Vacation to Malindi
Jessica, who begins her senior year at Eastern Mennonite University, was with us from May to late August. We took advantage of this and had our fanciest vacation ever as a fa
mily. Cindy's sister has a timeshare, and we were able to rent a week relatively inexpensively at a resort along the Kenyan coast in Malindi. We traveled to Malindi on a bus, which took nearly 12 hours. It was, however, a comfortable trip and the driver did a good job. We traveled back on a night bus, which also took close to 12 hours. The bus trips were well worth it as we enjoyed the week at the beach and visiting 1000-year-old Malindi very much. The town is an old Muslim Swahili town, that is now home to many Italians, making for an interesting mix.
We stayed at Coral Keys Resort. We swam in 4 different pools and the Indian Ocean. Alia liked to switch pools every 30 minutes or so, making us play 'musical' swimming pools the whole week, but we didn't mind. Each pool had its own character. There was also entertainment many evenings, such as a demonstration of local snakes, including poisonous ones and huge pythons, and a night of local African traditional dancing, which was very interesting to watch. The hotel's restaurant was very expensive, so we normally went into town asking the tuk-tuk driver to take us to a low-priced local restaurant. We got to eat some excellent biryani rice, pilau and masala sauces for just a few dollars that way. (see the pictures for a tuk-tuk) We explored some of the older Muslim sections of town, which felt like home to us!! I, especially, enjoy walking and exploring new places, above all in an old town like Malindi. Jordan, Alia and I visited a reptile park, where we saw about a dozen species of snakes like, cobras, green mambas, black mambas, puff adders, pythons and others. We also saw lots of crocodiles and turtles and lizards. All of the animals had been caught locally. We took a boat to visit the Kenya Marine Park and snorkelled. We saw hundreds of fish of many different species, including clown fish, like Nemo (from the Disney movie). Cindy, Jessica and I visited the Malindi museum. A coelacanth, a large species of fish that has been around since the dinosaurs, was caught near Malindi about 20 years ago, and it was on display at the museum. Cindy found this exhibit very interesting. Alia and I, and Jordan and Alia (different days) took a long walk at low tide through the tide pools, seeing several starfish, sea urchins, sea cucumbers, sea worms, crabs, sea snails and so forth. Alia, especially, loved riding in the tuk-tuks.
The following are photographs from our vacation. They include some at the hotel, and some of the historical sites in Malindi, and one of a tuk-tuk going down the main beach road of Malindi. The large white monument was put up by Portuguese explorer, Vasco da Gama, in the late 15th century. The white building with a thatched roof and a cross on top is explained in another photo. It is the first church in East Africa, built more than 500 years ago. There is also a photograph of the ruins of an ancient mosque in the ground of a newer one.
posted by Brislen Family @ 5:11 PM
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