Day 26 - Goodbye Tanzania - Jambo Kenya

Blog has been out of action for a few days while we met up with an old Warwick friend, Penny, and set about leaving behind the dusty tanzanian safari circuit for the lush heights of Nairobi, Mombasa and everything in-between.

After catching a minibus from arusha to nairobi on sunday morning at 08:00, we crossed everything and hoped to jump on another bus going from nairobi to mombasa that afternoon - we were blessed with luck and actually had to wait for the second bus to arrive. 9 hours later and in the middle of a torrential pre-monsoon type downpour we arrived in mombasa not knowing where we were or where we were going to stay. The Excellent Hotel sounded promising according to Lonely Planet so we headed there - I don't know if the swahili dictionary has a slightly alternative definition of the word but the hotel was grossly misnamed. Then again, it being a choice between getting drenched and getting to sleep, we took the latter (after a sneaky Tusker - it is Kenya after all..) and got some zzzs.

Monday turned out be to pretty bloody awful on the weather front too and Em and I swam to the train station to book tickets back to Nairobi a few days hence. Our greatest success was to come when we found out the post office offered free internet (and pretty cheap stamps) - lots of emails were sent before we wandered off the buy Penny some wedding shoes, acquire some more shillingis and take a look around the single tourist attraction in mombasa that is Fort Jesus. Two hours later we'd learned lots about the Portugese invasion of Kenya, had dried off and found a lovely cafe selling delicious sambusas and ice cream.

Most bizarre event of the day award goes to Penny for managing to borrow an electronic keyboard on which to rehearse Schubert's Ave Maria for the wedding she is due to sing at on saturday. LP told us the 'Excellent' Hotel had a rooftop bar that often hosted live bands...when we got up there it had obviously gone downhill somewhat and now housed the offices of the Holy Ghost Evangelical Church. Things got better when we found out they had an organ we could borrow to rehearse on - not that it was a pretty sight (or sound) - Penny was great but I can only play the piano with one hand and would make Les Dawson sound like a concert pianist.

After discovering our second rooftop bar venue had been closed down for renovations (in 1998), we snuck into a local restaurant, were hounded for food by a cat with half its tail missing, played whist over a few more tuskers and went to bed happy - accompanied by the sound of yet more bloody rain.

Bliss.