22th March 2009

The rest of the week at the coast went very fast. We had a lovely diner together with Henriette and Noreen is becoming a real mamma now with only two more months of pregnacy to go. The initiation of research at Shimba hills went incredibly well. Now it is just hoping for some good rains, and some parts have hardly had anything for almost a year. That was very visible at the coast and also in the Elephant sanctuary we visited on Saturday. I guess we were lucky to find some dozing elephants in the shade of a tree and something to drink at the lodge so much off season. We had a pizza dinner at one of my favourite places ‘Ali Barbour and the forty thieves’. There Merijn build castles in the floodline of the pearl-white sand and together we watched the kite-surfers. On Sunday morning we started driving again at 07 back home. With more luck than wisdom I drove out of Mombasa and around 1230 we arrived at the Hunters lodge in Kiboko for a short lunch break. The spot is lovely, but I am afraid the glory days have long since passed somewhere in the late 70’s. Then the horrible part of the road was to be taken, here the traffic came to a complete halt many times. In the city we were lucky it was Sunday, so we arrived home just after 16, with a dusty car and a tired mind.