16 August -- Lamu (by Roger)

Neither of us wanted to leave Malindi yesterday, but we have to admit that Lamu is great. This little place is much more than we expected, and we really enjoyed today.

Our little hotel, Jannat House, is a rabbit warren of rooms and high-ceilinged lounge areas that come together to create a cozy environment with a lot of personality. After being in so many places that have an almost corporate feeling, this hotel is a real breath of fresh air. We shouldn’t be surprised at finding a place like this Lamu, though, because this little town is all personality. I think the population here is something like 18,000 people, and despite the fact that tourism has been a big industry here for some 30 years, it still feels undiscovered and unexploited. Lonely Planet says that, and it’s true. Kids still seem unused to seeing tourists around and say hello or stare as we walk by; one little kid being dragged along through a restaurant by his father smacked David on elbow as he went by, and I think he just wanted to touch a white person. It’s a truly nice atmosphere here, and our hotel just participates in the general feel.

We had a good breakfast in the hotel dining room this morning and headed off on a foot tour we’d set up before. The dining room in this place is great – it’s a big, open room on the second floor with old-looking, Swahili furniture. In addition to tables and chairs, there are things like you’d find in a regular dining room like a sideboard (elaborately-carved in Swahili style) and old wall clock. At our table, we are on eye-level with the fruit part of the coconut tree in the courtyard, and we can look over the rail to see the rest of the hotel.

Our walking tour was interesting. Omar, our guide, spoke good English and seemed to know what we were interested in. Lamu only has two “streets,” and these are far too small for a car. Donkeys go up and down them, and narrow alleys run from them up the hill through the rest of the town. Lamu is a safe version of the casbah in Riffi – narrow alleys that are often covered over at the top by balconies built out of the third story of the enclosed homes on both sides, people lingering and talking in elaborately-carved doorways of sometimes-decaying houses, women modestly walking by in burkas or traditional Swahili dress, darkness overtaking the areas that lack lights at night. Lamu was just declared a UNESCO World Heritage site, and I’m sure that the alleys are one reason. The atmosphere is great.

Omar knew how to navigate all this flawlessly. We first visited a house under construction so he could show us the design of a traditional house. This home was being built by a European who was using local craftsmen and traditional house design. Like the hotel and the city, this home had a warrenlike feel to it, and much of the walls and ceiling were covered in elaborate stucco work. Typified by the detailed carving on the doors, Swahili style has adapted a love of detail from Indian and Arabic influence; this home was covered in detail work, from the bathroom shower to the living room walls.

From there, we went by a large Friday mosque (one of the five big mosques that people make an effort to go to on Friday afternoon; they pray in smaller mosques the rest of the week) and watched kids from the madrassa turning flips during their school break. I took some photos of them and became the center of attention when I showed them the pictures. We also went to the meat, fish and vegetable markets and down to the waterfront, where dhows were coming in with sand, bricks and tourists.

We took a break after that for one of our favorite things here, a coffee shake, and walked over to the museum. Great little museum. It’s set up like an old house, and we looked at the exhibits on Swahili culture and history as well as the ones about the other local cultures – more tribal African. There were a couple of very interesting big, hornlike things, symbols of the city-states of Lamu and Pate, I think. These both date from the 16th century. They are elaborately carved of wood and ivory. As we were leaving, David noticed a really surprising piece of furniture -- a chest there that was an exact copy of the one I bought from Lou, stored the TV in, and just sold back to him. Every detail was exactly the same – elaborate doors, carved trim on top, stubby legs. Exactly the same. Who knew that we’d lived with a piece of antique Swahili furniture for years? And how did it ever get to Georgia?

I wanted a nap after all this, so we went back to the hotel, and I took one. Then we had lunch at the hotel and went down to a boat we’d hired to take us out to the ruins of another Swahili city-state, Takwa. Takwa is on an island just across from Lamu and had been a trade rival of Lamu and nearby Shela. And nearby Pate. These little towns apparently didn’t like each other much, and the people of Takwa had build a wall around their city to protect themselves from their trade rivals. However, like we heard at Gede, a wall doesn’t protect its inhabitants from a declining water table, and the wells at Takwa eventually became saline as the freshwater was removed and salt water replaced it. Takwa had a short history of only about a hundred years, but it was fairly elaborate. We were alone there with a guide, walking among the huge, old baobobs and looking at the ruined homes, mosques, walls, and tombs of 16th century imams.

When we walked back to the mangrove inlet we’d come up, the tide had gone way out, and we had to wade out our boat, looking at the ornate, spiral shells on the bottom as we went. We then motored back to Lamu, had a coffee, and hired a dhow for a sunset sail. This little trip was really nice, too – mostly. After the experience we’d had on the Nile, I was still a little leery of water craft whose edge got too close to the water line, but these guys handled the boat fine. We sailed along Lamu and to Manda, tacking against the wind, then we turned to sail back to Lamu. At this point, the guys pulled out some refreshments for us for the trip. We had Arabic coffee (coffee with cinnamon and ginger), some cookies, and some kind of gelatinous sweet with a very perfume-y smell. With the sunset and dhow sail, it was a great experience. After the sunset, we raced all the other boats back to shore (listing a bit too much to starboard for my comfort).

The rest of the evening was restful. I had some great shrimp curry for dinner, mild and very tasty in the Swahili style, and we went back to the hotel to read. I’m almost finished with Out of Africa, and I think it’s a funny coincidence that, as we’re approaching the end of our trip, I’m reading about Dinesen’s departure from Africa.