On her way back...

My mom has left the country! She's home safely now, and telling me that she's going to rent the Lion King, probably to reminisce about our fun trip. It really was fun. After the Maasai Mara, we came back to Nairobi for just one night before taking the long bumpy bus ride to Kisumu. Once in Kisumu we stayed with my host family there for four nights. It was good for mom to see the other family that I live with, and now the family that I spend most of my time with. Our time in Kisumu was fairly relaxed, we had quiet mornings and early bed times.

One day however, we decided to take a day trip out to Kakamega Forest, the last chunk of an old tropical rainforest in Kenya. It's less than two hours away, you just have to get to Kisumu town to catch a matatu. Mom and I got out of the house and were on our way to the matatu stage, then we met up with David to come with us. We looked around for a matatu or a bus, but there weren't any. We were told to just sit and wait and that "soon" another would come to take us. An hour later, none were there. Turns out that in Kenya there is a fairly severe fuel shortage and that was holding up a number of vehicles. Lines were even stretching out of parking lots. (There was a government probe into this problem, but there were no good answers at the end of it. Not surprising.) Also, there was a police line somewhere in between Kisumu and Kakamega so no cars were willing to go near the police, preventing vehicles from traveling. So we asked around a bit more and finally we found a random guy who said that for 200Ksh each (<$3) he would just drive us there in a private vehicle. We excitedly accepted his offer, and hopped in the car. Then waited for fuel for about an hour.

Twenty minutes out of town and we're on a road that's falling apart, but it's quite beautiful. All of a sudden, smoke starts pouring out of the hood of the car, and we pull over. Something has sprung a leak, or broken, and we're not even halfway there. We all get out of the car (it's almost noon by now I think) and sit under some shade to see if there's any chance of it getting fixed. Eventuallly our driver tells us someone is coming to fix it... Half an hour later, no fixing, so we decide to just go to the lake and have a nice boat ride. Plan totally foiled in a typically Kenyan fashion. Even if we had gotten to Kakamega, we figured, with a police block and little fuel, we'd probably be stranded. Again, unsurprising.

From Kisumu we flew to Lamu, which was heavenly. I'm used to 6-18 hour bus rides on some of the worst roads imaginable. I'm used to the dust that gets all over you, and how hot it is in those buses in this tropical climate. But flying? About 2-3 hours to Lamu, barely any lines or waiting, and even little treats on the plane! I was so spoiled. Seeing the land that I've traveled on from a birds eye view was beautiful and quite moving, seeing all the little huts and herds of cattle.

Lamu was, of course, beautiful. We ate good food (okay mostly me, Mom had caught a stomach bug), drank some Tuskers, and got ridiculously tan on the beach. We went on two dhow rides (sailboat), one to a beach and another time to some ancient ruins. On our dhow ride picnic we had a huge slab of red snapper fish, mangoes, oranges, toast, and fresh chopped veggies. It was delicious. Our Christmas was lowkey, we just had a nice meal with dessert and lounged around our beautiful hotel. I couldn't have asked for more!

We came back to Nairobi a day before her flight to do some errands; she got some gifts and some things for the house. Now she's home, and I have a special treat! She will write a guest blog about her trip and her impressions of Kenya for me (haha Mom, now you're locked into it), and I'll post it here.

In the meantime, enjoy the new pictures on Flickr.