We indulgently dined

Both Seattle and San Francisco are wonderful places for outdoor activities and weekend adventures, but there are simply some things you can't do in the U.S.  One of them is jetting off to the Indian Ocean for a weekend with friends in a 3-story Swahili mansion.  First, the U.S. doesn't have a plethora of Swahili mansions, and if it did the price would be undoubtedly prohibitive.  In Kenya, you can share a place like this for about $20 per person a night.  

From the lounge area on the other side of the pool.

Stairs and stained glass.

3rd floor balcony for lagoon and Palm sunsets.

Night swims. 

From Nairobi you can head down after work on Friday (45min flight or overnight bus), spend a full 2 days soaking in the sun and sea, and return by Sunday evening or Monday morning in time for work.  For those who are local and interested, the house pictured here is Sugar House in Watamu (plot 16), and it sleeps 8 people.  

Not pictured her is the ping pong table where I almost tripped over a friendly (and large) millipede.  Nor the seafood curry and fresh crab claws that we indulgently dined upon.  Nor the local beach for sun-bathing and kite-surfing.  Nor the second mansion where the other half of our group slept in turrets.  Nor the local tuk tuks that took us for Italian gelato and dancing with fake Maasai.  Nor the fish that ate out of our hands as we snorkeled in the coral reefs.  

But I suppose these things, as with the warm coastal sun, need to be soaked up in person.  

 On our way to the coral reefs in our glass-bottom boat.