A quick explanation of the title up there in the banner… we were supposed to be in Tanzania today, but apparently there’s a cholera outbreak there and if we had gone there anyway, then our next destination (and potentially others) wouldn’t allow us to dock. So Zanzibar, Tanzania is off the itinerary and we got an extra day in Mombasa.

After a brief chat with Aussie besties Doug and Heather this morning, Doug and I went down to the dock to see what sort of mischief we could get ourselves into on our extra day. We (and by “we” I mean Doug) negotiated a reasonable price for a driver to take the four of us to Haller Park, wait for us there while we looked around, then back to the ship. Nice! And if you’re wondering, after seeing the other pics of Kenya, what a hired car might look like here was ours…

It took about 45 minutes to get to the park. I know that the driver told us his name, but if I had remembered it, that knowledge went right out the window (which was open, as the car had no A/C) as soon as we plunged into the free-for-all traffic in Mombasa. Ever had a near-miss in your car? Scary. Ever been in a car and experienced a near-miss when you weren’t the one driving? Even scarier.
I estimate that we had a near-miss every 47 seconds for the duration of the journey. 😵‍💫😳😱

Along the way, we saw parts of Mombasa we hadn’t seen before - but it all pretty much looked the same. We passed a guy with a water cart.

The jerrycans are filled with water and he will go around the neighbourhood selling water to the locals. If a house does have running water, the charge for the water coming from the pipe is often more expensive than buying it from a guy with a cart.

We also discovered another thing about Kenyan driving: if you have a two-lane road, it’s actually three or four lanes. If your lane is clogged, just pull out and go around the slower vehicles. Yes, there will be oncoming traffic, but if they’re paying attention, they’ll move over - even if they themselves were also creating another lane to get around someone else. Legit, there were numerous times when our driver just swung out right into oncoming traffic to get around a tuk-tuk or a mini bus. After this happened five or six times, it stopped being scary and started being hilarious. He wasn’t being reckless, that’s just how you drive here.

He had his radio on, first to a Swahili station, and then an English station playing Kenyan hip-hop. I’ve noticed that no matter where you are in the world, radio DJs all sound the same.

We arrived at Haller Park, which is owned and run by a cement manufacturer that sits right next to it. The park is basically a botanical garden with some animals. I guess you’d call it a zoo.

The ticket booth was done up in traditional fashion and it reminded me a lot of the buildings in Zimbabwe.

Our driver walked with us rather than sit in the car and wait, which was really nice since I’m quite sure we’d have gotten lost in there and missed some things. The whole area was nice and felt more like just a natural walk than a manicured botanical garden, especially when you’d see monkeys in the trees or along the paths.

We visited a reptile house with lots of snakes, then saw two giant tortoises hanging out along one of the paths.

We also met a very friendly kudu. I named him Habari, as that is the Swahili word for ‘hello’ and it seemed like that’s what he was saying the whole time.

A bit farther, and we came to a very large enclosure with a big pond in the middle. A couple of hippos were hanging out there, chilling out in the water, one with a bird on his head.

Following that, we went to a small butterfly enclosure and a crocodile pond.

The big event, however, was being there for the giraffe feeding. At 11 AM each day, a vendor sells small bags of food that you can feed to the giraffes. It’s very popular with school trips, as will be obvious from the photos.

Did you notice the monkey in that last picture? There were lots of them around. A few of them were carrying babies.

After we had left the park, we happened upon a herd of eland (a type of oryx) hanging out along the road.

Then it was another harrowing ride back to the ship. At one point, the driver asked me to roll my window most of the way up, which seemed counter-productive with the extreme heat and humidity, but then I realized that it was to keep people from reaching into the car and snatching my camera, so I complied. We had a grand time at Haller Park, and many thanks to Doug for organizing the trip.

Just before we set sail, we got a bon voyage dance from the locals.

I mentioned in a previous post that despite the run-down city and the abject poverty and other disturbing things about this country, I got a really good vibe here and I thoroughly enjoyed our stay in Kenya. I think that most of that came down to the people, all of whom I found to be warm and friendly. How can you not?

Dinner was interesting. We got our favourite table, with a view out the back of the ship, and caught the sunset as we left Kenya. The windows of the restaurant are tinted a bit, which cast an unusual greenish tint to the sunset, but it was still pretty.

I had panko-crusted octopus for an appy, which was good, but the mango atchar and bo-kaap masala mayo sauce was the star of the show. And no, I don’t really know what most of those words mean on their own, but I can tell you that it was deeee-licious.

The veal entreé was perfect, but I was already looking forward to the malva pudding dessert. I love malva pudding. It’s a Southern African dessert that involves a sponge cake made with apricot jam, soaked in a caramel cream sauce. It’s absolutely delicious and if you’ve ever had Rob’s version of it, you have a good idea of what it’s all about. This, however….

What is this? It’s basically a muffin. Where’s the caramel cream sauce, where is the sticky, gooey, caramelized sponge cake? Hmph.
Having said that, the muffin was seriously delicious, but it was not malva pudding. Not even close. Wait till we get to Cape Town, I’ll show you a proper malva pudding.

The after-dinner show was the Viking Vocalists and Viking Band doing the Beatles songbook. A nearly impossible task for four singers who weren’t even born until 30 or more years after the Beatles broke up, and I’ll admit there were some really bold choices in the arrangements (“Come Together” as a hard rock number?) but it was a really fun show and everyone had a good time.

It was a good day all around.

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