Leaving Lamu

After a few days in Lamu, it was time to head back to Nairobi for the Intermission Retreat.  It's only a little more than a couple of hours to fly, so I landed in Nairobi by 1:45 in the afternoon.  I took one of the small motorboats back across the channel to the airport.  Since it's hot weather around here nearly year-round, the airport waiting room is open air.  It would have been nice to have a bit of air conditioning, but at least there's shade.  

 In the photo above, you can see Lamu along the coast of the island across the channel. The water was a beautiful color as we flew down the coast, although the pictures aren't great as the plane window was quite smudged.

Inland, it's dusty and dry.

Once I landed back at Nairobi Wilson airport, I had a while to wait because I had planned for someone from the Monduli crowd to pick me up as they passed the airport on their way up, as they were all driving up that day.  It was a bit stressful at first because I couldn't get my phone to work, even though I'd bought a roaming bundle that should have allowed me to use whatsapp in Kenya.  I couldn't get a Kenyan sim card because all the official sim card sellers are only allowed to sell sim cards to people with Kenyan IDs.  I'm sure it's possible somewhere to get a sim card without said ID, but the places at the airport follow the law.  Finally someone told me that there was a Java House restaurant down by the private jet area that has good wifi.  That was a wonderful move--the food was great, the wifi was strong, and they didn't mind at all that I stayed for six hours since they weren't too busy.  I splurged on the crazy sundae below.  My waiter was really nice; they close at nine except for a side part for private functions, but he offered to let me stay anyhow rather than sending me outside at night.  Fortunately, I had been in contact with the Monduli crowd and Ralph and Twyla Williams had agreed to stop and get me, and they would be arriving soon, so I headed back down by the airport entrance to meet them.  It was pretty late by the time we arrived, after 11 pm.  Tomorrow Intermission begins!

Easter Break: Flying up the coast to Lamu

Flying over the savannah of eastern Kenya between Nairobi and Mombasa

After waking up in Nairobi, I headed to the smaller of the two Nairobi airports, Wilson airport.  This airport serves domestic flights around Kenya and private planes, mostly.  It was a rather interesting experience as it doesn’t have one central terminal. Each airline has their own building with their offices and their own little check-in counter and waiting room.  So, once you find the building of the airline you’re flying with somewhere along a long road of one after the other, you check in your luggage, get your boarding pass, and THEN they bus you back down to the one boarding gate, somewhere back by the entrance.  I was really glad that I had paid a little extra for the lady who runs the guesthouse where I stayed (who was really nice) to drive me down there, as she asked directions from the workers and got me to the right building. 

The city of Mombasa from above.  Maybe someday I'll make it back for a closer look.

I took a flight from Nairobi to Lamu, with a stop in Mombasa (a major city on the coast) on the way.  In Mombasa we just stopped to pick up more people; I didn’t have to get off the plane.  It was rather like a flying bus.  It was a beautiful sunny day and I had a window seat, so I enjoyed watching the coastline as we flew. 

Juice boxes on the plane!

Lamu has its own little airport on a nearly deserted island just across the channel; it’s the kind of place that only has one plane at a time, so you just get off the plane on the runway and walk yourself into the building.  Coming out the other side of the airport building, I followed everyone else down the path to the pier, where longboats were waiting to ferry us across to the town. 

Flying up the Kenyan coast

The marshy land along the coast near Lamu.

Getting off the flying bus...

Making my way into the airport...