If you’re going to travel from Alexandria to Cape Town overland, you’ll of course want to get wet in the Mediterranean, Indian and Atlantic (not to mention the Nile). So when you get to a beach town in Kenya, it’s time to check off the Indian Ocean!
In a charming little bay here, there were kids climbing on a neat little rock island out in the water. But… the swim was way too far. Something didn’t add up.
Seems pretty straightforward, right? Sure, the tide is low, but boats are lined up and ready to float off. However, they aren’t floating now, and without the boats, how do you get to the island?
Yeah, the bay is that shallow. At low tide it’s basically ankle-deep. Boys, take a walk! And do it quickly, before the tide comes back in too far.
We made it to the rocky island, so there was nothing for it but to start climbing.
We did get on top of it, despite our poor choice of footwear. We didn’t linger very long, though, and once I got back down I hid in a cave until the schoolchildren disappeared.
Spoilers: I survived.
Our time in Watamu (and Kenya) was up, and we wanted to get into Tanzania in one day. We came up with a very straightforward and reasonable plan:
- Alarms at 0230
- Meet taxi at 0330
- Argue with the guard and receptionist who think we’re running out on a check, which finally gets resolved in our favor with a phone call
- 3 hour taxi ride to Mombasa train station
- Meet this guy
- Buy tickets to Voi
- Catch train to Voi
- Get off the train at Voi Station
- Find a minibus stand
- Get seats in the front of the minibus for the long ride to the border at Taveta
- Ride through tons of wildlife
Yeah, we saw some wildlife, on literally the cheapest safari in Africa.
When we got to Taveta, we were still miles from the border crossing. You know what would be a thrilling and rather dangerous way to get there?
The crossing into Tanzania itself was very quick. The Kenyan and Tanzanian immigration windows were in the same room, right next to each other. My visa was once again way more expensive than Dave’s, but mine entitles me to a year of multiple entries (heh).
Walking outside we located and boarded a minibus to Moshi, at the foot of Mt. Kilimanjaro. It was very foggy, so we couldn’t actually see Kili… Oh, well, surely sometime in the next two days we would definitely get to see the tallest mountain in Africa! … right?