The Ocean!

We made it! I've been excited for the ocean for quite some time now, and we're here! And holy crap it's hot! We got here around 745am after our VIP night bus, and we already feel the heat! Usually we can start feeling warm around 11 ish, but this town didn't give us a break. We first thought we could explore the town with our backpacks and eventually stumble upon a guest house we like. That plan went out the window when we were drenched within 20 minutes of walking, just trying to make our way to the ocean front. We saw the ocean, we walked in the sand, and we went straight to a hotel the lovely fisherman said was the cheapest on the water front. Done! It's probably the worst deal we've had yet, but we were sweaty and tired of carrying our backpacks. So we got an OK price for a pretty crappy room. Meh, there's a bed and a toilet. All I need.

Once showered, laundry done (remember, I only have 2 T-shirts, so considering the heat, I wanted to have one clean for diner time while I knew I'd be sweating through the day one), we set out to explore the town. Again, we were too ambitious with our plans, considering how hot it is. We made it to "downtown", walked around a bit. I needed to be fed, getting a little grumpy, so we found this selfserve local place and it actually had things we haven't seen yet!

Insert - The coast is said to be a different culture, Swahili, with a higher Muslim population then inland and since its the oldest port, the population of Indian people is large due to it's trade history. Inland Kenya, much like the rest of what we've seen in East Africa, isn't very diverse. Kenya has Kenyans, and a tiny bit of Indians are visible. The coast actually has some diversity and it's refreshing. End insert.

So the food was different! Still managed to find my chapatis though. Everything still fried, I feel right at home. Well fed, coke to cool me down, and back out we go. I blame Jack for having lost our sunscreen when she went biking without me at Naivasha Lake. Blaming aside, we had to buy more considering my glowingly white skin that's hiding under my farmers tan, is about to be exposed on the beach. 13$US that little sucker. And it's 200ml, I can't fly home with it. How insulting.

The Malindi museum was... Well it was worth the dollar I paid to get in. Lol. Basically Jack was interested, so we got her the student price (yay for student cards!), and when he saw I wasn't joining, he assumed it was the price and said I could join for 100KSh (1$). I guess I can't really say no at that price. It consistent of exactly what I don't like about museums, pottery. Lol. Old big pots found somewhere that mean something. Sorry, I'm just really not that interested. The rest was just photos with information plaques next to them. Old Malindi photos were nice. Old traditional tribal wear was interesting... Lol.

Now the goal, which was over estimating our energy in this heat, was to walk through the Old Town to eventually make our way to the beach. We managed to do a couple blocks, a couple market streets, constantly looking for the side of the road with shade, to then have a seat in shade and have Jack drink tons of water as she felt faint. The women likes to push herself and ignore her body until it wants to give out on her. Once her energy level was barely enough to get her up, I managed to convince her that a mototaxi to take us to the beach is an OK thing to do. Turns out, the beach was still pretty far, neither one of us would have made it!

We're excited! We want to refresh in the water, cool down. Swim around like we're kids again. And then we feel the water. It's hotter then most showers we've had here. Not the most refreshing, but it did the trick! Jack got some energy back, I got to have my second coke of the day at this nice beach club... It was a beautiful afternoon. You can't go wrong with the ocean! My usual fear for jelly fish was yelling at me to get out, but I managed to ignore it. That is until we started making our way in to apply some fancy expensive sunscreen, and I had to get by a damn jelly fish! I saw it! I saw the whole thing, with tentacles and everything! I ran out, leaving Jack to fend for herself, and refused to get back in. Ew, jelly fish.

Stopped by a cute little peninsula called Vasco de Gana point, and the oldest church in East Africa apparently, built in the 1490s, Portuguese. Relaxing, beautiful and sunny afternoon. After our second shower of the day, I put on my now clean and dry shirt, wash the other, and off we go to diner! This town has a large Italian influence, so the pizza restaurants are of plenty!

We checked out 4 menus, picked a pricey but fancy one. Sharing pizza and a Rocket pesto, tomato and mozzarella something... It was delicious. Worth every penny, accompanied with some house red wine. Finally, some chocolate gilato. Omg it was good. Treating yourself every once in a while is important. Refreshes the batteries.Read more