The Rest of July!

Whew, updates at lightning speed.

The weekend after Eliza left, a giant ass group of us headed to Diani, a beach south of Mombasa. Before heading out on Friday, however, we had a Curriculum Department get together. There have been a lot of changes at work, and much of the department is being let go at the end of this month, so morale hasn't been the highest. A few of us got together to plan an afternoon outing, complete with drinks, food, and games, and it was a rousing success. I coordinated a bunch of Minute to Win It games, and I truly can't remember the last time I saw my coworkers laughing or smiling that much. It was wonderful. It also made for some hilarious photos.

Part of the curriculum crew settling down and getting ready to relax/eat/drink.

Trying to get everyone to look at me and smile was less than successful, haha.

Tusker and nyama choma. Lunch of champions.

Let the games begin! Joseph watches as Robert takes on the Tea Party.

Nuru and Amanda Movin' on Up.

Watch out for the Stack Attack!

Peris concentrating on the Back Flip.

Time to Face the Cookie.

Robert was ultra concentrated.

And, ultimately, he was successful at Noodlin' Around.

Last time we went to Watamu, which is about 109km north of Mombasa. Diani, on the other hand, is only about 40km south of Mombasa. They are very very different in many ways. It takes about 2 hours to get to Watamu, mostly on small roads. The trip to Diani took nearly 3 hours due to traffic, and the fact that you have to take an incredibly slow ferry with insanely long lines.

There were 17 of us, split over two houses. It started with the core group, who invited friends, who invited friends, who invited friends. It was a LOT of people for my more introverted tendencies to handle, but by and large people were lovely and friendly, even if most them were short termers, haha.

We stayed at two of the connected houses at Galu Sea Lodge, one of which slept 8 and the other slept 10. I was part of the Monkey Beach 10-person house, along with Clayton, Chris, Kalpana, Sarah, Sanya, Jack, Katrina, Meri, and Sheila. There were 4 houses all connected, and the other 8 people were at the other end of the compound. This compound was directly on the beach, with basically only a pool and some palm trees separating us from the sand and ocean. It was really beautiful. The beach in Diani is cleaner in regards to seaweed, but is much busier with people selling stuff, beach boys, and other tourists. I think I prefer Watamu a bit...it definitely had better star gazing (houses were few, far between, and separated from the beach by jungle) and it was just a little quieter and more solitary which is a bit more my style.

We all flew out on the same flight on Friday evening, meeting at the airport to board our Fly540 plane. When we arrived, we were picked up by a bus that I had coordinated, and started our forever long drive. When we finally got to Diani, we stopped at a Nakumatt to buy our supplies for the weekend (thanks to Jack for planning and coordinating all that craziness) and then headed to our houses.

After dropping our stuff and changing, we headed over to Ali Barbour's Cave Restaurant. The restaurant was built in a natural cave that is about 150,000 years old and opens to the sky. It is beautifully lit with candles and low light (forgive the pictures, I only had my crappy point-and-shoot with me) and the food was delicious. After dinner we walked over to Forty Thieves Beach Bar, which was a neat place. It opens right onto the beach and the fact that they were hosting a rugby tournament that weekend made for some top notch people watching (specifically of buff boys in tiny shorts). We stayed out late, then caught taxis home and hung out for a bit outside before going to bed.

Looking across the cave.

Rafael, Chris, Sheila, Meri, Teresa, Ali, Colby, Jessica.

Jack, Katrina, Hilary, Clayton, Janice, Kalpana, Me, Sanya, Sarah.

Another view of the restaurant.

Broken menu? Sad faces.

We also took a quick break to celebrate Jack's birthday!

The houses were beautiful. Large, spacious, and comfortable.

Monkey Beach house (the 10-person house).

The downstairs sitting room opens out onto the porch.

Upstairs sitting room and  the balcony where we ate all of our meals.

View from the balcony. Lovely!

Loved the red furniture in this sitting room!

Third floor balcony, outside the master bedroom.

The weekend was basically spent sleeping late, eating, relaxing, checking out the beach, swimming in the pool, repeat. It was pretty great. Heading back to the airport on Sunday was definitely sad!

Heading out to the beach in the morning.

Mmmmm breakfast!

Pretty pristine beaches!

Ahh, there's the beach boys.

Pool overlooking the ocean.

One of the houseboys even climbed up a palm tree and fetched some fresh coconuts for us.

Lovely.

Um, wait, what?

You know, the yooj. Just takin' my camels for a walk.

Attempting to build a human pyramid.

Kind of a spectacle, haha.

Closest we got. Not too shabby.
Jessica, Katrina
Teresa, Kalpana, Ali
Raf, Clayton, Chris, Jack

Most of the crew saying goodbye to the beach.
Clayton, Kalpana, Raf, Chris, Jess, Colby, Sheila, Teresa, Sarah, Sanya, Katrina, Ali, Hilary, Jack and I.

The weekend of the 20-21 we went in the opposite direction, heading to the mountains instead of the beach. Tyler, Clayton, Amanda, Theresa and I piled into Tree's car to head up to Ngare Ndare Forest where we were camping for the weekend. It took about 4.5 hours to get there, skirting around Mt. Kenya (which stayed hidden in clouds all weekend). We even hopping across the equator and into the northern hemisphere! 

The night before I slept over at Tree's and she made a delicious dinner.

YESSS. I've never crossed the equator on land (only by sea and air) so this was pretty exciting.
Clatyon, Amanda, me, Tyler

Well hello there little touch of home!

Once we went off road past Timau.

After arriving, we picked up Julius (a ranger) and headed off to a river and waterfall, where the others went cliff jumping and I relaxed. I also managed to smash the shit out of my knee when I slipped in the river, so that was FUN. Not. Then we went back to our platform, set up the tents, ate some snacks, and basically hung out/vegetated the rest of the evening. We basically just paused to watch eles stomping through the forest, and eat. It was perfect. However, it did get REALLY cold. We spent most of the evening all sitting under a pile of blankets on the platform, but after I turned in for the night I basically froze. Next time I will bring warmer clothes, haha. The next morning we woke up, made breakfast, hung out for a bit, broke camp, and headed back to Nairobi. It was a lovely getaway.

Heading off on the sky walk.

Off they go!

The platform we camped on, with the sky walk going off to the left. 

Hiking down to see the spring/water source.

Checking out the river.

Julius cutting up a branch from a "toothbrush tree." You chew on it and it bristles up and you can use it to brush your teeth.

Amanda and Theresa...comparing foot size?

Yes! An elephant finally came out to play!
Amanda, Theresa, Tyler.

Hey lady.

Tree watching the ele eat her dinner.

Silently appreciating the elephant from our platform.

Om nom nom.

And now another one comes to play!
Manda, Tree, TyTy, Clay

The boys taking a cat nap on the platform.

That is totally the tree Rafiki hung out in during Lion King. It was also overrun with baboons here.

The past two weekends have been full of goodbyes and slothful behavior. Theresa and Jess both left me to go home to the States for 2.5-4 weeks, so that sucked. But they'll be back. What sucked even more was saying goodbye to Izzi, my last Brit (tear!!). I already miss her sense of humor and snarky wit, though I'm super pleased that now she's on WhatsApp since she's back in the UK! I MISS YOU, IZZ! She and Clayton came over on Saturday night and we watched girly movies and ate takeout and it was lovely. Both ended up sleeping over and most of the next day was spent relaxing and doing laundry, and a visit to the orphanage with Clayton and Elaine. 

Clayton makes friends with a little girl.

Lainey and her new bestie.

Last week was a major deadline at work which saw me working 12-15 hours pretty much every day. I really needed to unwind, and this past weekend could be defined by one word: SLOTH. Sanya, Sarah, and Amanda came over on Saturday night and we watched the crap out of a bunch of movies. Barbie as the Princess and the Pauper, Practical Magic, and House Bunny were all watched on Saturday night (this was after Amanda and I had already bawled thourgh Long Island Medium and watched most of Mary Kate and Ashley's "Holiday in the Sun"). We had Iranian food delivered, drank lots of wine, and just had a great night. Everyone slept over, and it was nice to have a full house again! Sunday morning Clayton came over and we made an extensive breakfast, including eggs, chocolate chip pancakes, and an absurd amount of bacon. It was magical. Then we watched Pitch Perfect, haha. So many movies, so little time We have this coming Friday off, and we are still trying to firm up plans for the long weekend. Regardless, you're now up to date in my life!