Shadrak

Kids

Unfortunately my camera malfunctioned and deleted the section that included most of the pictures that I took of kids on the beach, but here are a few that survived.

Priska and Shadrach decided to go on some sort of quest, I don't remember what it was.

Shadrach doesn't like clothes.

Drinking soda in the ruins.

I wonder how many Muslims have prayed in there...

Debbi and Priska, and the view from the house we stayed in.

Shadrach attempting murder on the ride home.

Tropical beaches are amazing.

Someone needs to install one in mid Missouri.

I got up early to take some pictures of the sun rising over the Indian Ocean. It was cloudy so I did not get the pictures I wanted, but it was still quite beautiful.

For four days I spent most of my waking hours in the water. Swimming, kayaking, sailing, windsurfing...

Windsurfing is somewhat difficult to get the hang of; I was just getting it figured out by the day we left.

Aram and I went out to the reef were the waves were breaking and surfed in the kayak. If we could catch the wave just right we would fly, skimming along just in front of the wave.

If we caught it just wrong it would flip the kayak and we would be tossed into the water, trying not to crack our heads on the coral or step on a sea urchin.

I don't think Priska and Shadrach have ever been so happy, they would play in the waves and sand for hours and still cry when it was time to go in for lunch.

At first Shadrach called the white sand "snow". He dug a big hole and then stood at the edge and called down into it, "Are you okay Mike Mulligan?"

(If you have never read Mike Mulligan by Virginia Lee Burton, you need to)

There were little crabs everywhere; on the beach they are sand colored....

And not very noticeable..

But on the coral all of the crabs are, well, coral colored...

At night the crabs come out of their holes in hordes, thousands of the little buggers, and scuttle about at the edge of the waves...

And in the kitchen.

I walked out onto a point and took some pictures. I was barefoot (of course) and I discovered coral is extremely sharp.

There are holes through the coral that open into caves that the waves have cut into the coral cliffs. This picture is too small to see it, but the smudges in the sand are footprints.

The view.

Gede

We went to Gede, the ruins of a 14th century Arabic trading town, in which artifacts from India, China, Venice, and Spain have been found. And yet the Portuguese, who occupied Malindi only 7 miles away in the same time period, did not know that it existed.  There is no record of the town in any Arabic or Portuguese historical records.

The Great Mosque.

A prayer alcove, it's shape is such that the person praying can be heard by the entire congregation.

The Palace.

The King's tomb.

And me in it.

They had flush toilets, better than most of the toilets in Kenya now, 500 years later...

A tree, I can't remember which kind, eating a wall of one of the seven Mosques

Don't fall down the well, Shadrach...

Take Two

0430. Ahhgg, stupid eyelids; get out of the way, I can't see!
We arrived at the bus station at 0545 and discovered that the office did not open until six and the bus left at eight. So we spent three hours wandering around, eating breakfast, guarding our luggage, making sure that Priska and Shadrach did not vanish, etc...

At 0830 (only 30 minutes late, amazing!) our ten hours of sweltering heat, uncomfortable seats, and not much leg room, began. At first I was afraid that I would die of heat stroke, then I was afraid that I wouldn't...

I did see a lot of really cool rock formations. For several hours the land was completely flat except for all of the miniature mountains that stuck up from the ground. It looked like someone beneath the earth's crust had used their finger to poke upwards.

We stopped once, and only for long enough to wake up my legs and get a bit of food from one of the local food stands. Then the bus was off again, and I was off into a semi-conscious state of pouring sweat and trying to find the most comfortable possible position in my seat.
At last we arrived at the beach. White sand, warm blue water, annoying beach boys trying to sell me stuff, and the bus ride with it's baking heat was all worth it.

Mombasa: Take 1

We decided to go to Mombasa, the tourist town on the coast, we were just not sure when.

Then some friends called and said that they were staying in a lovely house, right on the beach just outside Mombasa and would we like to join them?

We finally, after much deliberation, decided to go. It was 1630.

It is a ten hour bus ride to Mombasa, and the bus leaves at 2100.

We packed frantically for two hours and then took a taxi to the bus station which is about three miles away. We should have plenty of time to get there. Right?

The matatu drivers decided to go on strike for three days to protest the fact that the police were stopping them for bribes when they broke the law. The lack of matatus made traffic a nightmare. (Not that Nairobi traffic is ever not a nightmare...)

After three hours we had traveled about a mile. It was decided that there was no way we would make it to the bus on time and we would try again in the morning. 
"Well that is one way to kill a couple of hours" "Yeah, very dead"

Priska got some sunglasses...