Nairobi–Mombasa Expressway Nairobi–Mombasa Expressway The Nairobi–Mombasa Expressway, also known as the Mombasa–Nairobi Expressway or the Nairobi–Mombasa Highway, is a proposed four-lane toll highway in Kenya. The highway will link Nairobi, the capital and largest city of Kenya to Mombasa, the largest seaport of the country. The new highway is expected to cut travel times between the two cities from the current 6 to 10 hours to approximately four hours. The road starts at the Namanga interchange along the Nairobi–Mombasa Road, in the city of Nairobi. It continues in a general southeasterly direction, through seven Kenya Counties to end in the city of
Mombasa Peninsula, the Indian Subcontinent and China. 16th-century Portuguese voyager Duarte Barbosa claimed, "[Mombasa] is a place of great traffic and has a good harbour in which there are always moored small craft of many kinds and also great ships, both of which are bound from Sofala and others which come from Cambay and Melinde and others which sail to the island of Zanzibar." Vasco da Gama was the first known European to visit Mombasa, receiving a chilly reception in 1498. Two years later, the town was sacked by the Portuguese. In 1502, the sultanate became independent from Kilwa Kisiwani and