Kenya: Part X (Mombasa)
On the first day, while we were checking in at the Leopard Beach Hotel, a girl came up to the front desk and caught our eye. She was as red as a freshly boiled lobster and looked distressed. We overheard her complaining that during the low tide she walked to the reef in the company of one of the locals. Once she was done with the nature walk, he refused to bring her back, claiming that the "highway" out was not available and if she started walking by herself she would surely die. So she ended up stranded for a couple of hours in the middle of the ocean with no sunblock and burnt to a crisp.
We took her story to heart. When we decided to check out the ocean floor at low tide we slathered ourselves in sunblock, making sure no stray UV ray was getting through. We also planned to ignore the helpful locals but that proved quite impossible, they latch onto you like lampreys the moment you step up to the water. Unfortunately we left our camera behind so you won't get to see all the sea urchins, snakes, stone fish and other poisonous critters that crawl all over the bottom and whose nasty properties were described to us in great detail. After a long, hot and educational walk through ocean hazards we got to a sand bar where I finally expressed readiness to head back. That's where you get the talk about how difficult life is for the local population and, mixed in, reminders of how dangerous the walk back is for one who doesn't know the way. After some haggling over the price they took us back to the shore via a winding sandy mostly sea-urchin-free "highway". BTW, we were wearing water shoes but one of the local guys went barefoot. He claimed his grandfather was a medicine man and taught him how to protect himself. I suspect the skin on his feet was thicker than the soles of our shoes.
( Mombasa City )
On the way back we again got to see the peak of Mt. Kilimanjaro just barely sticking out of the clouds.
We took her story to heart. When we decided to check out the ocean floor at low tide we slathered ourselves in sunblock, making sure no stray UV ray was getting through. We also planned to ignore the helpful locals but that proved quite impossible, they latch onto you like lampreys the moment you step up to the water. Unfortunately we left our camera behind so you won't get to see all the sea urchins, snakes, stone fish and other poisonous critters that crawl all over the bottom and whose nasty properties were described to us in great detail. After a long, hot and educational walk through ocean hazards we got to a sand bar where I finally expressed readiness to head back. That's where you get the talk about how difficult life is for the local population and, mixed in, reminders of how dangerous the walk back is for one who doesn't know the way. After some haggling over the price they took us back to the shore via a winding sandy mostly sea-urchin-free "highway". BTW, we were wearing water shoes but one of the local guys went barefoot. He claimed his grandfather was a medicine man and taught him how to protect himself. I suspect the skin on his feet was thicker than the soles of our shoes.
( Mombasa City )
On the way back we again got to see the peak of Mt. Kilimanjaro just barely sticking out of the clouds.