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After an 8 hour flight from London we arrived in Nairobi at around 6.30 a.m. We had planned to take a bus straight from Nairobi to Mombasa on the Kenyan coast but due to my lack of sleep and Michelle being drunk (no joke) we took some advice from a nice local lady and went to check domestic flight prices. I successfully managed to barter with the guy on the Kenyan Airways desk and get our flights reduced from $186 pp down to $60 pp!!
After a very easy 45 minute flight, we landed in Mombasa airport and waited almost an hour for our pick up (arranged by the hostel we had booked). Driving from the airport was a huge culture shock, with so much going on along the road side.
We arrived at our hostel which was basic to say the least - with NO POWER (nowhere to plug in my hair straighteners!) or HOT WATER!! We were provided with paraffin lamps at sunset to get around a camp with no lighting. We had a lovely little hut to stay in with nothing but a bed and a wooden table. The showers and toilets were outside with no roof and no toilet paper. There were insects everywhere. The hostel owners had a goat and about 50 cats none of which looked like they had seen food in a year so proceeded to howl for ours at every meal and there was a Masai man who walked around all day with a stick and a safety pin in his vest.
The hostel was set on Mtwapa Creek so we had perfect sea views and the locals would fish and clean right by our huts. We spent most days drinking Tusker beer (our new favourite drink).
On our second day we took a walk into town with two other travellers we had met. We walked through all the local villages on the way and took at Matatu (google this if you dont know, mental!) down to Bamburi beach for lunch at a place run by what looked like an Italian Mafia. We got another Matatu back and then both of us jumped on the back of a motorbike in the rain and were driven through the mud back to the hostel. Filthy.
The worst drivers in the world live here. There are NO road signs, no traffic lights or round abouts and everyone overtakes everyone else (slightly worrying when going head on with another Matatu!!)
After an interesting time we decided to get the overnight train back from Mombasa to Nairobi before starting our overlander.
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