In November, I was out of Nairobi and on the coast when we had a holiday fall in the middle of the week. I decided to take advantage of the day off and explore my surroundings. I hired a local guide and got a day tour of Mombasa. We started with Fort Jesus, an old fort in the city centre. Apparently the Portuguese originally controlled Mombasa and they built this fort. Then the Omanis came in from the PErsian Gulf and took over and as a result, there is a lot of Mulsim influence down here. You can really see it on the doors. We had a fantastic tour of the fort and then took a walking tour of downtown Mombasa. It blew my mind since it was just so different than anything I'd ever experienced before--dirty, dusty, but yet still colorful and loud and chaotic. Very interesting.

After the walking tour, we drove to the Akamba handicraft workshops. There is a tribe in Kenya, the Akamba, that are very well known for their woodworking abilities. You can go to their workshops and walk through the stands where they sit all day working on making these amazing wood carvings out of nothing more than a tree stump. Then you go to the shop and can buy all the different items they work on. I really enjoyed it.

After Akamba, I went to the Tamarind restaurant for lunch. The Tamarind is a fancy high-end restaurant and they have a "dhow," a big wooden boat with beautiful carvings. My tour included a lunch cruise on the dhow where I feasted on steak and listened to the local band play. We cruised around Mombasa harbor for a little bit. While on this cruise, I met a Belgian couple who were so incredibly sweet. We talked and they told me how happy they were to speak French with someone. We exchanged emails and I hope to keep in touch with them.

The last stop of the day was Haller Park, a wildlife park in downtown Mombasa. We happened to get there right at feeding time for the animals and it was really neat to see all the animals--HUGE turtles, hippos, crocodiles, water buffalo, and tons of monkeys running around. One of my friends told me that when the terrible tidal wave struck the Indian Ocean in 2004, a baby hippo appeared on the beach in Mombasa--he'd been separated from his mother. Well Haller Park took him in and he bonded with a turtle--they were inseparable for a long time--the turtle was named Mzee and the hippo was named Owen. Recently the staff got nervous and moved Owen away from Mzee since Owen had gotten so very big and they were worried about him hurting Mzee.

It was a terrific way to spend the day. Got a great tan too!