On the road back to Nairobi from Narok
Long Train (not) Runnin': Tiwi Beach, Mombasa, Kenya - 7th November 2010
It's the final leg of the honeymoon and we're taking the overnight sleeper train from Nairobi to Mombasa. The journey is interesting in itself as the train, which last saw its glory days in the 60s or 70s, is fairly lively and busy. Dinner is served by the bell shortly after we depart and is itself a fairly crazy event. After that, people retire to their cabins (two bunk beds per room) and try to get some sleep as the train slowly rumbles through the dark African countryside. The next day after dawn, we see some of the scenery and watch the small children from every tiny village run up to the train to see what's going on or to try and score some sweets or pencils or whatever the passengers are handing out. The train is on time (according to the +/- 1 hour definition of such things) and rocks up in Mombasa 16 hours after it left Nairobi. We then get a lift from one of Will's chums over to Tiwi beach and spend three lovely days doing pretty-much nothing whatsoever, apart from defending our fruit stash from marauding monkeys - unsuccessfully on two occasions. At the beach, fishermen and the Mango Man come up to the cottage to sell fresh produce, and the dudes on the beach are selling souvenirs and providing snorkelling trips, which we do too. Hakuna Matata, indeed. On the way back to Nairobi the train stops at Mazeras, 15 kilometers and barely one hour outside Mombasa, and we're informed of a "derailment up ahead". 15 hours later, the train has not moved, and so an American dude leads us in a splinter group through a nearby village - an experience in itself - down to a random bus driven by some Somali dudes which is heading to Nairobi. Half way, at the town of Voi, there's a five-mile stationary tailback of HGVs, which bothers the driver not one bit. If, whilst overtaking stationary traffic, something comes the other way, this dude simply piles his bus with 25 people on board completely off the wrong side of the road and carries on driving along the dirt until the oncoming traffic has passed. In Voi, we see the remains of burning tyres and the Kenyan police helicopter, and it turns out that the demonstration had included ripping up the railway lines, so our train was probably still where we left it. Even so, total journey time from the beach to the hotel in Nairobi ends up being around 30 hours. When we're finally dropped off the bus, it's in the dodgiest part of Nairobi - River Road - and the place is heaving and crazy. William eventually rescues us, and takes us to the hotel for our final night in Kenya.
next album: Apple Pressing and Amandine's Jazz, Diss, Norfolk - 21st November 2010
previous album: Narok to Naivasha and Hell's Gate National Park, Kenya, Africa - 5th November 2010
The Cool Base Selections Store, Narok
The platform at Nairobi Railway Station
Isobel talks to a Belgian girl
Tusker beer is duly consumed
Dinner time on the sleeper train
Nosher and Isobel in the crazy restaurant car
Kids run alongside the train
Isobel surveys the scenery
Breakfast on a train: it looks like we haven't moved
Isobel in our sleeper cabin
A view of our little train room
The ramshackle train rumbles through the countryside
The Kenya Railway is using semaphore signals
A girl runs alongside the train
A small boy desperately runs after the train
Maji Ya Chumvi halt/station
Another small boy chases the train
The train corridor
Rumbling through the Kenyan countryside
Children wave at the train
People wait at Mariakani halt
A woman with a bundle on her head
Rail-side kiosk
Some dude walks along the tracks
A signal box at Changamwe
A shanty-town just outside Mombasa
People are living on landfill outside Mombasa
Old railway building in Mombasa
The lump of iron that hauled our train
Portable ghetto-blasters haven't reached Mombasa
A giant Coca-Cola bottle in the street
A shop in Likoni sells metal pots
Our stunning private beach
Resident cat Patchy looks out
Patchy Cat peers through a hole in the wall
A small boat on the Indian Ocean
Breakfast fruit and juice
Patchy Cat sprawls out on our bed
Prickly Pear cacti
Our Tiwi Beach cottage
Palm trees on the beach
Women pick small shells to make necklaces
Bright cloths wave in the sun
A thatched beach hut
Isobel and a beer at the nearby Twiga resort bar
An anti-mosquito coil has left a nice pattern
Another breakfast on the verandah
Our cottage's lounge
The bedroom
Isobel gets a pedicure
Life on the beach
A fresh coconut, straight from the tree
Two monkeys have a scrap
A monkey perches on a pole
One of the resident baby monkeys
Another baby monkey plots how to steal our food
A monkey flakes out
Another view of the beach
Nice purple flowers on the beach
A final look at the beach
Detritus on the beach
Our little garden area
A wooden construction in Likoni
Random shops and shacks, Likoni
The Municipal Council of Mombasa Revenue Office
A dude with a large stack of eggs on his bike
Interesting street life
Down by the docks in Mombasa
Chicken heads poke up from the back of a van
The train awaits for our return trip to Nairobi
Isobel heads off to the shop
The almost-empty platform
Derelict railway tracks
Mombasa: altitude 18 metres.
Mombasa station
Nosher peers out of the train
Isobel looks up from the platform
Some old rolling stock
Adverts on corrugated iron
Mazeras, where the train stops
The train sits around doing nothing much
There's quite a crowd of people milling around
We escape through Mazeras village
Isobel in the middle of our 'splinter group'
The view from Nosher's bus seat
On the coach
Trolleys by the Baghdad Guest House
A mosque
The Café Ruzanna
The 'Oasis Hotel'
The countryside looks like the Australian outback
The queue of traffic outside Voi
The crazy bus
The bustling town of Voi
Another scene from Voi
Part of the queue of HGVs
Outside Voi, the Kenyan Police helicopter lurks
Baobob trees
There are one or two signs around
A massive tree
Crowds somewhere
Back on the plane to the UK
Sand dunes in the Sudanese desert
In Libya, central-pivot irrigation has left its mark
Elvis pops up from time-to-time on the SkyTrack system
More desert formations
A Libyan oilfield.
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On the road back to Nairobi from Narok
On the road back to Nairobi from Narok
The Cool Base Selections Store, Narok
The platform at Nairobi Railway Station
Isobel talks to a Belgian girl
Tusker beer is duly consumed
Dinner time on the sleeper train
Nosher and Isobel in the crazy restaurant car
Kids run alongside the train
Isobel surveys the scenery
Breakfast on a train: it looks like we haven't moved
Isobel in our sleeper cabin
A view of our little train room
The ramshackle train rumbles through the countryside
The Kenya Railway is using semaphore signals
A girl runs alongside the train
A small boy desperately runs after the train
Maji Ya Chumvi halt/station
Another small boy chases the train
The train corridor
Rumbling through the Kenyan countryside
Children wave at the train
People wait at Mariakani halt
A woman with a bundle on her head
Rail-side kiosk
Some dude walks along the tracks
A signal box at Changamwe
A shanty-town just outside Mombasa
People are living on landfill outside Mombasa
Old railway building in Mombasa
The lump of iron that hauled our train
Portable ghetto-blasters haven't reached Mombasa
A giant Coca-Cola bottle in the street
A shop in Likoni sells metal pots
Our stunning private beach
Resident cat Patchy looks out
Patchy Cat peers through a hole in the wall
A small boat on the Indian Ocean
Breakfast fruit and juice
Patchy Cat sprawls out on our bed
Prickly Pear cacti
Our Tiwi Beach cottage
Palm trees on the beach
Women pick small shells to make necklaces
Bright cloths wave in the sun
A thatched beach hut
Isobel and a beer at the nearby Twiga resort bar
An anti-mosquito coil has left a nice pattern
Another breakfast on the verandah
Our cottage's lounge
The bedroom
Isobel gets a pedicure
Life on the beach
A fresh coconut, straight from the tree
Two monkeys have a scrap
A monkey perches on a pole
One of the resident baby monkeys
Another baby monkey plots how to steal our food
A monkey flakes out
Another view of the beach
Nice purple flowers on the beach
A final look at the beach
Detritus on the beach
Our little garden area
A wooden construction in Likoni
Random shops and shacks, Likoni
The Municipal Council of Mombasa Revenue Office
A dude with a large stack of eggs on his bike
Interesting street life
Down by the docks in Mombasa
Chicken heads poke up from the back of a van
The train awaits for our return trip to Nairobi
Isobel heads off to the shop
The almost-empty platform
Derelict railway tracks
Mombasa: altitude 18 metres.
Mombasa station
Nosher peers out of the train
Isobel looks up from the platform
Some old rolling stock
Adverts on corrugated iron
Mazeras, where the train stops
The train sits around doing nothing much
There's quite a crowd of people milling around
We escape through Mazeras village
Isobel in the middle of our 'splinter group'
The view from Nosher's bus seat
On the coach
Trolleys by the Baghdad Guest House
A mosque
The Café Ruzanna
The 'Oasis Hotel'
The countryside looks like the Australian outback
The queue of traffic outside Voi
The crazy bus
The bustling town of Voi
Another scene from Voi
Part of the queue of HGVs
Outside Voi, the Kenyan Police helicopter lurks
Baobob trees
There are one or two signs around
A massive tree
Crowds somewhere
Back on the plane to the UK
Sand dunes in the Sudanese desert
In Libya, central-pivot irrigation has left its mark
Elvis pops up from time-to-time on the SkyTrack system
More desert formations
A Libyan oilfield.