Mida Creek

Heading north up the coast to Mida Creek. To get there, we get a matatu from Mombasa, in which a woman places her baby into Chris' arms, and tells him that the father is dead. There's always something interesting happening in a matatu.

Mida Creek is deserted- we are the only ones staying there until a South African girl shows up. It's very much off-grid- there are very few lights and Chris is forced to eat some chapattis under phone-light as no-one is around to cook anything.

The creek is nice, though- an expansive, mangrove-fringed body of water, cut into the coastline. We hire a guide to take us out on his canoe, and he paddles around, showing us all the weird and wonderful creatures. He points out mudskippers- fish with legs which is almost like evolution in the making. He tells us all about the many birds that inhabit the creek. He also paddles the canoe directly below the giant web of a golden orb spider, a huge yellow monstrosity that is uncomfortably close to our faces. We also watch the private boat belonging to the nearby luxury hotel- Hemingways. This boat is too big to do anything else but sit in the middle of the creek, and it can't navigate the mangrove channels and peer at their curious residents. Our guide tells us he'd much rather be in a small canoe with the mudskippers than on that big boat with their sundowners, and we can't help but agree.

The next day, we head to the Crab Shack, a small seafood restaurant located in one of the mangrove forests. We've avoided motorbike taxis (boda-boda as they are called in Kenya) so far, just because KT is a bit scared of them, but now we have no choice but to hire the services of one. The guy who offers to take us to the Crab Shack from town walks us to a motorbike, which we soon suspect may not be his. As we're heading down a sandy side-street, he skids violently, veers off the road and we almost crash into a tree. A nearby group of children yell "Pole-Pole!" (Slowly-slowly!) at our embarrassed driver. As we arrive into the crab shack car-park, a stretch of deep sand, he engages the rear brake rather than the front one, sending us skidding again, almost into a group of revellers heading into the restaurant. We hurriedly get off the bike and push the fare into his hands and bid him (sincerely) safe travels.

The Crab Shack is nice enough, with the sun setting over the mangrove forests, but it's nothing special. It's also slightly ruined by a raucous Italian family next to us who seem to be constantly yelling at each other. We try some palm-wine. It's made from the palm trees, and it must be an acquired taste- to us it tastes unfortunately like vomit.

On the way back, we hire the services of a different boda-boda driver, who, en-route, introduces himself as "CRAZY JACKSON". And he is crazy. He frequently takes his hands off the handlebars, turns around to us and insists on talking about Liverpool. The motorbike would drift across the road until we're almost in a ditch, before he snatches at the handlebars and steers back into the road. We arrive at the guesthouse safely and watch Crazy Jackson ride off into the night with the sky illuminated by millions of stars.Read more