10 Days Girls Trip to Zanzibar, Mombasa & Nairobi

I always say, travel with people whose company you actually enjoy. 🙂

Travellers

East, South and West (-ern) Africa connection! Su & Pet from Namibia, Jennie & Claudie from Ghana and Zee from Ethiopia.

Preparation

1. Destinations and Travel Dates

On 22 July 2017, we created a Whatsapp group to discuss travel dates and destinations. Our main destination was Zanzibar, Tanzania. We later included Mombasa and Nairobi because we could travel around using local flights.

Destinations and dates

2. Visas

We researched on visa policies for the countries we were visiting.

Kenya: No visa required for Ethiopians, Ghanaians and Namibians
Tanzania: No visa required for Ghanaians and Namibians. Visa required for Ethiopians

3. Flight Tickets

We monitored the fares frequently to get the best deal. There was no significant change.

Tickets from Zanzibar to Mombasa & Mombasa to Nairobi were not expensive so we decided to buy those first.

Mombasa to Nairobi – 5,270.00KES (~250.00GHC or ~52.00USD)
Zanzibar to Mombasa – 12,006.00KES (~572.00GHC or ~119USD)

Tickets from country of residence to Zanzibar and Nairobi to country of residence were bought at our convenience.

4. Accommodation

Nungwi (Zanzibar)
Two people searched and provided the group with three accommodation options. We finally settled on Nungwi House (Google Review) and spent a total of $492.00 (1,125,499 TZ Shillings; $98.40 pp)
Mombasa
Accommodation was provided by a friend in Mombasa
Nairobi
Accommodation was provided by a friend in Nairobi (can be found on Airbnb)

5. Proposed Itinerary

We needed a plan to make the most out of the trip. We searched for must sees and included them in our itinerary. We did 80% of what was listed. Some had to be cancelled because we booked too late, were exhausted or had limited funds.

Zanzibar

Zanzibar Itinerary

Mombasa

Mombasa Itinerary

Nairobi

Nairobi Itinerary

…and that was it. Everything was sorted for our 10 day trip to East Africa!

Highlights

Police encounter in Mombasa

One of us almost got arrested for recording a police officer. The intention was to record the ferry and a policeman got in the way. He noticed one of us was recording and snatched her phone.

“I know my right” doesn’t work in many parts of Africa. Even after proving we were foreigners and not from the Kenyan media, he would not let us go. We had to either pay 2,000 KES (~95GHC/~20USD) or go to court.

Which option did we go with? I will leave that to your imagination. 🙂

The irony of the whole situation is that, we left with the video still on the phone. 😀

It is against the law to record or take a picture of a policeman in Kenya!

Brew Bistro Rooftop Lounge (Westlands)

Oooh! if you are ever in Nairobi, a visit to Brew Bistro is a must! We weren’t there for the brewed beer or good food. The great ambiance, amazing DJ and music caught us off guard! We never ‘experred‘ (expected) it! We danced from 9pm to 4am…and that was only because two oldies in the group were sleepy (not mentioning names :P).

Namibian accent

You know how Nigerians and Ghanaians beef about pronunciations? This was happening a lot with the Namibians and Ghanaians. 🙂

Listen for yourself in the video below:

Even after playing pronunciation audio on the internet, our Namibian ladies could only hear ‘het’ for hat or ‘ret’ for rat.

The one that beat it all was ‘Supreme’. I am not sure how to transcribe that. If you meet any Namibian, just ask them to pronounce ‘Supreme’.

It was all fun. We had a good time teasing each other. 🙂

Su’s first coconut

You may know Namibia is mostly desert so most of their crops are imported. During the trip, Su had her first fresh coconut.

This was her expression. Priceless!

Matatu Rides

Matatus (public transport) are moving clubs. The only disadvantage here is the lack of space to dance. Some claimed to have WiFi on board and some had security checks before boarding.

It was a lot of fun using them at night. 🙂

Maasai Jump

Yes we tried the famous Maasai jump with some Maasais at Diani Beach in Mombasa. Let the pictures speak for themselves

Splitting Bills

To save time calculating how much each person needed to pay for food or particular service, who ever had enough cash paid upfront whenever we were out. This was later reimbursed as some point during the trip.

It was always fun getting back to our rooms to split bills. Whilst some cared less about owing, others could not retire to bed unless they paid off their debts.