Train riding through East Africa

Nairobi was getting colder and colder, while summer had finally arrived in full bloom in Sweden, so we were starting to wonder if we’d taken the right decision by staying on in Africa for our holidays?! But we had already experienced more than 30 Swedish summers – now it was time to explore some more and to get to know more of our new home continent. So we decided to take the train to Mombasa as the first leg of our African “Inter Rail”.

We had heard all the stories before about how the train runs late, very late, extreeemely late, but the two times we’ve used it before it has been on time – even early! So we were bragging to our fellow passengers – the train won’t be late as long as we’re onboard… But soon after we’d gone to bed the train stopped. Another train had derailed in front of us on the single track and was blocking everything. We had heard about this one before; a train had hit an elephant, the poor animal dead on the tracks and not very easy to move. In the end, they had to blow it up…

It took about eight hours to get it back on track, a great time to meet and greet fellow passengers and to let rumors about what would happen spread; can it really be true that the Americans will be airlifted in helicopter? Are busses on their way? Should we walk five kilometers down the track, to the other side of the derailed train, with wild animals all around, and then board another train? At some point a fellow passenger asks the train manager “Are we getting somewhere? And the reply was as Kenyan as it gets: ― Yes, we are getting somewhere…
In the end we came to Mombasa after 25 hours instead of the official 15. But the day on the train was actually quite a nice way to start our vacation. The temperature rose as we climbed down the Nairobi highland plateau and we instantly got into lazy holiday mode by watching the splendid view over Tsavo East National Park, reading books and wondering about when the next meal might be served.

For we are in no hurry; we have to be back in around a month’s time and only want to cross the continent to the western side - or somewhere approaching that - with a few stops on the way. Stay tuned for the next chapter!