The drive from Mombasa

We are staying the next two nights on Chale Island, South of Mombasa, which is on the coast of the Indian Ocean. The six of us were being driven in a van. The drive was quite the experience! First, we had to go through a number of double roundabouts in the heavy traffic. Then at one of the many police checkpoints, we were selected to pull over. The policewoman checked the registration posted on the windshield, then looked at us and noticed we weren't all wearing seatbelts. Some of the seatbelts were buried under the seats so we didn't even know they were there. The policewoman told us to go to the police station and then we'd go before a judge tomorrow. We were a bit stunned but really the policewoman just wanted the typical bribe, because that's how this works in Kenya. Our driver paid the bribe and then fixed our seatbelts and we all wore them.

Next thing we knew we were driving onto a ferry boat to take a very short ride across a shipping port inlet. I'm sure it would have added an hour or more if we tried to drive around the port to get to the other side. This photo is from our ferry ride.

More congested traffic exiting the ferry. But finally we were heading south.

This van didn't look too bad, especially for Kenya, but it had its issues. The back end often bottomed out when we crossed a simple bump.

The van would also die without warning from time to time. It did this probably four or five times. Mind you, the low gas light was on when he picked us up at the airport, so each time it died, we thought we were out of gas. But the driver would be able to restart it, usually while we were still rolling.

Eventually the driver stopped at a gas station. He put in 3 litres of gas. THAT'S 3/4 OF A GALLON! That's all he put in.

Not long after that, the road ended. But it didn't, really. The paved road ended, and you jogged just a bit to the left and you were on a gravel road. Only this is a Kenyan gravel road. It's not like a gravel road in the US. Here a gravel road doesn't really have a base layer. It's just dirt and rocks. Not gravel sized rocks. These are bigger. It makes for a pretty rough road. We continued on probably 10 miles until this road ended.

See next post...