East African Safari

Up early, we went for a swim before breakfast, quite cool this morning. After a shower and breakfast we packed and were ready to leave at ll.00am. There were a few spots of rain and the sun was becoming very warm. When we went to the office to pay our bill, we were told that our plane from Malindi airstrip would now not leave until 4.00pm. We had vacated our room and now had a lot of time to kill until departure at 2.45pm. So sat in the lounge area, read had a drink and then lunch. At the appointed time John, our taxi was waiting for us and on arrival at the airstrip we didn’t have to long to wait until our tickets were checked and we were issued with boarding cards. As there was no X-Ray machine to put the luggage through, it was all opened and searched by hand. We had to sit in a waiting room for a time before boarding the plane. The flight took 15 minutes and we were met at the Lamu airstrip by a guide and a Captain? We had to walk quite a long way and then because we had to cross the sea to Lamu we boarded a very long narrow boat powered by an outboard engine. On arrival at the Lamu Palace Hotel we were greeted by the Manager and a glass of juice brought by a waiter called Daniel.

At 5.30pm the guide returned to the hotel to take us on a Town Tour. We started off in the Swahili quarter, walking through very narrow streets and occasionally we were offered the opportunity to visit varying shops selling silvery jewellery, clothes, wood carvings, haricot beans, lentils and chick peas. We then came into a huge square with an imposing building. It was the old Fort and once the sea came right up to it. John remembered this and having seen monkeys there in 1949 when he visited Lamu the last time and we have a photograph to prove it. We then had a guided tour, there didn’t seem to be too much there apart from an exhibition for school children. We were told that there were 46,000 inhabitants on Lamu with 26 mosques. After 35 minutes we decided enough was enough and returned to the hotel via a Donkey Sanctuary provided by a British charity. There are many donkeys on Lamu used as beasts of burden and there are only 3-4 motorised vehicles on the island. Along the sea front there are many buildings, The Post Office that used to have a garden at the front, the District Officers House and many other imposing Victorian buildings, but all are now in various stages of decay. The drainage around the town consists of open drains running alongside the footpaths, no sewage though, I’m not sure, but washing water which all runs into the sea. At the hotel we were introduced to Captain Bubu who would take us to Manda Island in the morning for an agreed price. Our captain wanted to take us at 9.30am but we said that was too early and postponed it for one hour.

The Lamu Palace Hotel is situated right on the water front and there is a constant stream of people and donkeys passing the door. When we were shown to our room we found that we were at the front and could see the sea when lying on the bed which was very good. After showering and changing we went downstairs to the bar for a restorative Gin & Tonic. We got talking to the barman who told us about himself and how difficult it was to find work in Kenya. There are five children in his family and his father could only afford higher education for one at a time but as he has a twin brother he made a deal with him. The brother could go and train as a doctor but on completion of his studies he should finance his twin to go through his chosen subject which is IT and Business Studies. We then had dinner and went to bed.

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 11th, 2003 at 2:44 pm and is filed under East Africa. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.