Lamu, Kenya

My last weekend in Kenya, I arranged to go to Lamu, a small island just barely off the coast of Kenya. Lamu is an incredibly interesting place - it's one of the places where the Swahili culture and architecture have been preserved. For centuries, there was a thriving trade from India, the Arabian peninsula, and all the way down the coast of Africa in ivory, spices, mangrove poles, and slaves (Arabs were slaving long before Westerners were). Places like Lamu were main stops on that route. Most of the buildings in Lamu date from the 18th and 19th centuries, though there's one left from the 1600s, and there are a couple good museums. Lamu is becoming quite a tourist destination (actually, was back in the early 90s, Michael W. Smith recorded a song that I think was about this island - "Lamu, far away...." Most of the older buildings are being bought up by foreigners and restored using local materials.

Here is Lamu, approaching it from the "dock". Dhows are the most common means of transportation of both goods and people around the island, and people learn to sail as children.

Bigger dhows are used for long trips and transporting goods - a few mulitimillionaires own their own "pleasure dhows" on which they entertain vistors. I got to know a Kenyan of British descent who had spent the last year captaining a very large dhow owned by a Norwegian shipping magnate. He rents the dhow out for $2500 per day, or uses it to entertain guests, who have apparently included the Queen of Norway and Sienna Miller.
A guide came sort of "attached" to my hotel room - picked me up at the airport and accompanied me everywhere from then on, for which I tipped him handsomely. For a girl traveling alone in a touristy place, this was wonderful. Ali Ankol was my introduction to the place and the culture, arranged the activities I wanted to do, fended off "boyfriends", and everyone who wanted to sell me something had to go through him - very nice! Here he is with his two sons. Most of the "roads" on Lamu look like this - narrow little alleyways that do not accomodate cars and are traveled by people, donkeys, and cats.

Ali showed me all around the village - here I am with some particularly cute kids. Lamu is highly Islamic - maybe more mosques per capita than anywhere and women mostly in burkha, though the tourists go around in shorts. People really appreciated that I covered my head - they were surprised to hear that I was American and said I was "well-behaved".

Lamu is famous for its elaborately carved doors. This one was extraordinary. I bought and lugged back with me a beautifully carved trunk. I arranged to take an all day dhow ride across the channel to Manda beach. The weather was just beautiful and the wind was good. And the first mate not hard on the eyes.

The town of Shela is a short distance from Lamu and is a good deal ritzier - most of the real estate is owned by foreigners, but they try to keep the architecture and materials traditional. Shela Beach is very famous.

While the first mate and I went for a walk and a swim, the captain made a terrific lunch of Swahili vegetable stew, salad with a salt and lime juice dressing, and grilled fresh fish rubbed with Swahili spice mix, all of which was delicious. The "grill" is a few sticks laid over some coals, and the fish in the foreground is one I caught. :)

Donkeys are the only non-foot way to get around Lamu and I went for a donkey ride into the interior of the island. They're not a bad ride and reasonably comfortable. In Lamu they say "A man who does not have a donkey, is a donkey " - if you don't have a donkey to carry your stuff around, you carry it around yourself.

The place I stayed at was a beautifully restored old house called simply "Stone House", with a cool shaded courtyard and numerous Escheresque stairways leading to the various rooms. The sign on the doorway out says "Nenda Salama" - "Go in peace" in Swahili.Walking toward the plane at the airport - bye!