We stayed in a small hotel in Mtwapa, which is about 18kms from Mombasa. It is a tourist destination so prices are more expensive than Olepolos. However, I was not so much having a weekend break in Kenya as having a weekend break with Kenyans. It was a very different and enlightening experience.
The Georgous Hotel was clean and simple – much better than you would get at home if you were only paying £5 per person per night. I was delighted to have my own room even if there were some large holes in my mosquito net, no toilet seat and no showerhead. At least there was water and I had a little balcony overlooking the busy town! A great place to people watch!
It was important that we counted every shilling to ensure we could do some excursions with the team. Bonface calculated our food budget at 150Ks (£1.14) for breakfast, snacks (to share between 19 of us for lunch (at a cost of £1 each) and 350Ks (£2.67) for dinner. Was it possible? Not only was it possible but we ate like kings. Breakfast was sausage, eggs and chappati, lunch was bananas and buns and dinner was nyama choma, ugali, cabbage and rice. Everyone was delighted with the food.
No individual bottles of water for us. We bought a 25 litre bottle then filled our own bottles for 500KS instead of 2000Ks. I must be honest. It wasn’t chilled and I would have shelled out the extra for the refrigerated one (since it was 32 degrees) but I was determined not to play the role of fussy msungu. I would eat, sleep and live like my Kenyan colleagues even if it meant drinking warm water and being eaten alive by mosquitos.
Transport was by walking or matatu – a Kenyan minibus, whose driver follows NO rules of the road. A 45 minute ride to Mombasa cost us 100KS each (76p)
Our budget for the whole trip – train tickets for a 6 hour journey, accommodation, food, water, entertainment, excursions and a little spending money, was approximately £120 per person for a four day trip. We had a brilliant time and didn’t feel like we were being deprived of anything. I can’t imagine it would be possible to do this in the UK!
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