Just when I thought nothing could top my weekend sleeping in Prince William’s bed, I was proven wrong. Three birthdays four days apart, six girls, one luxury resort, a coastal town overrun with lecherous Italians, and more gelato than you can shake a stick at combined for my best Kenyan adventure yet.
A few months ago, we realized that my friends Jess, Sam, and I basically had the same birthday – a weird, yet awesome coincidence. Then and there, we decided that we had to do something epic to celebrate. We settled on a girls’ weekend in Malindi, a resort town about an hour north of Mombasa. Joined by the girls’ roommate Wanda, as well as their friends Soraiya and Diane, we prepared for a weekend of sun, sand, and much, much alcohol.
We flew in on Friday night, and despite being denied a package of mixed nuts by an incredibly rude airline steward, I was very excited. Wanda had arrived a few days before for work and fortunately got to scope out the place before we arrived. She ended up switching our booking to the much nicer Coral Key Resort, which was an excellent decision. The long pool stretched right up to the beach, and it was lined with thatched two-storey huts. Sam and I got the second floor of one of these huts, and I couldn’t decide what feature I liked more – the four poster bed with mosquito netting, or the lovely balcony with the most comfortable couch ever.
We didn’t have too much time to admire our surroundings as Wanda had made a reservation at Tangine restaurant. We ended up being the only people there so we got to enjoy each other’s company while sitting on the rooftop patio and listening to the waves crashing on the beach. Unfortunately I had a chicken burger and beer before we flew so I had completely spoiled my appetite. Undaunted, I ordered an Eskimo pie as my entrée, much to the amusement of everybody. I recommend that everyone order dessert as their dinner at least once in their life – live a little!
Finally, it was time to party. Following the advice of the waiter, we piled into a couple of tuk-tuks and headed over to Stardust. Note: tuk-tuks are little three-wheeled vehicles that are basically motorized tricycles with a roof. They are very loud, and as we found out later that evening, they can go very fast. But I get ahead of myself. Stardust was dead so we headed across the street to a bar called Morgan’s. A number of men hanging around outside called out some pretty crude comments, but when we got inside we realized why. Not only was Morgan’s a total dive bar (let’s just say, 1970’s chic), it was dead except for old Italian men and their very young local ‘escorts’. We were stunned. However, being the only place that actually had people in it, we decided to stay for one drink before booking it. Perched on barstools with a clear view of the dance floor, we watched as two or three people busted some moves. One of these people was a very old Italian whose moves were actually pretty impressive. The girls and I soon became entranced. Even when he ended up being the only person on the dance floor, he kept right on dancing. And then an amazing thing happened – this old man’s enthusiasm, or charisma, or dare I say it, raw sex appeal? – actually DREW people onto the dance floor. Before we knew it, the place was pumpin’ and we were all up there dancing our little hearts out. A couple times the old man actually approached us to dance, but while we admired him excessively, we preferred to do it from a distance and promptly closed ranks. The best part about this story – I ACTUALLY MANAGED TO GET VIDEO OF IT. It will be posted on my facebook shortly so stay tuned.
Exhausted, we decided to head home. We jumped in a couple tuk-tuks and soon we were racing each other. At first it was good clean fun, with the occupants of each tuk-tuk cheering when they overtook the other. I’m not quite sure when things changed but suddenly the driver of our tuk-tuk, apparently obsessed with winning, sped off into the pitch blackness while chanting, “We’re number one!” We were soon flying down the heavily pot-holed street in the middle of the night with only the tuk-tuk’s pitiful headlight to guide us. The tuk-tuk bounced and swerved crazily and soon our cheers turned to screams of “We’re all gonna die!!!” Although I admit, I didn’t even realize I was screaming that until we pulled up to the resort door. As we walked through the resort lobby laughing about the escapade, we noticed a lone statue illuminated at the end of the hall. As we approached we realized it was a huge metal gorilla, staring vacantly at us. “It looks so disapproving”, someone said, and our late night relationship with Disapproving Gorilla was born. After thinking up some things Disapproving Gorilla might say (“Why are you home so late? You’re making too much noise!”), we crawled into bed exhausted, but satisfied.
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