Postcards from Kenya’s Two Coasts // FrameAmbition
Happy new-ish year, friends.
Bet ya didn’t know Kenya had more than one coast, huh?
It’s true. Ish. There’s the well-known and loved white sandy beaches on the Indian Ocean (see here) and there’s the shores of Lake Victoria, the source of the Nile, which Kenya shares with Uganda and Tanzania. Freshwater fish, sugar cane, humid days and boda-boda rides are abundant.
Only a few short weeks ago this was my life, water all around, friendly people in silly season mode and a short pause on my work and responsibilities. Short escapes are always nice.
It’s healthy to live in a different variation of your life for a bit.
Scenes from Impala Eco Lodge, Kisumu. Everything green you see is actually Lake Victoria, covered in hyacinthe. As beautiful and fascinating as it is destructive.
My cousins, sister and I ended up here accidentally, after asking two boda-boda drivers to take us from our aunt’s house to the Kisumu Museum. They said cool, suggesting they knew where it was and ended up taking us to the KWS Impala Sanctuary, a zoo-like park where impala and zebra roam freely but they had monkeys, lions cheetahs and a lone giraffe in enclosures. (Read: cages). As we were already there, we just went on in and made the best of it.
The conditions the animals were kept in bothered me more than they had the first time I visited, about 5 years before. A little age made me more critical, I suppose. In the end we found the eco lodge at one extreme and headed in for some drinks and something to snack on.
That’s where we saw the sunset to end all sunsets, realized the time and walked back in the dark to the main entrance with an armed guard surrounded by the sound of roaring lions in their cages. Adventure.
Then family-time officially wrapped up with a stint back in Nairobi to re-pack and re-calibrate before the friends road-trip South-East. Diani called.
It’s one of those things. You can do it over and over and convince yourself it’s been overdone and you should be trying new things. Then you’re in it again and realize what an ungrateful swine you’ve been. There’s no over-doing this, if you do it right.
A ride in a zebra, a fresh juice and striped fish breakfast with friendly strangers to start the year off right. Water everywhere. Serenity never far.