Kenya & Tanzania

We met Edison at 11am at our Backpackers to leave for Voi. Instead of a car, we had to get on separate motor bikes with our heavy 15kg backpacks to get to the main road. There we were almost pulled into one of the matatus, each driver wanting us to get on theirs. Luckily Edison helped us and himself got on it with us. In Mombasa the same almost even worse scenario, but with some more traders wanting us to buy drinks, snacks and other unnecessary things like flash lights. Here we got on the matatu without Edison, so time to finally say goodbye.

Squeezed in the back row amongst Kenyan people we waited almost half an hour with a heat that made us almost faint until the matatu was full. Finally it took us on a bumpy and rather dangerous drive since many trucks had to been taken over, but not really safe. Keep yourself occupied with other things like reading to not watch the fight on African highways.

After 4 hours we reached the bus stop in Voi and had to fight to get away from the Kenyans getting on our nerves. Everyone wanting us to get on their vehicle to bring us to our guest house. We took a tuktuk from the main street and arrived in the Lutheran guest house, as it seemed as the only guests. We simply got into our room and calmed down from the stressful journey. After a while we talked to a volunteer here, that came from Germany. She told us, that Safaris were basically the only thing to do. She would have a contact and also a Kenyan guy that worked in the Sanctuary Park offered us a ride. For tomorrow we thought about to relax first and take it easy after this journey today.

We went for dinner and wanted to plan further the next morning.

After breakfast and some washing we followed the advice from the German girl and took a motor bike to the Wildlife Lodge located directly at Tsavo National Park, where we could hang out at a pool and maybe see some animals passing by. What we saw was even more overwhelming...elefants came directly to the lodge terrace where they could drink from a small pond, just close! A bit further we could also see some birds, antilopes and even a hippo in the water, mainly covered by water because of the heat.

Late afternoon we tried to explore the local market. Leaving the lodge a friedly jeep driver took us back to town. Talking to him, he offered us a game drive early next morning and for a reasonable price. So we only took a short walk on the market and spent the rest of the evening in our guest house having dinner with the girls there.

Evening came and with that also the surprise. I woke up at night feeling ill until I got rid of everything in my stomach. At one point I couldn’t hold myself anymore and I was taken to the nearby hospital, with a wheelchair along the muddy road since no driver was available in the middle of the night.

Feeling better next morning I spent the rest of the day in the hospital getting several infusions. It was seriously food poisoning and what I from now on will respect, not to eat anymore meet at all!

After a long and good sleep I managed to have food again and so we took off to the Wildlife lodge again to enjoy the day with some elephants 😊. Already when we arrived there were elephants around and even coming closerThe sun was shining heavily, so I simply sat in the shade, read a bit and enjoyed the complementary view from there. More and more elephants came and an hour later there were heards of up to 40 animals surrounding the water hole in front of us! Some monkeys gathered too and the elephants made their way into the water, taking a bath and playing around. The day couldn’t have been better.

In the evening we took the owners little dog Simba for a walk, gave him some food and had some ourselves with the German and Canadian girl.

We had booked a flight from Kilimanjaro airport to Dar es Salaam instead of taking the bus the whole way, which would have been a 13 hour trip. So we planned about 6 hours to get to the airport, but even this rather short ride compared to the original journey turned out to be tough! We were picked up at 11am, ok half an hour later, with a Tutuk to take us to the bus station. There luckily we managed to get a comfortable bus for 4€ each with enough room to sit and relax. 2 hours later we arrived in Taveta. Two motor bikes took us with our heavy backpacks to the border in Holili. At least we got to see the Kilimanjaro partly covered in clouds. At the border we got our Visa and payed 50€ each. From there the same motor bikes took us to Himo and dropped us on the street where we could catch the bus to Moshi. The drivers of the motor bikes wanted way to much for the ride, almost 8€ per person, double compared to the 2 hour bus ride to Taveta. In our bus to Moshi we were squeezed in a row of 3 with 4 people, the most uncomfortable ride ever. In Moshi we then finally after getting local money from ATM grabbed a taxi to the airport, again expensive 20€ per person, but almost an hour drive. So we accepted already being exhausted and arrived in time at the airport. 

After two hours with stop in Zanzibar, the owners cousin Saidi picked us up and took us to the house in Kigamboni, far away from the city center, which we hadn’t expected. Anyway we were so tired that we fell asleep quickly.

Already in the middle of the night the electricity went off and also the fan, so we woke up really sweaty. Since also the water didn’t work, we couldn’t take a shower. Somehow we tried to make the best of it and explored the area. We went down a rather quiet path towards the beach, where we found some chairs from the beach restaurant we could use. Weather wasn’t the best, cloudy and windy, and so we didn’t stay long. On our way back a staff member told us to be aware of walking alone because it’s not safe here. Wow, and here we were about to spend 6 days...not!

We decided to move, booked the Hunch Backpackers hostel close to town, packed our stuff and waited for to be picked up again. Electricity came back in the late afternoon, when we could finally take a shower and charge batteries. 

He picked us up, took us for a bite to eat and dropped us in our hostel, where we could move into a nice private room with own bathroom and AC to sleep well.

After breakfast we got the information from the hostel staff to go to the local market Kariakoo in the centre. We took a Uber and got to the crowdy and huge market with several stands of everything you can think of....shoes, pots, clothes and food. We walked around as the only Muzungus (white English people) surrounded by only black people calling us „Muzungu Muzungu“. Anyway we had fun exploring the area always with a little African music here and there. We bought nice dresses, pants, clothes, food and spices to cook in the evening. With Uber we made our way back to the hostel.

What a schock....behind the gate of the hostel a chaotic view appeared to us. All beds, decoration and clothes were on the street outside the buildings. First we thought that we had been robbed, but immediately the owner came up to us and explained that assigned people of the landlord had pretended having an official order to clear the place. But by the time the owner found out that it was fake, they called the police and the others escaped. Luckily our room was the only one untouched and we could go back in after calming down a bit. This happens when the landlord tries to kick out the owner of a successful business just to scare, but not to robb. Anyway it was kind of scary in the first moment. The owner offered us to move to their partner hostel in Masaki, but they secured that this never happened and won’t again, we were safe. So we stayed.

In the evening we managed to cook on the roof top terrasse and had fun albeit the circumstances.

Our Uber driver yesterday told us to visit Mbuya island just 15 minutes by boat from the beach and no people living there. So he was about to picked us up at noon. In the meanwhile the staff tried to clear up the place because they were expecting 30 new guests this day. 

On the way to the boat I managed to get a local SIM card for 10€ including 5GB data, quite reasonable. For the boat we payed about 10€ return and another 12€ for the entrance of the island. All day we relaxed in the sun on a white beach and clear blue water.

Around six we took an Uber back to our hostel...and there it was, same same but different, they had cleared the place again! This time also our things. This time we were angry because they had assured that the people won’t come back. There were two trucks that loaded all furniture and decorations while we collected our stuff from different bags. We were annoyed from the situation and convinced their driver to take us to a hotel we had booked spontaneously. 

We got to the Landmark Beach Resort later that evening and were happy to finally have peace to relax from all the adventures we experienced the past days!