Sailing

With a public holiday during the school half-term came a chance to go to the beach, for the first family beach holiday for two years, with previous attempts at Easter 2020 and Easter 2021 both being cancelled due to COVID-related domestic travel bans. Having been to Malindi, Diani and Mombasa, this trip we went to Kilifi, the least touristy of the remaining tourist places on the Coast (another, more touristy and more high-end one is Watamu which we visited during this trip).

Kilifi is a very local town with only 2 hotels of note alone with many smaller hostels, backpacker places and airbnbs. We stayed in one of the hotels which has a water sports club based on its beach so that we could be close to the sports club, would get some activities thrown in as part of the package, and to make life easy (we even went full-board). 

Over the 5 days, we got into a routine with runs in the morning, breakfast, swimming pool, lunch, water sports, dinner. The water sports included sailing small boats, windsurfing, catamaran, and scuba-diving (for Hannah only as Leah is not old enough) for the kids, with Andrea and I also doing some. The hotel also had some entertainment in the evenings and a Crazy Golf Course; Crazy Golf was even crazier when we did it as it since it had rained the previous day and some of the course was still under water or had obstacles that had fallen from the trees!

Windsurfing proved too hard for Leah, with the heavy sail, but Hannah managed well, and without too much wind it was not too difficult. Sailing was quite successful, and the kids enjoyed the catamarans' speed. Hannah is such a good swimmer, that she normally spends half her time under water anyway, so her first scuba-dive in the pool went very easily for her. Next time we'll see if she can try something in the sea or take a course if she is interested.

We drove an hour north up the coast twice to visit some friends who were staying in Watamu, which has a lot of high-end hotels, to spend time by the pool with them and also go snorkeling from a glass-bottom boat. There is not that colorful coral left (appararently after an el nino event sometime ago) but what is left still supports a decent amount of fish which is fantastic to swim amongst when the tide is low. The tide is very dramatic on this part of the coast with it changing a few metres in height each day, which translates to the sea going out tens or even hundreds of metres until there is a deeper drop. Dropping some bread into the ocean never fails to attract fish for those who are impatient!

During COVID-19 quite a few people worked from the coast, and that seems to have helped many of the tourism and hospitality places survive without as many short-term tourists. Kilifi has organised an annual New Year Party for a while and whilst we were there this year also organised another event though of a different nature - mainly yoga, mediation, talks and the likes. 

The final note on Kilifi? Well just like the rest of the Coast, they move at their own pace, which is slow. Even the motorbike taxis, the minibuses as well as the cars, service and everything goes slowly.

Meanwhile, during our vacation the President announced the end of the curfew after 18 months so bar's and restaurants are all open late again and Kenyans have eagerly gone out to enjoy themselves. Traffic is often high Friday and Saturday evenings (at least for the moment) and there is loud music from our nearest bar (smack in a residential area, but I don't think there are many rules around that) although usually only until about 11pm. So apart from the mask-wearing "requirement" that is not really followed any more, no other restrictions really remain for now, since the rates are so low.

Though only 5% of adults are double vaccinated, about 15% have had a first dose, and because these are mostly in the cities, in Nairobi it is over 30% of adults with a first dose. Combined with the high levels of immunity from infection over the last 18 months it looks like COVID is mostly a thing of the past here (and the weather is getting hotter anyway for the next 4 months, not that it was particularly cold).

Public Transport Buses

Alongside Kenya's first toll road that is being built on pillars on top of an existing road, Kenya is also building a Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system which is a dedicated bus lane, normally on the inside of the roads and thus accessed through footbridges that drop down into the road. There will be one added to the existing road under the toll road and also several others added to the other highways in Nairobi that are either three lane or two lane.

I am not sure if it will make a big difference to traffic even if there are enough buses (to start with there will not be many) and if they are well used, since they will just replace the existing privately operated buses. However it should let those who use the BRT save time in traffic jams, and maybe encourage other drivers to switch to public transport, if it is efficient, clean and orderly, which is not the case with the current privately operated buses (those often colourfully painted, privately funded and operated minibuses, though with licenses to operate on certain routes).

I was also going to indicate that those private buses are unsafe, but the irony is that sitting in that bus is generally fairly safe, it is those sitting into the cars surrounding those buses that might not be safe due to the crazy driving of those buses. 

One of the reasons they are so dangerous is that they tend to act as if they can create a special bus lane whenever they want. Usually into the oncoming traffic lane, but sometimes on the inside lane, sometimes on the pavement (or half on the pavement), sometimes on the outside, sometimes in between lanes, and often at junctions where they go in a lane to turn left or right (that does not have a queue), but actually they go straight on cutting in. Such behavior is dangerous to other drivers, motorcyclists and pedestrians and is called called overlapping. In other words it is a long-term overtake manouver where there is no gap in front to overtake into. 

The most dangerous aspect of it is when it is in a lane of oncoming traffic, which may initially be empty but then someone comes and the bus has to force its way back into its own lane, and the oncoming vehicle often has to brake dangerously whilst that happens. Ultimately though the bus has pushed in front of a few vehicles here or there to save it time, it of course has delayed those behind it (in private vehicles, so maybe the bus drivers feel they have a moral right to do that since they are ferrying more passengers and of lower class), but it normally messes up the traffic coming the other way especially badly which otherwise would not have any traffic.

Slowly the BRT is coming together, which is great, but I think all of us wish that of greater priority should be enforcing traffic laws against dangerous driving, in particular of the dangerous private buses (which are also immensely polluting belching out fumes because they are so old and do not invest in the bus itself). Still, it is nice to see the BRT stations slowly being built and it will be interesting to see how it works whenever it is launched! 

Germany and UK Summer holiday

In August I took a vacation in Europe, spending 10 days in Germany and then 5 days in the UK (having had to spend 10 days out of Kenya in order to avoid going into a quarantine hotel in the UK, as Kenya was on the UK Red List at that time, even though it was on something equivalent to the Green List in Germany!)

My dad came to Germany and we went camping to a wonderful place (Ortrand Lausitz) with a pool and slide (and no COVID restrictions meant it was a normal holiday). We rented bikes for a day and cycled all around a lake nearby (Senftenberger) with the kids doing well, especially Leah as I think it was about 15km or so. She even climbed a tower on one side of the lake to get a view, and that was over 20 flights of stairs. A very nice cycle path around the lake through countryside, and we also stopped by a beach on one end which had one of those inflatable adventure parks on the lake to entertain the kids.

We had a couple of days at home there with the usual walks with the dogs and eating with the family and then went away again for a couple of nights, this time to stay in a static caravan, where we rented pedalos on the lake and also managed to get the kids walking. We also went to Berlin for a day for a few museums. The spy museum was very interesting and quite kid friendly, though it was hard to drag them away from the game there where they had to get across a room full of lasers. The Science Museum was also fun, with plenty of planes, boats and things for kids to play with. Of course we barely scratched the surface of that one.

After taking various COVID tests we then flew to England for 5 days (with a very long queue at the airport immigration since kids cannot use the passport machines) to finally see the rest of my family who I'd not seen for 15 months, and the kids had not seen for over 18 months. We managed to spend a lot of time with my nephew who is now very talkative and active. The kids had lots of fun at a local children's farm in Langleybury, and my kids really enjoyed talking with their aunties and grandma, whilst walking to local playgrounds and picking blackberries.

A visit to Cassiobury Park's impressive playground and swimming area (that had a reservation system to manage numbers) included a small train ride, a short walk and an education experience learning about canals and locks thanks to a very friendly man who was punting his canal boat down the canal. Leah especially really liked helping him out.

Apart from baking cookies and playing a lot, we also took the kids tenpin bowling (it might have been their first time actually) and to see a Tottenham game in the stadium. Unfortunately it was an evening game so Leah started to get tired and complain of the loud noise, but hopefully they'll remember the experience. They certainly like to support Tottenham when they see games on TV anyway. The stadium is still impressive, and it was quite surreal to be in a place with 30,000 people, who didn't have to wear masks (in theory  everyone was supposed to be vaccinated to to have tested negative to get in but there weren't many checks).

The home-testing for COVID was only half successful as Leah and I were negative but Hannah's was inconclusive so we had to take another test (partly as part of the day 2 testing regime in the UK and partly to get back into Kenya again), which was a pain. That might not be necessary much more thankfully. We took the kids (now this phrase includes Jake, my nephew) to Gulliver's Land (my kids must have been at least two times before) which is a theme park mainly for under 10s. Unfortunately it was the last day of the summer holiday so there were long queues but it was manageable. 

On our final day in England we went to Regent's Park where there is an outdoor theatre that with kids shows in the mornings that was quite sweet (and also quite childish, though OK for Leah's age), and met Jon and his family in the playgrounds there. There was a slight panic going to the airport as there was a traffic jam (though fortunately it has dissipated by the time we reached it) and we missed one of the junctions on the motorway, but eventually all went well, and we got back into Germany (who were very thorough checking for test and vaccine records) to spend a night by the airport before flying back to Kenya the next day.

A wonderful time and hopefully it won't be such a long time until the next visits, nor so complicated, as by the time I write this Kenya has been taken off the red list in the UK so travel is easier. Wonderful to spend time with Jake especially at that age, and allow the three kids to play so nicely together. Next time there will be Zach to play with too, just born to my sister last week. At least my kids are now old enough to mostly feed and dress themselves, as well as read, cycle and everything, so it won't be too chaotic in future holidays!