Thursday August 5th

On the last day of our holiday, we stayed around the hotel until late afternoon and then got a taxi to Malindi airport. For a while we thought that our trip home would be more complicated. The Kuoni rep checked our flights and found that our flight from Malindi to Nairobi had been cancelled by Kenya Airways. They claimed that they had no record of any ticket being issued, despite the fact that the ticket number was in the booking and that they already had the first part for our flight to Malindi the previous week. For a while, it looked as if we were going to have to get a taxi to Mombasa and get a morning flight to Nairobi, but eventually the rep persuaded the airline to honour our tickets. For a very modest fee, the hotel allowed us to keep our room and enjoy all of the facilities of the hotel for the extra day.
We spent the morning relaxing by the pool and walking on the beach at low tide, which thanks to the proximity of the sun and moon following the eclipse was a very low tide.
	Once again we were fascinated by the red eyed crabs in the rock pools. Once they knew we were there, they would retreat into a crevice and become almost invisible.
With the low tide, we were able to see the live weed for almost the first time. There were several varieties including this which looked like an underwater Brussels sprout plant.
	At high tide, the water is five or six feet deep around the rock to the North of the hotel. At low tide it is possible to walk all around it. There were reports of a Moray Eel in the water around the rock, but I couldn't find it.
I did find quite a number of lizards, probably Agamas. They are not amphibious, so obviously climb to the top of the rock at high tide.
	After lunch, we packed and eventually got a taxi to the airport. The Kuoni rep was not quite as co-operative as the on in Nairobi and would not let us travel on their minibus. This time, we allowed the hotel to arrange the taxi and got a reasonably modern minivan. When we got to the airport, the wreck that we got to the hotel the previous week was waiting to pick up passengers.
When we got to the airport, we were pretty concerned. The first message that we got was that our plane was four hours late and that would miss our flight to London. When we checked in, the agent confirmed that the plane was indeed four hours late and would take off at 7:30 (less than an hour later than scheduled!). In fact, the inbound plane was 6 hours late, but because there are no landing lights at Lamu, it was not able to carry on to its destination and returned to Nairobi with us.
The flight was crowded, but uneventful. The last piece of excitement was at Nairobi, where the airport was packed with people. There were no signs from the domestic to the international terminal and check-in for the flight home was a zoo. Eventually we did check in and made it to the executive club lounge .. just in time to make our way to the gate to board the flight, which arrived back at Gatwick almost exactly on schedule.

Saturday August 14th,

Day 18 - Return home via Nairobi