Day 29: Today was public holiday in Kenya and also was the beginning of my long week end. The rest of the team returned to Nairobi while a made my way to Tiwi beach just 20 km south of Mombasa. Neil and Rafal will join me tomorrow. I found Tiwi beach on the Lonely Planet. On Tiwi I managed to find a nice cottage in an undeveloped stretch of the coast. Instead of taking a cab from Mombasa I decided to use the local form of transport called matatu. A matatu is basically a mini van that has been modified to take 14 passengers is very economical but you are squeezed like a sardine and the drivers are all lunatics that drive like crazy. The journey was a little sketchy, and I felt very “white”. Especially when the matatu broke down and people where talking “loudly” to the driver and I was just sitting there at the back of the matatu looking totally lost because there were speaking in swahili! I had no clue where I was or what was going on, people started walking away from the vehicle the driver called them back and then all of sudden the van re-started and off we went! God knows what happened … I will never know.
In the evening I met Reham, Irfan’s brother. I met him at the hotel where is working (Pleasure Lodge) a beautiful resort with its own 18 holes golf court. We had a quick beer at the bar and then we headed out to a really nice bar by the beach called 40 Thieves. We had several drinks and talked about Kenya, Canada, football and other various “topics”. Ended up getting drunk but it was a really good night and it was nice to finally meet Irfan’s brother after having heard so many stories about him!