had a safari matatu and Gilbert's 7 seater car for the drive. Its approximately 500km to Mombasa and although most of the roads are ok there are several stretches that I know my car's bumper wouldn't survive. We stopped every couple of hours for food and toilets, including a rather nice chicken and chips at a service station - far nicer than the congealed, overpriced sludge served at UK service stations.
Other than a few games of "Would you rather..." instigated by Kevin and Andan (for those who know them, well I'm sure you can imagine) the journey was pretty uneventful. Just reading or sleeping really. Andan took a shine to my shoulder and spent a good hour bouncing his head between it and the window. Several times it was quite a loud bang but no harm done it seems.
Once in Mombasa, about 15 mins from our accommodation, we stopped for a few supplies (ice cream) and stumbled across a bar showing the West Ham vs Tottenham game which we stayed to watch... why oh why did we bother? Watching West Ham either results in sheer elation, sheer boredom or sheer frustration - unfortunately this time it was the latter. Carlton, if you are reading this, what were you thinking?
Anyway on to the accommodation. No one was really sure what to expect but it was actually rather nice. Serviced apartments, 4 to an apartment, with a nice swimming pool and dining area next to the pool. It was clean, spacious and comfortable. We even had (well my room did) air con in the bedrooms - luxury!
I can't remember exactly what happened next but I think we may have just had dinner, had a swim and then went to bed. Its quite hard work sitting down all day you know.
Monday
Breakfast by the pool. My clean t-shirt was soiled by a rather large spider hanging above my seat and doing something unsavoury... not what you want at breakfast really.After breakfast we headed into town to find the 'old town' and Fort Jesus. It was quite interesting and we spent quite a while looking in the Curio shops next to the fort. After some discussion and disagreement with the first guide we found another who wasn't trying to rip us off and he took us around the local area and back streets over-explaining everything and bombarding us with facts, figures and dates and drawing diagrams in the sand. All I really remember was that at some point there were Portuguese people hanging around Mombasa, not sure if we are talking 1200s, 1500s or 2003. He also took us round the maze of alleys showing us the different types of architecture which I found quite interesting but there was definitely some moaning from the less cultured in our group ;-)
We were soon hungry and were driven to a pre-booked restaurant for the usual assortment of African cuisine and slow service without a smile. After eating we went to find the beach.
We went to the popular public beach which was packed with school children who seemed to be swimming together in massive groups... schools you might say. We wandered along the beach until we found an area large enough for us to play football and generally spread out. With a bit of explaining to our local guides we managed to split into two teams doing 'numbers' and get a game of football underway.
Naturally playing on sand meant we were all immune from injuries and heavy tackling and blatant fouling were both within the rules. We must have played for at least an hour and it was great fun. The highlight has to be the 3 local girls strolling through the middle of the pitch and one of them who must have either been mad, stupid or high (or all three) decided to join in. Andan, ever the gentleman, shouted at Clive - "DESTROY HER" when she had the ball, unfortunately Clive's pace isn't what it used to be and he wasn't able to follow Andan's guidance. Andan saw this and obviously thought 'if you want a job done properly, do it yourself' and well the resulting tackle was quite spectacular... she was in fact destroyed. It was just a blur of legs, water, sand, skin, football, Andan and thong - quite a sight - he got the ball though, fair tackle I'd say.
Eventually the game ended and we went in for a swim and played a bit of D.O.N.K.E.Y which basically involves doing kick ups as a team and when you mess up you get a letter until you spell Donkey and you are out. Jamaal seems to have a particular talent for being a donkey so we had to extend it slightly to D.O.N.K.E.Y.A.R.S.E.H.O.L.E... and maybe some other letters that I couldn't possibly repeat. Good clean fun. We played this until sunset and then headed back to the apartments to clean up and eat.
Dinner was fantastic, local speciality of Biryani and rice.
A few people went in for a swim then off to bed. I remained by the pool with Ian, Matthew, Simeon, Andan and Jamaal to play some cards before bed. We had just dealed for poker when THUD, something landed on the table... it was a lizard! It was a kind of double-take moment. Simeon and Andan wasted no time in running away. The lizard then jumped on Matthew and climbed up his back. Ian tried to pick it up but it jumped off again and darted across Jamaal's lap... wow what a scream! I've not heard anything like that before, especially not from a boy anyway... It wasn't far off deafening dogs. Very funny and the cue for bed.
Dan
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