Downtown and Giant Tea towels (aka Kakois)

I just finished writing the Jipe Moyo , Day 1 post but I can’t upload it because the internet has gone to Kencada today.  So, I will start the next post. 

I had mentioned to Anke that I wanted to buy some kakoi for a friend at Camosun.  When Angela showed me what a kakoi was so I would know what she wanted, it looked like a giant tea towel to me.  They are cotton pieces of fabric about the size of a beach towel.  Anke has lots around the house and they come in the most beautiful colours.  So I wanted some too.  So on Wednesday, Anke asked the neighbour if she would let us borrow Freddie so he could escort me and Alina to town. Anke said we would get a better deal if we had a local with us but I think Freddie may have been a bit of a babysitter too.

We took the Mutatu all the way to downtown.  

We got the back seat so I finally got to get a picture.
This isn't nearly full.

Matatu Selfie - Freddie, Alina and me

We told Freddie that we wanted to go to Old Town. He said we weren’t allowed to, Anke told him he had to keep us away from Old Town.  We knew this wasn’t true so we made him take us in a tuktuk.  We hadn’t even made it 20 feet before we had a ‘tour guide’ hop on the tuktuk.  No worries, no money, but by the way we are stopping at this creepy dark gift shop.  Freddie was not happy to have us in Old Town.  I asked if we were going to get murdered or robbed and he said not but he really wanted to leave.  So, to keep him from freaking out, we went back to downtown. 

Old Town, as you can see,
it isn't worth upsetting Freddie

The creepy dark gift shop - get me out of here

Downtown is a hussling bussling place.  People, cars, matatus, tuktuks, carts everywhere.  We followed Freddie like little ducklings.  He took us to some obsure fabric shop to buy the kakois.  There wasn’t much selection of the kind I wanted.  But the owner kept sending his flunky upstairs to get more.  But flunky wasn’t too bright so he would go up three flights of stairs and then come back with something other than kakois.  The next trip up he only come back with one kakoi in a different colour.  So I would say, no, I want bright colours.  One would think the third try would be the charm, but one would be wrong.  We waited and waited, the owner calling the flunky with more and more harshness, but he never came back.  I guess the stairs were too much for him.

The first shop.  The owner wouldn't let me take
his picture, just the shop

Anyway, I chose three and one kakoi towel (a kakoi with a towel sewn onto the back).  He quoted a price.  I had no idea but it seemed high.  I checked with Freddie who said haggling was ok.  So I did my best Mexico act.  No that is too much.  Super low ball.  Super high counter.  I threaten to go to another store.  Lower price.  You know the drill.  I got him down about 30% and that took forever so in the end I bought the kakois and we left. 

But then I saw another store across the street that had kakois made into purses.  You will be amazed to hear that I did not buy one.  But I asked how much the kakois and the towels were.  The kakois were about the same, a little less, but we discovered that the previous shop had tried to totally shaft us on the towel.  Even with the 30% barter, we still paid more than the second shop charged at face value. Live and learn.  Plus shop number two had better towel selection so I bought another one.  

And then shop three, also reasonably priced, had a way better selection of kakios so I bought myself a beautiful green one.  Plus some little Christmas gifties for the girls back home.  Alina only bought one wrap/scarf.  Much more restraint. 

We bought some samosas to take home for lunch (another travel nurse no-no) and then the Matatu home.  Here are a couple of pictures I took out of the matatu window.  You may notice that Mombasa is not the most beautiful of cities.

This is the area beside the road where a matatu spends most
of its time, passing on the inside.  As you can imagine
it makes for a bumpy, splashy ride.

When we got back to the house, unmolested I’m sure due to Freddies careful watch, we had a quick dinner of samosas. Then we sat down to plan my excursions.  I had to buy my Uganda ticket.  I had finally heard from Francis that he was going to pick me up and book my hotels. I just had to get there.  So I booked a ticket on Kenya Air.  It leaves Mombasa at 5:30 am but it gets to Entebbe at 9:30 so if things go sour (Francis does a no-show) I will have lots of daylight to get myself organized (or kidnapped).

Then I tried to book me and Alina to Zanzibar.  The quoted price was $240 for a round trip ticket on Fly 540.  (Fly 540 is 'East Africa's low cost airline' so that should be good?)  We booked for two and paid about the right amount, it converted to Ksh (Kenyan Schillings) so we had to do the math and it seemed ok.  But it turned out, we only got one ticket for double the price.  That was not good. 

So the next day, we went to the Fly 540 office.  It turns out I paid almost $400!  The lady said sometimes the internet tickets will do that.  Sorry, no they can’t refund or cancel.  But she gave us the name of the customer relations person.  Anke bought Alina’s ticket.  Then I tried to book two tickets to Lamu, an island up north (where the gov’t of Canada says not to go).  But I couldn’t use my Visa anymore.  I guess they decided the third ticket was just one too many.    So Anke paid for those.  $90 each.  Good deal! Anke and Alina have friends there.  The second ticket is for Alina.  Anke can't come.

This morning I called Visa who unlocked my card.  So now I have a $240 ticket to Zanzibar too and Alina doesn’t have to go alone.  We are booked into a Stonetown hotel called Al-Minar which is close to the beach.  We plan to eat lots of spicy fish.  It isn’t called the Spice Island for nothing.

I will leave this post as a short one since I didn’t really do much on Thursday except sleep too much.  I wasn’t feeling too great.  But I did manage to whip up some fish tacos for my hosts and that went over well.  Even Freddie liked them.  Anke made modified mojitos so it was Latin America night.