que viva espana y jambo kenya

Well – time flies and I somehow never get round to writing up my life as I go along… almost a month ago now the Spanish made it into the final of the euro 08; and I hang out with a load of Spanish people… so just imagine the rest.

The final happened to be the night before we were setting off to mombasa for one week on the white beaches of the Indian ocean. We all pitched up at the Italian restaurant – a group of about 20 people and a Spanish flag. Everyone had Spanish flags painted on their faces or hands and as is the case in big groups there was a lot of excitement. The owner of the restaurant gave us a big drum and throughout the game someone was in charge of banging the drum in intervals. the rest is history; spain won against germany and that was a cause for celebration. The restaurant offered spumante to all of us and so we all toasted to spain’s first victory in a European cup in 44 years. Of course people weren’t going to go home now – bonus for us as we had to kill time until 3am before going to the airport and catching our flight ;-)) so we all went to the kbc where we danced with the Spanish flag and caused a whirl amongst the other guests. Around 2.30 we left – some of the Spanish people were still going despite having to get into work for 7 the next day – to go home, have a quick shower and get our bags to shoot off to the airport. We took the Spanish flag with us with the idea of doing an Amelie-like thing whereby we would take pictures of the flag in front of landmarks; well, we did one in front of the good bye poster at the airport.

We arrived at the airport at around 3.30 – still drunk but sobering up slowly with a tiredness that creeps into your bones from deep down – the come down from weeks of intense socialising and never catching up with proper sleep – the tiredness that comes at the prospect of a week without commitments, time or connection to the rest of the world.

We boarded the tiny plane that was taking us to Nairobi from where we would catch the flight to mombasa. And by the time the plane had taken off I was feeling pretty rough. Luckily the served us breakfast – and it was perfect: some bread, fruit salad and a yoghurt. We devoured it and then leant back to relax and catch a power nap as the flight attendant announces over the loudspeaker to not eat the yoghurt, that it had gone off last year in December. Montse and I looked at each other cracking up – we’d already eaten the yoghurt and it had tasted fine. Oh well – why not arrive with a rotten stomach in Kenya? But usually if yoghurt has gone off you will know anyways so we weren’t too worried. About three minutes later the same attendant announced that it was safe to eat the yoghurt; that she’d misread the best before end date – it read 12 07 – which of course refers to the day and month, rather than month and year… the yoghurt that lasts over a year must first be invented – but neither of us had even realised this either – dooh!

by the time we touched down in kenya we were even more tired but also excited about the prospect of lying on a beach in a few hours time - little did we know!
we made our way to the immigration where we had to fill in the visa application form and the landing card and then we waited in line - and we waited - and waited - and waited... finally it was our turn - we got the visa and went down to the luggage belts. the clock read 8.15 (our flight was supposed to leave nairobi at 8.30) - so montse ran over to the kenya desk whilst I waited (again) for the bags this time - the screen told me that our bags were due to come out on belt 3; nothing. so I started walking around checking out the other belts and the endless piles of luggage - eventually I found them going round in circles on belt 1 ;-)) it is coming - you just don't know where!

of course we had missed our flight but the lady at the ticketing office had told montse that we were booked for the 11 o'clock flight - oh well - that's soon enough and will still get us to the beach for the afternoon. so we went to check in only to be told that we were on stand-by for that flight with very small chances of actually getting on it as it was overbooked and a small plane... mmmh - ok - so we went and sat in a corner and, guess what? yes - we waited. it's all about the patience (seems to be the one lesson life is teaching me here - big time!)
people watching was amusing - you had the indian families, the horrendously rich families that looked middle eastern, you have the kenyans, then the south african sports team, backpacker tourists from europe, elderly british people where I wondered whether they used to live in kenya and were now back to see the country or whether they still lived here - in short - all sorts and us falling asleep on our bags.

well - to cut a long story short, all flights that day were overbooked and our chances to get on one of them not very good; but thanks to our tired faces and a lot of pleading and begging we finally got tickets for the 5.30 flight to mombasa. so we checked our bags in and went straight to the business class departure lounge (a room crammed with these big wannabe-pompous sofas and armchairs that they love so much here, tables with hideous chairs, a fridge, a water dispenser and - oh yes - a telly) - I stretched out on the sofa and dozed off watching some random programme on the tv - it was great!

eventually it was finally time to get on the plane and we flew down to mombasa. on arrival we got a taxi who was supposed to take us to the centre and to a hotel (by that time it was too late to go straight to the beach - and we were too tired). half way into the city the taxi stutters to a halt - the clutch had died... so - we were - oh yes - stranded and waiting again! the next car arrived and I said to him 'does your clutch work?' - he said 'I don't have one - it's an automatic' - ace! so, after a night of celebration and a day of waiting in airports we finally arrived in mombasa.

accordingly we did nothing all week other than hang out on some stunning beaches, sleeping as much as our bodies wanted to, reading books and eating seafood - we actually manged to eat seafood for every meal (except breakfast) for one entire week - yummy!