Mr. & Mrs. Vandebilt + kids

After leaving Nairobi we headed to the coast for some much anticipated time on the beach. We boarded a night bus, again, and headed west to the Indian Ocean. We had heard great things about Kenya’s coast and it lived up to all it’s hype. Our original plan was to spend five or six days lazing about on the beach with a day spent exploring Mombasa city. It was so enjoyable that we stayed for two weeks.

We’ve been to our fair number of beaches around the world. I’m such a beach fanatic that whenever we are anywhere close to one we make sure to stop in. I can honestly say that this ranks on the top of my list for beaches on this trip – PEI and Cuba round out my top three.

The whole place is incredible. The sand is so white it almost hurts to look at, but is soft to the touch. I’m guessing that it contains some limestone which makes it closer to the consistency of sugar than sand. The Indian Ocean is an amazing blue colour, not to mention warmer than bath water. My only complaint on the beach was it was SO hot. We spent the majority of our day chasing the shade around underneath the coconut trees.

There was always lots going on to watch on the beach too. The majority of the other tourists were European, primarily British. The British are especially funny to watch on the beach as they go to play in “the sea” and insist on being buried. Perhaps the funniest part was that on day one they would be blazingly white and inevitably on day two they would be, as one local put it, like tomatoes walking around.

We made some friends while we were on the beach. We would walk about 45 minutes each day down the beach to catch our matatu home. There are many people selling souvenirs along the beach (including Maasai warriors!). We weren’t doing much shopping, but two of the sellers were particularly friendly with us, Nancy and Momoa.

Momoa helped us our first day we decided to walk back. We couldn’t find the access to the main road and chatted with us as he walked us to our path. It turns out he’s from the interior of Kenya and has moved to the coast as an adult. He told us about his village, having no power and having to stand guard over the crops at night to protect them from animals. When we asked if he had seen a lion he laughed at us and said of course, I’m Kenyan.

Nancy owned a shop selling kangas (printed material). We spent about ten or fifteen minutes with her each day and we ended up learning quite a bit about her. Turns out she went to university in Denmark and studied Social Sciences. After graduating she returned to Kenya to work for an NGO. She talks very excitedly about how rewarding it was to work with the street kids in Nairobi. She left the NGO to set up a shop in South Africa to prepare for the World Cup, but was later run out of the country after having her store destroyed during the xenophobic attacks. She now runs her shop on the beach to support her twelve year old son until she can return to working for an NGO.

I was quite sad to leave the beach after our two weeks. Not just because it meant I had to leave such a beautiful place but because it meant saying goodbye to people like Momoa and Nancy. It’s not often that we get to make friends with locals when you are traveling around, but when we do, it’s my favourite part. It’s the best way to learn about the culture, the people and the place you are staying. It is always so fascinating to me to hear their stories and almost always the most memorable part of the stay.