I wish I could make this short, but there is too much to say. So, for those dedicated readers (Mom), here’s a novel.

This week has been gloomy because of the rain, but on Friday we finally saw a glimpse of the sun. I took a picture out our office window. It was a Kenyan holiday on Friday and we were planning some extravagant vacation to Shimba Hills but all plans were killed because of the rain. Friday night, we had dinner at a wonderful Indian restaurant and got some gelato from a Chinese place. Weird?

On Saturday, the sun finally came out and it was a great day. We decided to adventure to the Gede Ruins. We left around 11:00, walked to catch a matatu at “lights,” and got hassled by a bunch of guys to get on a bus. Andrew and Sam directly told them that we didn’t need any help, we knew where we were going. Ha, that didn’t stop them. They actually got in a little bit of a fist fight over who was right. One said take the express bus to Malindi, the other said take a matatu to Mtwapa…it was riot. Once we got onto the matatu one guy claimed that he had helped us and was trying to get into the car to get money or cigarettes from us. I thought he was trying to get in, but nah he just wanted payment. He finally “fell out” and get in an argument with another guy watching the whole thing.

So here we go on this rickety matatu. The country side was so green and beautiful. All my pictures of that didn’t quite turn out. But we passed by lots of cool mosques, goats, women carrying water on their heads, and children playing next to little huts. We also saw tons of these plants that look like aloe plants but are actually used to make rope. Since it has been raining, there was one spot where all the fields were flooded and we almost got stuck on the road that was flooded too. This matatu ride honestly felt like a rollercoaster. We were stuffed into the back seats, there was lots of clinking metal, and we were speeding up then slowing down and turning all at the same time. Pure insanity.

We got hassled again when we got off in Kilifi and somehow got hurdled onto a huge bus (where Sam and I had to stand for a fourth of the ride). When we got off at the Gede ruins, we were exhausted. It’s funny, a tourist attraction here is so different than one would be in the US. There weren’t big signs or a bus to take us there. We walked another couple of miles through this tiny town to get to the ruins.

Once we were there, of course they charged us 7 bucks but we walked in there free of a guide or tour group. It seemed deserted which was perfect. I wish I could have better captured how beautiful it was. The light through the trees made everything look haunted and sacred. I seriously felt like I had to whisper. There were these huge wells that went down who knows how far that had no sort of fence or caution sign. Sam read a little bit out of his guide book and we learned that no one knows too much about the Gede ruins. They’ve made some guesses but there is no record of these people. My favorite part of the whole area was the Swiss Family Robinson treehouse. This beats our childhood tree house easily (sorry Dad). From the top platform, you could look down at the palace, one of the mosques, and a bunch of the small houses. Wandering through the place was a little creepy. Sam’s and Andrew’s feet got covered with ants and we kept walking through spider webs with these weird looking spiders. I pulled out my bag of peanuts for a snack and all of these monkeys appeared from nowhere. Haha, apparently they can be violent for food. It was definitely worth the 2 hours it took us to get there.

After walking from the ruins back to the main road, we waited for a bus again for about 30-40 mins. We fought our way onto a bus (the matatus and buses were all full because it’s bank day? Some one told us that) and were able to sit the whole time. This drive was sickening. We were flying all over the place in the bus. I was out of my seat half the time. I’m so glad I don’t get motion sickness; I would’ve died if I did.

A put up some randoms from Andrew’s camera as well. I just wrote some quick blurbs to explain. Today, we shopped at the Nakumatt for about an hour. I love grocery shopping, especially here. I spent an extra 5 bucks on candy and other stuff. Trying out their candy and drinks is one of my favorite things to do. Especially because most of the labels you can’t read, expect for a few words in English-the rest is in Arabic or something. We had some fabulous pad thai tonight and it is a miracle, my laundry dried. I’ve never appreciated dry clothes more. I haven’t had a towel for the past few days…

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