DIANI (My first couchsurfing experience!)

I sat at my desk at work last week on Wednesday afternoon, exhausted and a little bored of routine. I needed to see the sea, feel it’s breeze. (If you’ve read this blog before, you know already that water bodies rejuvenate me so profoundly, and the sea tops them all). You can read my other sea experiences for the Islands of Lamu, Kirepwe and Zanzibar.

I knew it would be a solo travel as there was no way I would convince anyone to go with me in two days. For this reason, I thought couchsurfing would be a good accommodation option. For those not familiar, it’s a website where people with an extra room, couch, mattress, offer to host travelers-for free! It’s very convenient for solo travelers as you get a certain amount of company in addition to great information on places to visit and activities to do. Some of this information might never feature online.

I requested a couple of people, in different regions around the coast and got accepted by a kind gentleman by Thursday morning. He lives in Diani and so Diani it was!

One bus ride, two matatus (public mini-vans) rides, one ferry and one motorbike ride later, spanning 12 hours, (I see some of y’all thinking, ‘it’s never that serious’. It actually is.) I was at my hosts, received by a very easy-to-talk-to wife. They live a walking distance to the beach and had a pleasant extra room for me.

20160519_210842 — Playing with my hosts adorable son. He cried when I left the house the following morning 😦

My hosts have links to various hotels and houses-t0-let along the entire coast so check them out on facebook and hit them up next time you’re at the coast. They also make for the perfect tour guides.

On my first day at the beach, I bumped into four Ugandan girls that had been at the same beach bar as myself and asked if I could join them. These girls were so much fun, we ended up partying and doing all the club-hoping till morning.

20160519_220710 — I also made non-human friends.

The following day, I wanted to see what all the hype about Swahili beach hotel was so I visited. This hotel is a mini-paradise, really; I’m afraid photos might not even do it justice.

20160520_233051 — The cascading swimming pool. The hotel has a series of infinity pools that go all the way to the beach.

My plan was to have just one glass of wine and enjoy the view, but the waiter serving me (and by the way, the service is 10/10, especially for a place where the percentage of black guests could easily have been 2…at least when I visited.) managed to convince me to try out their buffet lunch.

20160521_021020 — The food was really good. I’m not sure if there was no dessert though, or if I was too full to notice it.

I left early in the evening and went to another beach where I had booked a snorkeling trip the previous day. I’ve talked about fishermen and how much they make my trips so I shall spare you the details this time.

20160521_042818 — My ~~knight in shining armor~~ snorkeling guide/fisherman and I sat on top of the boat as we headed to Robinson Island where the ~~wedding~~ snorkeling would take place.

20160521_054328 — My first (of many) snorkeling experience. The sea bed is so beautiful!

My guide was very knowledgeable about all the sea creatures. I’d ask him what a certain animal was and he would dive in and get the animal from the sea bed to explain them to me. You can bet I did not touch any of them or let them near me. At some point he brutally murdered a sea urchin and fed it’s intestines to the fish. It happened so fast, I had no idea what was going on.