Here we go.. our last destination in Africa.
As we are waiting for our Visa for India in Nairobi we decided to go to the coast ( the one near Tanzania and not Somalia!!) to relax a few days on the beach!
We took the train which takes 14 hours and is a throw back to 1960's british rail (infact this train was built in britain). Its an over night train so we opt for luxury and get a second class cabin. Simple compact but cosy and an almost full sized sleeping bunk with fresh clean linnen. The ticket office again 19th centruy rail are bought at the upper class ticket office and are just over £16 each for 2nd class sleeping cabin. This also includes 3 course meal for dinner and breakfast in the buffet car (drinks not included so Digby buys a £3 bottle of wine at the station)
We spent 1 week in Mombassa with our friend Nicole who we met on our 30 day Safari, in fact coming to Mombassa was her idea! Chilling, diving, snorkeling,tanning this is basically what we did and not much else. A month of camping waking up between 4:30am and 7am building camp each night etc means we really enjoy the time chilling on the beach.
On sunday night we planed to go back to Nairobi with the same train but surprise when we arrived to the train station someone told us " there is train everyday but not today"! THIS IS AFRICA!! Apparently due to heavy rain the train never left Nairobi. Don't worry they tell us the next one is in two days, Tuesday night.
At this point we started to be a little bit stressed as on Monday we needed to collect our visas and passeport and on tuesday morning 7am we have our flight to India.
Luckely we found a bus which departed at 9.30 pm and arrived at 5am in Nairobi. We had heard buses were quite trecherous and were oftern involved in accidents, but with little choise we got on a "Modern" bus tastfully illuminated with neon green fluresent lights it was like a christmas tree on wheels. After a night driving at break neck speeds across the bumpiest road in Africa we arivedback in Nairobi Monday morning at 5am!
So that afternoon of to collect our visa's we arive exactly on time only to be greated by a guard telling us the embacy is closed for a public holiday. Convenietly the embassy forgot to mention this when telling us when to come back and collect the visa. We plead with the guards to go into the office, we call some one from the Visa department and beg him to come in so he can give us back our pasports.... to no avail he says he can give them to us first thing next morning at 9am.
Gutted we return to the internet cafe to try to cancel our plane ticket worried we will not get any refund, but by some stroke of luck the transaction never went through on the bank card and the resevation was already canceled! We do a little dance for joy. Next morning we are at the embasy 30 min before it opens and there is already a massive que. But once we get up stairs the security guard remebers us from the day before and does every thing he can to get us asmuch to the front as possible. After 2 hours we emerge with two shiny new Indian multi entry visa's stuck into our pasports we are so happy to finally have our pasports back.
When you are 10,000km from home that little book is the most important possesion you have and its a horrble feeling to be without it.
Finaly we have our new plane tickets to go to India tomorrow so at last after two weeks of trying... Bye bye Africa after two adventerous months!
So that afternoon of to collect our visa's we arive exactly on time only to be greated by a guard telling us the embacy is closed for a public holiday. Convenietly the embassy forgot to mention this when telling us when to come back and collect the visa. We plead with the guards to go into the office, we call some one from the Visa department and beg him to come in so he can give us back our pasports.... to no avail he says he can give them to us first thing next morning at 9am.
Gutted we return to the internet cafe to try to cancel our plane ticket worried we will not get any refund, but by some stroke of luck the transaction never went through on the bank card and the resevation was already canceled! We do a little dance for joy. Next morning we are at the embasy 30 min before it opens and there is already a massive que. But once we get up stairs the security guard remebers us from the day before and does every thing he can to get us asmuch to the front as possible. After 2 hours we emerge with two shiny new Indian multi entry visa's stuck into our pasports we are so happy to finally have our pasports back.
When you are 10,000km from home that little book is the most important possesion you have and its a horrble feeling to be without it.
Finaly we have our new plane tickets to go to India tomorrow so at last after two weeks of trying... Bye bye Africa after two adventerous months!
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| Bye Bye Africa |
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