Nyali, Kenya

Our hotel in Dar was sort of down a sketch alley so luckily there was a taxi outside when we went out to catch a ride to the airport. We ended up being extremely early to the airport. You always have to be careful when traveling around Dar because if you leave during traffic time, it could take hours to get somewhere. So we left early just in case. We sat outside for a while before proceeding to go inside and check-in. Once we did that, we got some breakfast. I still wasn't feeling that well so I only got a muffin and struggled to eat it. The sun was just beginning to rise when we got on our plane. Our first flight was from Dar to Nairobi. It was a pretty quick flight and we got fed a breakfast of fruit, a croissant, a roll, and tea. It was pretty good for airplane food. When we arrived in Nairobi, we first had to purchase our Visa's. After that, we had to walk over to the domestic flights terminal which was a lot more complicated than it should have been. Luckily, our layover wasn't too long and we were soon on our next flight from Nairobi to Mombasa. Even though this was only a 45 minute flight, we were again fed a croissant and tea. When we arrived in Mombasa, we first had to get some money out of the ATM, which also turned out being more complicated than it should have been because the first one didn't work. It was exciting though to be in Kenya! The 4th country that I have ever been to. As I get older, I'm hoping that maybe every year that number will increase by at least 1. We found our taxi driver after getting money out. It was sprinkling outside so we asked the driver where the sun was. He said he had the sun's phone number and would call it for us and tell it to come out. Sure enough, when we arrived at our hostel the sun was coming out and he said it was because he called it. He was very funny. We spent the next 5 nights (May 21st, 22nd, 23rd, 24th, and 25th) at Mombasa Backpackers in Nyali. The place was pretty nice, but also pretty empty. With all the recent bombings in Kenya and the travel warnings not to go there, it seemed like we were some of the only tourists there. For the most part while we were there, we were just hanging out and relaxing. I think Sarah was still getting over her jet-lag and I was getting over being sick. Aside from going to the beach and swimming in the pool, we did do some pretty fun things.

One thing we did was go to Haller Park. It was pretty much just like a zoo. We got to feed giraffes though which was quite an experience! We also saw a ginormous tortoise that was over 100 years old and native to Seychelles. Some other animals we saw there were zebras, antelope, hippos, snakes, and crocodiles.

We were also lucky enough to have the chance to explore Old Town Mombasa. We got to see Fort Jesus along with a lot of other old mosques and buildings. I actually really loved Old Town. It was absolutely beautiful. It reminded me a lot of what some old European towns might look like. The streets were really narrow with brick-like streets. It was really cool to see and I'm glad we did.