Retreat to the Indian Ocean

By Sara:

We had the opportunity to go to Watamu (on the coast of Kenya) with the rest of the World Renew Uganda team.  It was a fun time of rest and fellowship with our colleagues.  I'm just going to share a whole bunch of pictures here with a little explanation.

Here we are on the bus from Mbale to Nairobi (before we got tired out from the 12 hour journey):

From Nairobi, we took a train to Mombasa.  It was nicer on the train than the bus (you could get tea and food and there were no speed bumps or turbulence):

Some of the scenery seen from the train:

The Mombasa train terminal:

As soon as we arrived in Watamu at our hotel, we had to run down and see the Indian Ocean before it got dark.

I found a baby coconut:

The next day was a dream come true for Anthony because there was a snake farm across the street from the hotel (with the largest collection of snakes in East Africa) and we went for a tour.

The craziest thing about the snake farm was the baby snakes they were raising in these Tupperwares.  And not just any baby snakes, but baby cobras and (below) baby vipers!

We got to hold a snake (a non-venomous one, don't worry) and it was the first time for many of our colleagues to even touch a snake.  Considering the scary snakes that live in Uganda, they were very brave to do so.

When the tide went out that afternoon, we waded way out in the warm water. 

And in the evening went back and sat on the beach again.

Anthony also chased all the little crabs who were out on the beach.

The next day, we got to go out on a boat and go snorkeling!  That was a lot of fun but there are no pictures since both of us were in the water.

And we had some great food for lunch.

On our last day, we went back to Mombasa and visited a historical Portuguese fort, Fort Jesus.

They had one wall inside the fort which was preserved from when the Portuguese were there and drew sketches all over it.  There's a chameleon at the bottom of this drawing.