Mombasa

Even less time to write than yesterday, this time due to really pricey internet nonsense. I'm in a new city for the third consecutive day (Mombasa), and I haven't found a cheap place yet. Hopefully I will soon. In the meantime, here's a quick update:

Things wrapped up uneventfully in Nairobi. We found our bus (an actual bus this time) with relative ease, climbed onboard, and were off at 9:30 PM. We stopped at a small town for twenty minutes at 1:30 AM, and arrived in Mombasa at 5:30. It was dark the whole way, so there aren't really any sights to report. I slept much of the way, despite the ride being very bumpy. I'm getting good at ignoring awful roads. We arrived just before sunrise, so we sat in a little cafe and drank chai for about an hour, reading our "Lonely Planet: Kenya" to find a suggestion on where to stay. The first place we checked had spacious double rooms with decent bug nets, running water (cold, but in Mombasa you don't want hot water anyway), a working fan, electricity, locking doors, and a television (doesn't really work) for just 1100 shillings a night. That's like 16 bucks, and we're splitting it. So that's really good. We checked a few other places before we committed, but this was clearly the best bang for the buck. It also turns out that it is very close to the "downtown" area. After settling in and taking nice cold showers (it is extraordinarily hot here. It must have been 75 degrees at sunrise, and it's only gone up since), we set out for adventure. Our first stop was the tallest tower in the city (15 stories) - 2 blocks from our door. We took the stairs (I don't trust elevators, especially in East Africa) to the top, and looked out the windows. It offered very nice views of the city, which is the second largest in Kenya. Especially noteworthy were all of the mosques scattered around town. The swahili coast is very heavily influenced by the middle east and has a large number of Muslims and Arabs, and that is clear in almost all aspects of the culture - the food, music, architecture, clothing, and language. It's a very interesting place.

We also stumbled into the Tanzanian consulate at the top of this building, and the "Trade Attache" (some guy in the office) spent more than an hour helping us plan the rest of our trip, free of charge. It was pretty unexpected, and very helpful. We also picked up our travel visas there for when we cross into Tz in a few days.

Afterwards we went to Old Town and Ft. Jesus, both of which were remarkably interesting. I'm out of time now, but hopefully I'll find a cheaper cafe soon and tell you more. Things are good, although very different than before. Mombasa almost feels like an entirely separate country with all of the cultural (and climatological) differencs. That's all for now.

Thanks for reading,
Chris