Mombasa

A new train station opened in Kenya at  beginning of the month. The railway created a five hour trip from Nairobi to Mombasa for 700 shillings.

Earlier this week I read news updates about it – there’s a lot of excitement because the train’s less expensive and faster than the 8-hour bus ride. Since everyone’s pumped, the train sells out because it only runs once per day at 9am. This would be fine if you could buy tickets online but (right now) you can only buy them at the train station and most people buy them in advance. Which is buy the airport. Which wasn’t convenient to any of us who wanted to play in the ocean. 

Six of us agreed to meet at the SGR Nairobi station at 6:30am to insure we got tickets when the booth opened at 7am. As you can see, the line was long. We made it through two sets of security guards just to stand in another line. Then…panic set in. The ticker overhead counted down the number of available seats. 13 in economy! I was third in my line and the people behind me started whispering, “This is too slow”. Then the line got tighter. People hovered over shoulders in front of them. One man jumped to the front, money in hand, trying to cut the line. The grumbling got louder. One woman cut from another line yelling about “Stupid rules!” I made it to the front just in time and ordered everyone’s tickets to make sure we all had a seat. After I paid, the crowd was so tight that I couldn’t even turnaround. I had to duck between peoples legs to get out. 

I would tell you about the ridiculously long wait for the snack cart but it’s not that important. Five hours later we arrived in Mombasa. A taxi drove us onto a ferry and to our villa in Diani Beach. Totally worth it.