2-6 Januar 2010 Holiday at the coast

Visiting Shimbahills would not make an additional impression on my parents af ter Masai Mara, but I thought it would be nice to visit the Shimbahills lodge, unfortunately we were not able to enter this place without paying complete park fee, which I think is just a little to much for enjoying the waterhole view, so I turned around and drove back. We went to Nomads at the beach instead. There it was no problem to find a table although it was lunch time in the highest season of year. Although this is one of the nicest places at the beach, where I had a few very good lunches during my previous visits, my parents were hardly able to enjoy it. The service was very bad, things had to be ordered three times before they were brought, and when the food finally arrived, it was cold.
On Monday we went to see my ongoing work at the coast, in the car where Stephen, Thomas, my father and me. Merijn and my mother where staying at Galu. We did the same round as last time; first Mrima then Shimbahills there lunch before visiting Miss Helens farm and Mr. Lugwe. Every place I take pictures of the Jatropha trees and take notes , which are compiled in a report I write for work. Mr Lugwe invited us for a coconut, over which we had a nice talk. Also Thomas who had lived in Shimbahills for six weeks had many interesting stories to share.
We visited the Colobus trust day of our stay, where we were shown four little monkeys that were staying. The lady told us lovely stories about baobab trees too. On Eiriks directions we found the fish restaurant called Colobus shade next to the local fish auction. There we were able to select three beautiful white snappers that we would later enjoy for diner, and selected a bottle of white wine to be chilled. I had a long walk along the beach, where we can walk to via a public access path. There was much more wind that day and many kit-surfers where enjoying this. Before returning I tried to swim, but for this the conditions were less good than the previous days. Luckily I only had to be rude to one of the beachboys, the other understood a polite negative answer to their questions.
Around 7 in the morning of the 6th of January we left for Nairobi, and on the way we passed Kinango, where I was asked to take a view on the recently planted Jatropha field. This way we would also avoid Mombasa. The quality of road made that we reach the tarmac 11. All the way we passed very dry shrub lands, with very little vegetation and a many bags of charcoal waiting for a buyer. We held a short break at Voi for ‘kuku choma’ with fries. In Nairobi we hit the afternoon traffic, and although it was still holiday for many it took us almost an hour to pass all roundabouts. From there we went on to Westgate, where we had diner and bought a few groceries at Nakumat.

More monkeys and other photos at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/30081401@N03/sets/72157623069486543/