My Christmas and New Years!

A belated Happy Holidays to all you out there! I hope yours was an enjoyable and prosperous time with lots of family and friends around. I thought I better finally put up some pics from an interesting trip I took over the Christmas break. Myself and the five other girl interns traveled to an island called Lamu off the North East coast of Kenya!! It was an interesting adventure full of the trials of overland travel in Africa! Lamu is steeped in Swahili history, a mix of African and Arabic cultures and a predominantly Muslim island. For those of you with the time and interest a full detailed account has been written by Laura, a literary genius ;) and fellow intern, on her blogsite lauradevries.blogspot.com! It’s a long but fascinating read and I don’t think I could capture it any better than she has….lets just say it takes a long time to explain!! Look for the link on the right hand side of this page!! And enjoy some of the pictures I am posting here!

We stopped in at the Giraffe Centre outside Nairobi before we caught the train to the coast.

Getting up close and personal while feeding a giraffe at the Centre! They have such long, purple, slimy tongues!!

The train from Nairobi to Mombasa on the coast. Last relic from the imperial British East Africa days, including silver service dinner!



Bryony and Laura getting off the train...stopped a little short of the platform! Happy to finally be on the coast and closer to our destination...or so we thought!



Happy to have found transport and hired this pink/purple matatu, complete with pimps painted on the side, to drive us to Lamu. We didn't know what awaited us!!

...and this is how we felt/looked when we finally arrived at our hotel room in Lamu at 1030 at night! Ok well I thought we were doing the 'frazzled' face for the picture but apparantly we were smiling.Finally some paradis!! KT and I hit the beach.


A donkey ride on Christmas Eve...what could be more appropriate!!

Took a dhow trip on Christmas Day.


Fishing for Christmas Dinner!!! I caught two!! I think the pirate head gear helped!!



The beach where we spent christmas day!!

Our faithful guides prepared us a delicious swahili meal for christmas dinner. Making coconut milk...from scratch!! Using a fantastic shredder/stool that these Kenyans thought up...way to be ingenuitive!!

Some henna art I got done by a local lady. On my skinny feet...hmmm they are weird looking.

Muslim ladies walking throught the streets.

A picture of Exciting Coach (quite literally!) which we were forced to take at the last minute on the journey back from the coast to nairobi after the train tracks flooded.

New Years Eve in Kampala at the bash at the Sheraton hotel grounds. To bad I don't have a picture of when KT and I ran onstage and embarassed ourselves dancing in front of a thousand people!