A Wet and Windy Mombasa

Here I am on the road again after a good but busy week at home. My flights to Mombasa were pretty good but just really long. A direct flight from Durban to Mombasa (if there was such a thing) would be in the region of about four and a half hours but with the routing through Johannesburg and then Nairobi, I spent about 10 hours getting there. I was so disappointed because I didn't get to see Kilimanjaro en route. There was just too much cloud cover that was high enough to blanket Africa's highest mountain. I have a few more opportunities on this trip to see it in flyby so hopefully the weather will be in my favour on at least one of the flights.

The final flight of the day landed in Mombasa at around six thirty in the evening, just in time to catch the "rush hour" traffic. There was nothing rushing about it but I shouldn't complain because traffic going in the opposite direction was at a complete standstill for kilometres and kilometres! It took over an hour to get to my hotel. At the airport I had tried to withdraw funds from the ATM but for some reason my transaction just got cancelled. So I had to ask the taxi driver if he would stop along the way at an ATM. I had no luck at the next two ATMs either. In the end I had to change some dollars at the hotel at their shockingly bad rate so that I would have money to pay for the taxi from the airport and to go to work in the morning.

This time in Mombasa I am staying in a bit of luxury  I used my favourite accommodation website www.booking.com to get a really good deal at the Voyager Hotel. I have stayed here previously but it was a while ago. To my surprise I was greeted at reception with "Welcome back"! It was really nice not having to fill in my entire pedigree again since they already had it. Check in was so quick and soon I was following the porter to my room.

My bed complete with towel elephant and yellow flowers

I dumped my things and headed off to a scrumptious buffet dinner. I started off with a cream of vegetable soup with yummy croutons. I followed this up by skipping the salad and going straight for mains, a bit of a mishmash of lamb skewer, grilled chicken, fried fresh vegetables and a pasta and vegetable dish that was cooked in front of me. The staff were all so pleasant and they made a real fuss over me when they found out I was from South Africa. I finished off my meal with a dessert of mango slices and a piece of coconut cheesecake. It isn't all that much fun having dinner in a tourist hotel, sitting on my own while all around are either couples having romantic evenings or families having a whole lot of fun. Anyway I just ate and ducked back to my room.

While I was out at dinner the housekeeping staff visited my room to turn down my bed and pull the mosquito nets around my bed. Oh yes and to leave me some biscuits! I am really hoping those biscuits arrive every evening. With my belly full, I unpacked my clothes and settled down for the evening.

I woke up at some point in the night to the sound of the wind howling through the palm trees in front of my room and the rain lashing against my balcony door. It had been raining when I arrived but nothing like that. It was good to listen to it and it didn't stop me from falling back to sleep. When I woke up in time to get up for work the wind had stopped but it was still drizzling.

A wet and grey morning

As I opened the curtains this morning to admire the view, the entire curtain rail and attached curtain came down on top of me. The rail really is a flimsy thing, a small plastic rail holding a very heavy lined curtain. I had a look at whether I could get the whole contraption back up but it was a bit beyond me and I had to go and sheepishly explain to the receptionist what had happened. He was most apologetic and said it would be fixed. Now I am hoping it doesn't come off again tomorrow morning. I will definitely be more gentle even though I wasn't exactly hanging on it this morning.

The rain and wind held off long enough for me to get to work before starting up again with a vengeance. I don't think I have ever experienced weather like this here and I really feel for the tourists who are here to soak up some sun. I am told that the weather has been like this since Saturday.  The taxi driver who drove me to work took some serious detours on muddy back roads to avoid the traffic and we did a quick stop at the ATMs which now were not functioning at all never mind just not accepting MasterCard. At this point I was starting to get a tiny bit concerned but decided to wait for the afternoon to try again before resorting to going into a bank to withdraw the cash.

Work started off slowly as always. The guys took forever to arrive (blaming the rain) but eventually we all settled down and got going. By the afternoon they were starting to get the hang of it. It will be interesting to see how the days go as we will have a new group of people tomorrow. Hopefully they will catch on a little quicker.

I was excused from work just before five pm while the others had to finish off the fisheries they were working on. There was some difficulty in organising me a taxi so in the end one of the KMFRI drivers took me home. We first went to the ATMs and this time I got some money - what a relief! I then went to the Safaricom store to organise a local sim card and an internet connection. It is the one downfall of the Voyager Hotel - Internet is only available in the lobby area and it is at an additional fee. Now that I am organised all round , I can relax and enjoy the week.