Day 12 - To Mombasa

Today was an endeavor. It was a travel day, which sums up the most of it, but the actual traveling situation created many memories that all of us, if not at least those in my van, hope to forget. We left early in the morning, at about 8 am, from
Machokos.
It was a happy moment – leaving the dormitories many of us referred to as “the jail”, which reminded us of something out of a bad horror movie. Tired and somewhat hungry, we loaded into our vans, packed with luggage. The first hour of the bus ride went by well. We were in the dry heat driving to Nairobi, so with the windows it was the next best thing to air conditioning. We stopped within the hour at a gas station to buy provisions for our journey (which was mostly of the chocolate and beverage nature). Back on the road, content with our purchases, we began to sleep.

One by one we passed out, hoping to possibly sleep the entire drive.
Then, the head took hold. Hour by hour, the sun rose higher into the sky, turning our vans into toaster ovens, cooking us like bagel bites. The clothing slowly became stripped down to the thinnest base layer we could manage. The sweatpants and tank tops that were perfect morning attire in the desert became a cage that trapped in the heat and prevented breathing between body and air. Hunting boots, which climbed the leg up to the kneecap with kaki pants tucked in, was the worst idea ever. About three hours from our destination, we stopped to have lunch at another gas station. The humidity could be felt on the skin like a wet cloth preventing inhalation.

Getting out of the car was almost painful. Our clothing was sticking to our bodies like a new layer of skin. Reaching for a chocolate bar would only result in sadness as the realization of the chocolates liquefaction kicked in. After hauling our burning corpses our of the buses, we feasted on cold drinks, French fries that needed salt, and chicken which has seen better days. We remained in our Eden of fast food for about an hour, only to be indecisive on the results of the bus ride to come. It was bad. There was no escaping the heat. Feeling slightly dizzy, constant throws of my arms onto Kendal’s shoulder exclaiming “I’m dying” kept the humor level at a steady level of non existent.

We kept peering at the horizon wishing that the next dark mountain was the ocean. Then, the coast was in sight. Driving through beach town slums we drove down the hotels road. We poured out of the vans hoping to feel the hotel air conditioning, only to be sadly disappointed that the hotel lobby was an open-air room. After about half an hour of meaningless waiting, we got to our rooms, which were spaced out strangely. They had Wi-Fi and air conditioning, which is really the only thing on our must haves list. Emails to family at home and FB updates took up the first half hour of our stay at the Mombasa Beach Hotel. We found out about the tsunami that hit Japan, but we were happy to hear that the Japan m-term was not affected. We had the afternoon off to go to the beach and swim in the pool, which most of us took advantage of. We had dinner at the hotel – buffet style. We are all so happy that we survived the trip to the coast, and we have high hopes for the future of this section of our m-term.
-Thomas