Home » Kenya » Cycle to the Summit Part 16 - Nairobi to Dar es Salaam

Celebrating Toby's 24th Birthday in style in Nairobi. Spending a few days talking to students of the Moshi International School. Being offered a nights accomodation at a very posh hotel on the way to Kenyan border. Sleeping in a variety of places including a restaurant, mosque and a service station. Paul and Owy's lucky escape from thieves. Relaxing on the beaches of Tiwi before making our way down to Dar Es Salaam.

Cycle to the Summit Part 16 - Nairobi to Dar es Salaam

Toby Hammond
2006-06-25 20:04:17

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MackInnon Road (we are in Africa, not Scotland). Enquiring into the purchase of beers it became apparent that this town lives under the Sharia law. We decided that the best thing was to take the advice of a man we met on the road and stay at the town Mosque. The head guy of the mosque invited us to a huge meal and provided very comfy beds within the peaceful grounds.Well rested, we headed into Mombassa where we stayed in a run-of-the-mill hotel.

Mombasa Nights

Paul and Toby had gone out for one beer returning many hours later with a very drunk Kenyan man who ended up sleeping on the floor, assuring me that the Mombasa nightlife is everything you expect and more than you bargained for. Rolling 20 km south of Mombassa we are presented with another face of Africa with no resemblance to the one we just left.. Nothing beats sitting round a campfire, cooking fish that's been scaled and gutted the minute before we placed them on the open coals, sipping wine, eating copious amounts of mangoes, passion-fruit and bananas under the palm trees on the white beaches of Tiwi.

Tiwi Beach

We had been warned of thieves in the area and been advised to take a taxi along the track between the main road and the beach at Tiwi. When a guy came out of the bushes brandishing a foot long machete wrapped in a T-shirt I thought that this was sound advice that should have been followed. Fortunately for Paul and I the man couldn't unwrap his large knife and speak at the same time, the male dilemma of only being able to do one thing at a time was finally in our favour. As he stumbled the words "Give-me-zee-money" and fumbled with his knife, Paul and I were riding in different directions away from him and each other. Good thing Paul and I had decided through quick and precise decision making and not through sheer panic to go in different directions as this confused the man even more and he ran off back into the bushes. A man wielding a large metal ...