Mostly deserted beach, originally uploaded by Kattaka.

Departure
My taxi came 40 minutes late to bring me to the bus depot. I was freaking out – totally thinking I would miss the bus. Upon my arrival I threw some money at the driver and ran off to find my bus as the departure time on the ticket said 11 and it WAS 11. I managed to forget one of my bags in the back of the taxi. Not very smart. I called the taxi frantically and retrieved my bag a few minutes later. Once breathlessly on the bus I sat, and sat, and sat. I forgot that we are on Kenya time and things move a little more slowly. We rolled out 30 minutes later.

Arrival in Mombasa
After a long night of bumpy roads (and surprisingly getting some sleep) – we pulled into Mombasa! It looks a lot like Nairobi – but perhaps more garbage (I find Nairobi to be pretty clean). To get to Tiwi Beach where I was staying I had to take a matatu from the bus depot to the ferry terminal. Took a ferry to Likoni. Took a matatu 30 minutes south to Tiwi. On the way we were pulled over at one of the many police checks. We were sitting for about 5 mintues when the police pulled out the handcuffs and cuffed the driver. We were ordered out of the matatu and the police hopped in with the driver & the tout and drove off. A new matatu came and picked us up shortly after. From there it was a short cab ride to the lodge. Then I changed into my bathing suit and went into hibernation mode on the white beach.

Tiwi Beach
My weekend consisted of me sleeping on the beach, eating good food (although no lobster this time), walking on the beach, walking around the reef & checking out the sea life, and swimming when I could (the tide was out for most of the day and there was a huge reef so it was difficult to get any “real” swimming done. It was quite nice and very relaxing.

On My Own
Travelling alone has it's pros and cons. It is funny how people tend to 'adopt' you if you are travelling alone. Asking you to eat dinner or drinks with them, seeing if you want to join them on their day's activities etc. It also allowed me the freedom to do whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. It was not a dangerous place although I did leave my camera in my room when I went on some longer walks and if I was just going to be lying on the beach. And it is not always fun to have to ask strangers to take your photo – it kind of takes away from the spontaneity of it all.

Kathryn vs the Beach Boys
No, not the Help Me Rhonda guys. Along the coast there are a large number of 'Beach Boys' who approach you as you are walking down the beach, or sitting on the beach, or sometimes when you are even swimming – and try and sell you necklaces or snorkelling trips or massages etc. It doesn't sound that bad – until you get to the beach and you find you can't spend more than 2 seconds alone without one of these guys coming up to talk to you. Especially if you are walking down the beach (which I did on Sunday). They start up a conversation with you about where you are from, what your name is, how are you enjoying Kenya etc... Nice enough. But they just keep walking with you – even if you don't want to buy anything. I was starting to get annoyed as I was walking down the beach, hoping for some peace and it was like a conveyor belt of Beach Boys coming to chat with me and walk with me. It got to the point where I would tell them that I just came to the beach for peace and quiet and didn't want to talk to anyone so please leave me alone. That didn't really work. So I tried a new approach. I started pretending that I couldn't understand or speak English. 'Ooohhh.... no speaka englisha'. They would ask me if I spoke German (the majority of the tourists), or French. I would say, in my very worst broken English 'I shpeak Danishh – no speaka Englasha'. My “accent” consisted of a combination of a deaf person, a lisp and a Swedish-type accent – just to mix it up a bit. And it worked! I had such a hard time keeping a straight face. I would throw in a couple of actual Danish words once in a while for good measure. I spent the rest of the afternoon walking in peace – enjoying the sun and the gorgeous view. Who said that Danish is a useless language!?