Before heading north up the coast, we spent two lazy days back in Dar es Salaam, catching up on internet café time, walking, devouring newly-discovered “dosas” at an inexpensive South Indian restaurant, and socializing with Heather and Natalie from our Namibia Peace Corps group who were traveling in another direction.
Our Tanzania to Kenya route was part of the so-called “Swahili Coast,” which extends from Somalia south to Mozambique. “Swahili” comes from the Arabic world sahil which actually means “of the coast” but refers to the civilization that emerged through many centuries of intermingling the cultures of Arabian, Indian, Asian, and European traders with that of the indigenous Bantu tribesmen.
We took a bus. It was a beat-up, crowded bus with windows that wouldn’t open and curtains that wouldn’t close but we took what we could get; the more deluxe bus line had stopped making the run from Dar to Mombasa. The border crossing was pretty uneventful; we got off the bus, did Tanzania’s exit paperwork, bought the Kenyan entry visa, got passports stamped, and got back on the bus. The terrain seemed to change a bit, with more organized farms (along that stretch anyway) and a slightly different shape to the traditional huts along the road. And I began to spot a few baobab trees – those rugged giants that have so captured my fancy.
Mombasa is an island; from the south the only way to enter the city is via a ferry. We didn’t know why, but all the other passengers got off the bus and walked onto the ferry, but we three muzungus were told to stay seated on the bus for the short ferry trip. (It was only later I learned that a bus had plunged off the ferry a couple of years ago, drowning lots of passengers. That’s probably why they got off!)
It was late afternoon when our bus reached its off-loading point, so we walked a couple of blocks to an inexpensive guest house, had dinner at a nearby Indian restaurant and made it an early night as the neighborhood we were in was not suitable for after-dark exploration. But, it was near the bus stations where we would resume the journey the next morning, knowing that we would see more of Mombasa on the way back.
The five or six hour ride between Mombasa and Lamu seemed longer; our seats were in the very back of the bus, where bumps are felt most keenly, and the last couple of hours were on a pot-holed, dusty road that eventually deposited us at the water’s edge, at the small village of Mokowe. We and all our luggage and way more people than looked possible were then pushed, squeezed, and shoved onto a small boat that ferried us to peaceful Lamu. I should mention that we got to Lamu the hard way – the budget traveler way; most tourists fly into an airport on Manda Island and take a ferry across the channel to Lamu.
Lamu is one place where ‘walking tour’ takes on a different meaning. Unless you ride on one of the ubiquitous donkeys, walking is the only way to tour the town. With 3,000 donkeys wandering around and no motorized vehicles, Lamu feels so long ago and far away, it’s easy to see why the whole town is designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. The winding lanes, old mosques, little shops, and Swahili architecture with ornately carved wood doors, windows, and balconies are all similar to Zanzibar but here everything is at an even slower pace. There are still “jambo” touts approaching tourists but not at the same annoying level.
We stayed only one night in Lamu town and then hired a small boat to take us and our luggage to Shela, a quaint village at the start of a glorious stretch of beach with dunes …and few people….and one camel, a lonely-looking animal who must have been put there to amuse and pose for tourists. The camel looked as out of place as the dressed-up Masai “warriors” who were all along the beach. It was a 45-minute walk to get back into Lamu town – a walk we did several times.
Maulidi, a week-long festival celebrating the birthday of the prophet Muhammad, began while we were at Lamu. As non-Muslim tourists, we were not able to participate directly, but we did get to watch a procession through town and along the waterfront. Followers of Islam of all ages, mostly men and children dressed in their finest robes, chanted and sang as they paraded, carrying flags. It was colorful and festive, but we heard that this was just a mild kick-off, with the main activities occurring at the conclusion. Since the dates, based on the Islamic calendar, are different each year and can vary by several weeks, we felt lucky to have our timing coincide at all with the festivities and will just have to wait for another year to see Maulidi-inspired donkey and dhow racing events.
A highlight of the Lamu visit was our sunset dhow ride with Imre, an Israeli tourist whom we met on our first day in Shela and who steered us to our lodging in the private villa-cum-guest house where he was staying. Imre had made friends with Kiru, the owner of a dhow, and together we struck a deal with him to take us sailing for several hours in his old but still elegant-looking vessel. The trip included a little snorkeling, some beach time on Manda Island across the channel from Lamu, cruising past some very unusual private homes built on Manda by wealthy Europeans, and weaving in and out of the thick mangrove swamps until it was time for the sun to set. And set it did, magnificently, in shades of ethereal orange and mauve. Satiated by the fresh air and the beauty of nature, we took our physical appetites back to the guest house for a scrumptious Red Snapper dinner cooked Swahili-style just for us.
As we bussed back down the Kenya coast, we stopped at Malindi, a beach resort very popular with Italian tourists; our fringe benefit was having authentic gelato and pizza, both a rarity in most of Africa. The next morning we visited the nearby Gede ruins where the intriguing remains of 14th century Swahili civilization are easy to explore amidst a pleasant setting of huge trees, which along with their roots had overtaken the ruins prior to the 1940s excavation. There’s an air of mystery. Little is known about the origins of the settlement or the reasons for its demise. Clearly it was suddenly abandoned in the 16th century, and one theory is that the residents were fleeing from Galla invaders from Somalia. A small museum displays relics unearthed there, showing it to have been a prosperous community.
It’s time to talk about the ferry again. The infamous Likoni ferry has problems beyond the aforementioned bus that went over the edge. But of course I didn’t know its history at the time. This time we had reached the island city from the north via a short bridge, but we would be staying with a Peace Corps volunteer who lived on the mainland to the south so the only way to get there was on the ferry. We were told to make the ferry trip before night, but we were running late. Commuters crowded the dock area and we found ourselves in the near-dark, shoulder to shoulder with a surging throng. Everyone was intent on securing a place on the next ferry; what I later learned is that commuters have sometimes been left waiting for up to five or six hours when ferries stall or when several have been pulled out of service for repairs. The long waits have resulted in near-riots aka stampedes, to the point that they have tried to separate and protect women. (I noticed no such protection going on during our half hour of crowded maneuvering.) I was attempting to roll my “cheater’s backpack” (i.e. backpack with wheels, too) close behind me but kept losing my balance as people lunged or were pushed into me, and when I stumbled sideways on some steps, Julia took pity and carried it for me – along with her heavy backpack. There were railings to steer us into sections, and as we got closer and closer to the ramp’s edge I imagined how corralled cattle might feel. We finally got on and as we surveyed the sea of shoulders and faces and estimated a crowd of more than a thousand, news stories about overcrowded ferries capsizing came to mind. When I did my research later I was not even surprised that a Likoni ferry had tipped over and drowned 270 passengers in the ‘90s. Another fatal accident occurred just this month when a waiting truck’s brakes gave way and it plunged into the people waiting to board. Traveling on the Likoni ferry is not something I’d want to do every day and, worst of all, this experience left me feeling less than the intrepid, independent traveler I’ve fancied myself. I really needed Julia’s help with the luggage in the chaos, and that was humbling!
Carly and Jacob, from our Namibia Peace Corps group, were also traveling through Mombasa and also staying with the hospitable Kenya PC volunteer, Jonathon. The five of us found the ferry trip more manageable the next day when we returned for a sightseeing day in Mombasa. Following Jonathon’s insider tips, we viewed Fort Jesus and hiked round the perimeter of this Portuguese seafront stronghold (rather than paying admission to go inside), walked through Old Town which struck me as having a disturbing number of women and children begging, lounged for a ridiculously long time on pillows sipping beverages in one of the atmospheric coffee houses, lunched on shawarma – a Middle-Eastern style pita sandwich that we all loved, and even had a walk around the huge Nakumatt supermarket resplendent with its gleaming wide aisles and familiar brand name options – something we had seen little of during our time in Africa. (I should mention that in Uganda, there’s a Nakumatt in Kampala where I manage an occasional shopping splurge.)
Mombasa has an attractive city center with wide boulevards and tall buildings, but one thing I didn’t see is the pair of huge aluminum “elephant tusks” sculpted to form a big M-shaped arch (no not quite like McDonalds) over Moi Avenue; that’s the image often used to represent Mombasa. The other tourist draw we missed are the many white sand beaches in the vicinity; we heard great things about them but were satisfied with the Swahili beach days we had already enjoyed on Zanzibar and Lamu, and we were eager to continue with the next part of our itinerary, inland Kenya.
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