Beach Boys and Beach Braais, Watamu and Tiwi Beach, Kenya

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We had to make a decision getting off the train…. do we head North or South along the coast??  We had recommendations for both, and decided we liked the sound of Watamu, as it not only had beach, it also had some ancient sights around. The usual hassles abound, but we shrug them off and are

Tiwi Beach with our tent on the right

Watamu bound.  Upon arrival in Watamu, not only do the heavens open and the rain hammers down on us, but we are approached by many a beach 'boy' offering us places to stay, show us around, the lot.....  Always be leery of these guys, because there is always a hidden agenda.  So, we brushed them off as best we could, sometimes getting a little angry with them and telling them to leave us alone.  They even seem to have a routine here - good beach 'boy', bad beach 'boy' - in which one hassles us, and the other eventually tells him to leave us alone.... only to proceed to follow us as well and then do the same thing to us.  The other thing I haven't mentioned is that the town seemed to be in a state of closure.  Every shop, every hotel, every restaurant seemed to be closed.  Now I know it is low season, but can the town really 'close'???   This one seems to.  So, we hurried into the first open hotel we saw, sopping wet, and trying to get away from the beach boys.  Not only did we have the beach boy hassle (and it truly made us feel unsafe), we also had the issue of where we would eat (because then all the beach boys would follow us ... and in the dark), and what we would do in town, since we seemed to be the only tourists there. 

In the end, the decision was easy, and we got on the next matatu out of town, with the beach boys giving us rude hand gestures, and telling us to get lost because we hadn't trusted them.   Hakuna Matata they say ('no problem') Yeah right.... we are not new to this, and they think we are stupid!!  Best move was to get out of the possibly bad situation, and the only place we could head to before dark was Malindi, about an hour or so North. 

Marco, Martin, Dorette, Guillaume, Hannah having a braai

In Malindi, our tuk-tuk guy took us to the wrong place, but luckily on the way into town, we bumped into Sheila and Micheal from the train.  Unfortunately very bad timing, as Sheila was in a panic as her important bag was missing with passports, money, etc.  Luckily, we heard later that she found it - phew!!  It was a pretty much a nothing night in Malinda.  We walked the coast, out on the jetty, and saw the scrubby beach.  The only thing of note was the large, white monument that Vasco de Gama had built in the 1500's, to help with navigation.

After speaking with Dorette and Guillaume by phone, they recommended we join them at Tiwi Beach as it was really nice.  So, early in the morning, we headed back through Mombasa, across the ferry and eventually to the end of the dirt road to Tiwi.  Guillaume was nice enough to shuttle both of us to the beach on the IDoAfrica piki-piki because he could tell we were frustrated and pissed off.

Our campsite at Tiwi Beach

And we were so glad we came.  We set up our tent on the beautiful white sand beach, looking out to the blue waters of the Indian Ocean once again.  With Dorette and Guillaume who were our awesome beach neighbours, we had some great beach braais, with some delicious home cooked grub.  Day one was sirloin, and day two was prawns!!  Followed up by drinks around the campfire on the beach, and chilling at the waters edge under the stars having some great chats with a bottle of gin and another of rum.
Apparently, this left Guillaume with a pretty bad head the next day (he was babalas).  He had some resume/CV work to do the next day, so I hitched a piki-piki ride with him in to Diani, but I think he struggled to get anything of substance done.  On our ride home, we hit the heavy rains, and I got a taste of piki-piki travel with the elements. 

Silly beach photos with Dorette and Guillaume

It was a quick couple of days, but we really enjoyed their company and wish them the best on the rest of www.idoafrica.com to Egypt.  We were also sad to leave, because we could have stayed for a week, but had booked a flight.  A difference here too, was that although there were beach boys, they were part of an association, and really didn't hassle us much at all.  It was a great last stop.  We took a few silly beach pose photos, and then were off to Mombasa with another camper Zoltan, who happened to be going to the airport to pick up a friend.  Good luck Dorette and Guillaume - we hope you make and your piki-piki make it!!   *Stub