Arie Goes to Mombasa

You might want to read about my train ride from Nairobi to Mombasa.

The train pulled into Mombasa and we took a taxi to a hotel where I had reservations. Waiting in the lobby, I read the rate card -- it said a single was 3500 shillings (about $50) per night. Finally the lady at the desk told us that the room would actually be 9000 shillings. I pointed to the rate card and she explained that that was for December, but now it was January. We left.

Taxi to a new hotel. Full. Apparently there was some sort of Islamic event happening and the town was filled with people in traditional garb. They had booked all the hotel rooms. Trouble.

Fortunately, we found a hotel with space -- it was run by religious Christians. The room had a/c, which was nice. I took a quick shower (no showers on the train) and discovered that the shower had no showerhead -- showering in it was like standing under a giant sink. Pretty great, really.

Mombasa is a city on an island (Mombasa Island). The Swahili name for it means Island of War because so many wars were fought over it. It's actually fairly small -- fewer than one million people. For no good reason I always imagined it to be a massive city, with millions of people, skyscrapers, etc. In fact it's small, spread out, and doesn't have much in the way of steel construction. The city has been the preeminent East African port for centuries, playing a major role in the ivory and spice trade and probably in the slave trade as well.

We walked down to Fort Jesus, the major tourist attraction in Mombasa. (No one else appreciated the irony of naming a military building after a guy who spent his life talking about peace and love.) On the way we passed roughly five million people wearing traditional clothing. After talking to a few people, we learned that there was an important spiritual leader in town. He was ninety-seven and had an annual conference in a different city every year, and his followers from all over the world came to the city for three days.

After I took a quick phone call, we went into Fort Jesus. Entrance was 800 shillings ($12), but they had a 400 shilling rate for East African residents (like me). But even 400 seemed a bit high -- there wasn't much to see, just the remains of a few walls and chambers. The view was nice, I guess. There were some large whale bones in one room that had been carved into some sort of shape, and one room had a giant graffiti mural drawn by sailors centuries ago. It wasn't very good.

Vasco de Gama was the first European to visit Mombasa, in 1498, and Portugal sacked the city in 1500 (they didn't waste much time). The Portuguese built Fort Jesus in 1593 in an effort to cement their control over the region, but it didn't really work -- by 1698 Mombasa was controlled by the sultanate of Oman. Portugal took it back in 1728, but Oman regained it in 1729. The British took it in 1824, but Oman took it back two years later. Zanzibar conquered the city in 1837, but Britain reconquered it in 1887. City of War indeed. Mombasa was the capital of British East African territory and part of Zanzibar, but it was ceded to Kenya when Kenya became independent.

In the field in front of the fort was a soccer field, and two teams were playing a game. One team was all white people, the other team black people. We walked past the field down to the rock beach, where some kids were swimming. There was also a sewage pipe dumping into the ocean, so it didn't smell very nice. As we watched, a boat carrying a new soccer team pulled up and the players got out. This team was dressed in Jamaican colors. The white guys were adults, but the teams made of black people were younger -- late teens, maybe early 20s.

Then we went to the Old Town and walked around a bit. There were lots of the white-garbed guys, and signs all over directing them based on various codes -- women in group E5 should go to one area, men in G7 should go to another. Highly organized.

I was very excited to discover fresh coconuts for sale. I loved them when I lived in Cambodia, but was disappointed to discover that they aren't available in Uganda. Fortunately, they're common on the coast. They seemed a little smaller than Asian coconuts, though my memory might just be exaggerating the size of the latter.

The Old Town was very pretty -- lots of Swahili architecture. Lonely Planet said to look for balconies that were built to protect the modesty of women, which I assume means solid bottoms and panels on the bottom. I guess once the whole city looked pretty much like this.

There was a lot of graffiti. Most of it involved European soccer teams. One wall said "WE ALWAYS ACCEPT THE REJECTED WIVES". I have no idea what that means but I bet it's unpleasant.

Most of the roads were very narrow, though that didn’t stop people from driving down them. Mostly motorcycles and bicycles, sometimes tuk-tuks or full cars.

Unsurprisingly, the people in Old Town were pretty much accustomed to white people walking around taking pictures. There were also a bunch of street vendors and internet cafés, and the people we encountered were very friendly. Lots of stores selling trinkets, jewelry, etc.

We wandered back to the football field to watch the game. What I think was a semifinal was just wrapping up -- a team dressed in Italian colors apparently won. Apparently the team was so into being Italian that they learned some of the language. Sadly, there was no final -- for unclear reasons, one team withdrew. That didn't stop the other team from celebrating, lifting its captain up in the air, screaming, etc. They got a trophy. We left.

The next day I took a taxi to the airport. The Mombasa airport isn't very impressive -- no internet café, which really should be standard at airports, and not much in the way of food. Just like in Entebbe, they pulled the double-X-ray maneuver -- one set at the front door and another to get into the gate area. My boarding pass had the wrong times on it, but so did everyone else's. I boarded the small propeller plane that was to take me to Zanzibar.

You can read about my trip to Zanzibar.