So I hope everyone is doing well. My course in Mombasa has now completed and I am on my way to Sri Lanka for the next leg of my adventure. Before I get into that, I'll do a quick recap. The past two weeks have been very nice. We stayed in a beach resort called the White Sands. It was an absolutely beautiful place with lots of Arabic influences. This used to be (and to some extent still is) a huge trading route from the Middle East into Eastern and Central Africa. Here's what the resort looked like:
And the food was absolutely amazing. The lodging was only $99 a night and that included breakfast and either lunch or dinner. And then when we were teaching classes, lunch was included as well. I'm not sure I'm going to be able to go back to the US and eat our food again. I ate more lamb, goat and ox and I enjoyed it. As some of you know, my neighbor in GA was Jamaican and she would make me curried goat. And I think that was my favorite meal here as well! It was quite yummy! Now they also had a whole roasted goat one night (it literally looked like a skinned goat without the head on the block) and I tried it. In case you are wondering how it tasted, have you ever been to a barn or petting zoo? You know that smell of barn yard animals? That's what roasted goat tastes like! I'm not even joking. The braised ox tail was very good too. The last night we were there, they had ox tongue and normally I would try it but I really didn't want to take my chances before spending the next day on the plane. It's one thing getting an upset stomach from eating something, but it's another having an upset stomach on a plane! I also think I'm going to go into a pineapple deficiency when I get back. I had fresh pineapple and mango with every meal!
Ok so on top of the great food, I got to do a few fun things. The first weekend we were there we went deep sea fishing. It was a good time but the seas were not calm. Being the swashbuckler that I am, I was happy to be out on the water again and feeling the sea spray in my face. It was quite invigorating. I can't say the same for one of my fellow instructors however. It was funny because this guy is this big and loud Texan cop. And he was the one who set up the trip because he has this nice boat/yacht at home in Houston. You should've heard him go on about it and the types of fishing poles he has. You would've thought he was Davey Jones himself! And then as soon as we get past the reef, he comes down off the flying bridge pale as a ghost and sweating profusely. Not long afterwards, he makes it to the head to "relieve himself". Then he spent the rest of the trip laid out on the bench. He didn't even get in the chair and reel anything in. Not that we caught all that much. See the pictures here:
I also got the chance to do 3 scuba dives. It was great being back underwater since it has been several years since my last dive. And since I didn't want my team leader to have to write an incident report from my unfortunate drowning, I took a refresher course. The dives were gorgeous but I'm sad to report that I don't have any pictures. As you can tell, my camera has been wonderful and I didn't think it would work to well 30 feet under the surface of the ocean. But I did see some amazing fish. From lion fish, to blue headed wrasse to octopus and squid, the reef was amazing. It was like being in an aquarium! I was disappointed though because we did one dive at 60 feet underwater at a place called Shark's Point. I was so excited to actually dive with some white tipped reef sharks that I think I worked myself up too much. I sucked air so bad that I only got about 35 minutes bottom time and had to come up early. Oh well, it was a lot fun anyways. I also did a couple of snorkeling trips just off our hotel and it was equally as beautiful.
So that's pretty much my trip in Mombasa. I didn't get to see the city too much however. We wanted to keep a pretty low profile since things were a little dicey down there. The 7th of August was the anniversary of the US Embassy bombings in Nairobi and the Al Qaeda operative that was believed to be responsible for those and other bombings in Africa (and 0n the FBI's most wanted list) narrowly escaped capture the same week in a town just south of the Somali border. And the Kenyan officials believed that he had taken mutatus (crazy buses that don't know the meaning of defensive driving) to Mombasa and was holed up somewhere in there. There is a pretty large Muslim community there so we thought it best to stick to the resort. I did get some pretty nice photos. Check them out here:
That is one ugly insect! It's a millipede that was about the size of a hot dog!
And why wouldn't there be a camel roaming the beach?
As opposed to that "non-Italian" Pizza!
I heard chewing on barbed wire builds character!
This is work?
And now I'm on my way to Colombo. Let me give a piece of advise when traveling internationally. FLY BUSINESS CLASS! Man what a treat! I'm not sure if I can go back to economy anymore. I kind of feel like I'm faking it though and that they are going to kick my butt back to coach. In Doha, Qatar, I had a 5 hour layover or so and the business lounge there is in it's own terminal! It is so very nice and if I wasn't knocking on 30's door these days, I'm sure I could make a run at their open bar. At least I would give it a shot. But now since I'm getting older and wiser, it doesn't have the same appeal. The Super Tuscan wine I had with my lamb curry on my first flight though was outstanding!
Ok so that's about it for this posting. I hope everyone is well. I still can't believe that this is my job and I haven't even started my vacation yet. I'm feeling very blessed right now to say the least.
My best to all of you. Yo ho ho and one more bottle of Tusker!
Ok so on top of the great food, I got to do a few fun things. The first weekend we were there we went deep sea fishing. It was a good time but the seas were not calm. Being the swashbuckler that I am, I was happy to be out on the water again and feeling the sea spray in my face. It was quite invigorating. I can't say the same for one of my fellow instructors however. It was funny because this guy is this big and loud Texan cop. And he was the one who set up the trip because he has this nice boat/yacht at home in Houston. You should've heard him go on about it and the types of fishing poles he has. You would've thought he was Davey Jones himself! And then as soon as we get past the reef, he comes down off the flying bridge pale as a ghost and sweating profusely. Not long afterwards, he makes it to the head to "relieve himself". Then he spent the rest of the trip laid out on the bench. He didn't even get in the chair and reel anything in. Not that we caught all that much. See the pictures here:
I also got the chance to do 3 scuba dives. It was great being back underwater since it has been several years since my last dive. And since I didn't want my team leader to have to write an incident report from my unfortunate drowning, I took a refresher course. The dives were gorgeous but I'm sad to report that I don't have any pictures. As you can tell, my camera has been wonderful and I didn't think it would work to well 30 feet under the surface of the ocean. But I did see some amazing fish. From lion fish, to blue headed wrasse to octopus and squid, the reef was amazing. It was like being in an aquarium! I was disappointed though because we did one dive at 60 feet underwater at a place called Shark's Point. I was so excited to actually dive with some white tipped reef sharks that I think I worked myself up too much. I sucked air so bad that I only got about 35 minutes bottom time and had to come up early. Oh well, it was a lot fun anyways. I also did a couple of snorkeling trips just off our hotel and it was equally as beautiful.
So that's pretty much my trip in Mombasa. I didn't get to see the city too much however. We wanted to keep a pretty low profile since things were a little dicey down there. The 7th of August was the anniversary of the US Embassy bombings in Nairobi and the Al Qaeda operative that was believed to be responsible for those and other bombings in Africa (and 0n the FBI's most wanted list) narrowly escaped capture the same week in a town just south of the Somali border. And the Kenyan officials believed that he had taken mutatus (crazy buses that don't know the meaning of defensive driving) to Mombasa and was holed up somewhere in there. There is a pretty large Muslim community there so we thought it best to stick to the resort. I did get some pretty nice photos. Check them out here:
That is one ugly insect! It's a millipede that was about the size of a hot dog!
And why wouldn't there be a camel roaming the beach?
As opposed to that "non-Italian" Pizza!
I heard chewing on barbed wire builds character!
This is work?
And now I'm on my way to Colombo. Let me give a piece of advise when traveling internationally. FLY BUSINESS CLASS! Man what a treat! I'm not sure if I can go back to economy anymore. I kind of feel like I'm faking it though and that they are going to kick my butt back to coach. In Doha, Qatar, I had a 5 hour layover or so and the business lounge there is in it's own terminal! It is so very nice and if I wasn't knocking on 30's door these days, I'm sure I could make a run at their open bar. At least I would give it a shot. But now since I'm getting older and wiser, it doesn't have the same appeal. The Super Tuscan wine I had with my lamb curry on my first flight though was outstanding!
Ok so that's about it for this posting. I hope everyone is well. I still can't believe that this is my job and I haven't even started my vacation yet. I'm feeling very blessed right now to say the least.
My best to all of you. Yo ho ho and one more bottle of Tusker!
2 comments:
Wow you are doing some pretty amazing things! I must say you're very adventurous with the food! Were you always like that?
So it appears that you are really missing your days back at the Depot in your cube-seriously-doesn't that seem like it was years ago? Glad you are safe and having fun! The pics are amazing! Be safe!!
Post a Comment