watamu and kakamega rainforest
Watamu was another paradies, but a bit less beautiful than Lamu. well the sea was more clear so we could do a nice one hour touristic snorkeling in an aquarium-like coral riff close to the beach, well at 8 in the morning because of low tide...but it was not too hard to get up because unbelievable or not it is usual for us to wake up in the mornig around 7!!! and because of the sunset at 6:30pm and the daily activities we mostly fall asleep around 10!!!
unsurprisingliy (because most travellers are doing the same coast-tour) we met again fred and jo, two french guys(there are so many french people in kenia!) who stayed in the same hotel in lamu, and spent the 3 days together in watamu. next day we made a guided tour through the gede-ruins another old arabic settlement from the 13th century in the forest. old trees together with rests of mosques and palaces...indiana jones was greeting...
after 3 days relaxing, we went back to mombasa to get the famous night train to nairobi. the route was built in the 19th century through the tsavo national park and during the construction 140 indian workers were eaten by two lions!! (they made a movie about it...) well sadly we saw no lion there, in fact it was night and the slooow train made so much noise that every animal must have been outside the park...
badly informed we booked the expensive all inclusive programm, but then we could enjoy dinner and breakfast served by waiters in white...
after one night in nairobi we went on a loong shaky bus travel to kakamega forest, crossing beautiful rift valley landscapes and kericho the african headquarter of tea-planting, beautiful green tea-fields as far as we could see...
inside the forest we could rest one day in original bandas(made of earth and palm-tree-leafs) and joined two guided tours trough the forest, were we could see happy-in-the-tree-crown-around-jumping-monkeys (my english is so bad..) , birds and butterflies that until now we had only seen in books or in the zoo ...
the next day we spent in kisumu at kenian side of lake victoria (they say the uganda side is more beautiful...) the third largest city in kenia, half of the city could be a street market...close to the lake in one of the hundred improvised looking restaurants we enjoyed a authentic lake-victoria-nile-perch with original kenian ugali (a mais-paste) and it was really tasty...
now we are back in nairobi and tomorrow starting the 3 day safari to masai mara, then 5 days mt. kenia and then by plane to addis abeba in ethiopia...
i will write again when we are in addis...
tutaonana, marguerite and anja.
(pictures are in the kenia-flag on the left side)