This past new year's celebration has by far probably been one of the most epic in my history of ringing in the new year. After spending the week leading up to Christmas quietly in Dar, I flew out to the south coast of Kenya to meet up with folks. Diani is a beach town about an hour south of Mombasa, and it's apparently where all the international population of Kenya descend for new years.
Some of my co-workers from Tanzania had planned to congregate there after their various East African travels, as well as some Accenture colleagues based in Nairobi. In total, when you count friends and friends of friends, there were probably something like 20 of us who hung out together at some point. It was essentially 5 epic days where none of us got much sleep (for me at least, this was partially due to the fact that I was sleeping in a tent). We alternated between lounging on beautiful white sand beaches, and then partying like rock stars until 4 or 5am.
The first day of my trip, I left Dar at 5am, ran into Melanie, Ryan, and Jason in Nairobi for our connection to Mombasa. This was a good thing, because I was contemplating my transportation options as a single traveler from Mombasa to Diani, which could be a bit expensive. But, when you divide by 4, everything is much more palatable. When we got to Mombasa, we took a taxi as far as the ferry because we didn't want to wait in the long queue for cars crossing the ferry. As a passenger, you just climb aboard the next ferry, and you even get to cross for free. we figured that we would just catch a taxi or some other vehicle on the other side of the ferry. The ferry ride itself was ridiculously short, probably something like 0.1 miles. It occurred to me that a lot of time and fuel could have been saved had someone just built a bridge. Once landed on the other side, we actually didn't see that many taxis, and instead saw a bunch of matatus (think VW vans packed with about 20 people). We weren't that jazzed about being packed in like sardines, especially with our luggage, but we saw a half empty matatu and offered to just buy out the remaining seats, on the condition that the driver would take us all the way to our destination. We essentially each paid for 3 seats, which came out to be about $2.50. Someone did point out that it's these kind of approaches that make Americans seem arrogant and appear to just throw money around. But, our options were this, or take a private taxi.
The whole of Diani was completely booked solid, minus the places that cost $250+ per night, so we ended up staying at a campsite that rents out "luxury" texts that come with beds. Nice enough, but it was incredibly hot, you had to use shared facilities, and there's no sound insulation. After settling in, we ventured out on the beach and ended up at a bar where the Kenyan national kite surfing championship was taking place! Fun! This would also be the site of much hanging out and staying up late for many more days to come. After having a few drinks, I ran into Aras, who introduced us to the others who were with him from Nairobi (Ed, Jamie, and Mickey). we didn't get to chat long because we were all supposed to rendez-vous shortly for dinner.
That evening's dinner was quite an adventure. It almost warrants a separate blog entry on its own. Let's see if the abridged version can do the experience any justice. That evening, we had all planned to meet at a restaurant called Ali Barbor's "The Cave". Many us of assumed that this was just the restaurant attached to the bar we had been drinking at all day, which was a chill and laid back place. After all, all signs listed Ali Barbor and Forty Thieves (name of the bar) together. Little did we know that "The Cave" was a very nice establishment. Anyways, team Nairobi arrived earlier, and said that they were with a group of 11 meeting at 8. The restaurant asked if we had reservations, and team Nairobi through Team 'Zania had made reservations since instructions to meet at this restaurant at this exact time were fairly explicit. sure enough, the restaurant had a reservation for 11 people at 8pm. So as soon as Team 'Zania arrived, we were promptly seated. we proceeded to order drinks and even our food. Little were we aware that at the same time, another group of 11 had arrived and was waiting in the bar area, and they insisted that they had a reservation. The restaurant came back to our party to confirm that we did indeed have reservations, which is when it came out that actually no one had made reservations. Quite an embarrassing situation. There was miscommunication all around, with different members of the group understanding the situation slightly differently and also reacting differently according to their understanding of how the evenings events had played out. Poor Ed, he was the ambassador between the restaurant and our surly group of 11.
Lots of options were proposed, and the one that finally stuck was that half of the group went to eat elsewhere, while half would stay, have a drink or two, and wait for the restaurant to be able to seat our now much smaller group. I was in the lucky 5 that was able to stay and eat at "The Cave". The food was classy french cuisine, and the backdrop was this awesome cave (imagine the kind you see stalagmites and stalactites in). The company was also divine. Not sure how it happened, but it ended up being me + Team Nairobi. Perhaps it was a bit foreshadowing of the rest of the weekend.
After dinner, we all reconvened at Forty Thieves, which by now had transformed into a club on the beach. There were plenty of couches and chairs on the beach, so we settled in, had drinks, and chatted the night away. The group size shrank throughout the night, but a few of us were out until 4:30am. Remember, I woke up at 3am that morning to catch a 5am flight out of Dar. I was completely unphased for some reason.
The days are all going to start running together for me pretty soon, so I'll just give you the highlights. I slept hardly a wink the first night (morning?) because it started to get bright about the same time that I laid down to go to sleep. And, as mentioned previously, there was no sound proofing, so I could hear everything going on outside of my tent. But no bother, you don't need a lot of sleep to go sit around on a beautiful beach. The next day seemed to be dedicated to expanding our social circle, as we went around meeting up with different friends connected to the Nairobi team. Among them, Luke who also works at Accenture, who had worked with Mickey in London, who was on holiday visiting his girlfriend's family who lived in Kenya. There was also Caterina, a gorgeous Italian who works for the UN in Nairobi. The next evening, we would also meet Ludan, who also works for Accenture, but is on VSO assignment instead of ADP, but I'm getting ahead of myself. Night two, were out until 4am. There was much talk of conserving energy for NYE, but clearly that didn't work out so well.
Jan 31. Mickey had the bright idea of renting bikes and go exploring a bit. Luke and I were game, but I was a bit apprehensive. Mickey is quite a competent biker from what I could tell, but he and Luke promised to go easy on me, so I figured why not. I'll tell you why not!! 1. Poor roads + rocky paths. 2. Super hard seat that wobbled. 3. No padded shorts. I was in SERIOUS pain!! After a short distance, I just couldn't take it any more, and the boys were kind enough to detour to the beach where we could stop for some water, a quick plunge in the ocean, and some rerouting. Randomly, on this somewhat remote part of the beach, we ran into Ed and Jamie! Ed had just finished a half day's worth of kite surfing lessons! Very cool. After a bit, Luke, Mickey, and I rode along the beach, aiming for the packed sand, and it was a rather pleasant ride! Once we got to the end of the beach and could go no further, we turned around, only to realize that our incredibly pleasant ride was made possible by a nice tail wind, but now that we had turned around, it was a wicked head wind. Bleh. We (I) were making slow progress back, but since Luke had to get back earlier, he jetted ahead. Mickey and I searched for a place to have lunch, and found this beautiful 5 star hotel that allowed us to dine there. It was such an oasis, we didn't want to leave. But when we saw that we had 30 minutes to return the bikes, we knew we had to book it. I powered through the pain to get the bikes back in time, but as soon as I saw the bike shop, I could not be off that bike soon enough. 4 days later, I think I was still saddle sore. =P
Next I grabbed some dinner and got ready for the actual NYE party. A bit of background about the party... In the past, there was only one big NYE party in Diani, but this year, some argument between the party hosts and the venue resulted in two competing parties and factions. Everyone mentioned thus far was going to be at Forty Thieves, the original party venue. We arrived minutes before midnight, and had just enough time to buy a round of shots to ring in the new year. I know, you're thinking that the party is supposed to climax at midnight, but it honestly didn't get hopping until about 1 or 2. This is probably because there's a tradition of staying up to watch the sun rise over the Indian Ocean, and then going for a morning swim! I stayed to watch the sun rise, but called it quits at 7am sans swim, since I was in a white dress and wholly unprepared for any swimming. Ed, Jamie, and Aras however, stayed out until 10:30am!! I was supposed to get in a car at 8am to go catch a 11am flight in Mombasa, but was convinced to push back my travel plans until Monday morning! A lot of ideas sound good when you're delirious from lack of sleep.
I was happy to have one more day unwinding on the beach though, and the drive back to Nairobi with Ed, Aras, Jamie, and Mickey was a hoot and a half, though there were some harrowing and death-defying moments. Thanks Aras and Ed for keeping us alive!
Someone earlier in the week had made a comment about how funny it is that we often spend a lot of time and energy crafting NYE plans, but many of us don't remember what we did a year later. I can safely say that Diani will go down in the books for a long time. Up there with balloon drop at SF Symphony, and trekking through Asia trying to escape the Abba "happy new year" song. =)
Thanks for a great start to a new year guys!!!
