Up for breakfast and then time for showers and packing. After checkout we decided to walk the inland beach road to explore the local shops and stands. It was HOT. We kept getting propositioned by tuk tuks and motorcycles but we wanted to walk and stop, walk and stop, which wasn't really conducive to transport so we refused. After shopping we tried walking toward the water and stopping at a beach bar for a quick bite, but there weren't any small options, only large fish platters accompanied by sides, so we continued on and made it back to Bahari Dhow where we split a sandwich as we watched the waves. By mid afternoon it was time to bid farewell to Diani.
Our trip to the airport was a bit bumpy (our driver backed into a stone wall and knocked the bumper loose, in addition to running a tuk tuk off the road and getting stopped twice by the police for jumping the ferry line). Oh yeah. About the ferry... We had to drive our car onto a ferry to cross from Diani to Mombasa. WHAT?! I was definitely not expecting that, at all. I also wasn't expecting to see a mini bus with a casket strapped to the top. Our driver casually explained that's how families transported their loved ones and that this particular bus would be driving 56 hours to get to its final destination. WHAT?! We were glad once we finally made it to the airport and crossed our fingers that our drive there was going to be the craziest part of our next 13 hours of travel...
This just in: MONKEYS in the airport. Things just got a whole lot crazier folks.
We were through customs and to our hostel before 630 and the guy behind the desk was bamboozled. Maybe still a bit drunk from the night before? The place was a mess and we were told no way no how we'd be able to check in until 4pm. FOUR?! WOOF. We grabbed a quick nap on the cubes next to the pool table before heading out for a 10am walking tour. Our guide was a local Frankfurtean and started off by telling us we were in the red light district (obviously) and that this area had gone through a gentrification so there was a mixed population of aristocrats alongside drunkards and druggies (obviously). We had encountered both of these during the hop, skip and the jump it took us to get from our hostel to the tour spot. Anyway, we learned that Frankfurt is the main hub for banking in Germany and the EU. It's also home to the 10 tallest buildings in all of Germany. Frankfurt is currently undergoing heaps of construction as they are trying to appeal to the bankers living in London who will surely relocate if Brexit occurs. Frankfurt is also building working/living communities that include teachers, doctors, grocers and the like living and working under the same roofs so they rarely have to access the outside world. Uummm... not sure how well that one's gonna catch on, but you do you, Frankfurt. This skyscraper part of town is in stark contrast with the "old town" that was rebuilt to reflect the historical Frankfurt from years ago. After the war, most of the architecture was either destroyed, or occupied by the American forces which caused Germans to tear it down and rebuild it once it was their own again. On the sidewalks are small gold plaques, or stumbling stones, meant to make you misstep, look down and then remember the Jewish people who lived in the neighborhoods and then were taken from their homes and forced into concentration camps. Eerily enough, there's a large circular plaque located in the old town square memorializing the site of the banned and burnt books. Heinrich Heine, one of the renowned poets at the time said, "Where they burn books, they will too, in the end, burn people." A hundred years later, the Nazis were doing just that in concentration camps throughout the country.
After our tour of Frankfurt Mark and I went to Kleinmarkthalle, a huge indoor warehouse of vendors selling everything from meats and cheeses, to spices, to fruits and veggies to wines to flowers. It's really large, and after exploring, we created a hand picked plate at one of the deli counters. We were a bit overzealous with our cheese portions, and ended up with a ton left.
We decided to walk back to the hostel with the hope that we'd be able to get in by 330. Sure enough we could and thank goodness, because almost as soon as we got into our room I got sick and spent the rest of the night in bed.
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