The Subcontinent by Slacks: Mombasa

The Fokker is the second coolest name of an airplane that I've ever flown in (that honor belongs to the Twin Otter). It is also the plane that took us to Mombasa , one of the oldest cities in Kenya, a huge port town with a strong muslim influence and a former stop on the East African slave trading route.

We headed south to Tiwi beach and after a quick bribe stop by the police (apparently the tint was too dark on our taxi), a thirty minute ferry ride across a 100 foot wide river and then a bumpy ten or fifteen miles, we arrived at the Sand Island Cottages. It was, in a word, magnificent. We had a five bed cottage with a huge patio that looked right onto the palm trees lining a completely deserted beach. The tide was out, crashing against the reef, and creating a shallow sand island in the middle of the bay. We wandered, we swam, we frolicked, we ignored Kenyans trying to sell us fresh octopus and "medicine".

Eventually we headed back into town, getting there just in time to see them close the gates at Fort Jesus (a big ole Portuguese bastion). No worries, we hung out with the kids playing soccer in the courtyard then ventured into the old town. I really liked the old town at night, there were tons of people walking around, lots of restaurants and street food, and a really lively atmosphere. We had dinner at Tamarind which is one of the more renowned restaurants in Kenya, it was good but nothing spectacular (though the tree tomato sorbet was scrumptious). Had a few rounds of Pontoon in the casino and called it an early night.

Saturday morning we caught sunrise over the beach and started our day long dhow boat trip with Charlie's Claws. We had breakfast in an old cave that used to hold slaves before they were sent to Zanzibar which was a bit creepy and kinda the exact opposite of the champagne breakfast we had in the Mara. But shortly after that we jumped on a really nice wooden boat, sprawled out on some deck pillows and were cruising towards the little islands that dot Kenya's east coast. The scene reminded me of Australia's Whitsundays, white sandy beaches, palm fringed islands, blue water, sea breezes and a few dolphins thrown in just for kicks. Did a quick dive (pretty mediocre: 10m vis, lots of dead coral, no whale sharks) and some snorkeling then we headed to Wasini island for lunch.

The lunch starter was one of the more incredible meals I've ever had. They gave us these miniature wooden baseball bats, dropped a huge platter of jumbo crabs on the table and let us go at it. There is nothing (nothing!) more fun than bashing something with a club, eating it with your hands and having it be super fresh and delicious. And when we had just about finished the first platter, they asked the most magical four words, "do you want more?" and dumped an even larger platter on the table. And that was just the starter, we also got some weird coconut bitings (bitings are like tapas here), a whole fish in coconut sauce and some fruit to finish us off. Tre bien. Had a quick boat ride back to the bus, a not so quick bus ride back to the cottage and finished off the night on our porch playing drinking games with Salvador's Pepino Surprise: vodka, sprite and cucumbers.

Sunday picked up right where Saturday stopped: drinking and eating. These guys walk around the beach selling fresh seafood, so we snagged some lobsters, prawns and generic fish. But with some very very important activities to attend to, we decided to splurge the $6 and hire a chef to prepare us lunch. So while we explored the reef and sat in hammocks, our chef shredded coconuts, made a curry, bbq'd the lobsters, uncorked the wine and served us a feast on our porch. A pretty fantastic way to cap off a pretty fantastic trip to the coast.