#shelabeach

Shela is known as a place to chill so today we decided to try that out. We headed to a local restaurant for breakfast where I was thrilled that they served chipatis and jam as a breakfast food! I also decided to try Swahili tea which as I understand it is marsala tea, cardamon, ginger, cinnamon and milk. Oriana and I liked it; however, the others decided it was a bit too much.

After our late breakfast we wandered the labyrinth of paths around Shela to admire the architecture, the donkeys, the cats, the carved doors and the artisan shops. Aman had some beautiful clothes that suit this hot but modest climate. I wanted to take pictures of the décor of the shop but that seemed inappropriate although I did discretely take a picture of a fully beaded chair that might not be comfortable to sit on but was quite spectacular!

Tamsyn and I have decided that if we lived here, we would need to start a cat sanctuary. There are cats everywhere; however, many of them aren’t looking very healthy and much to T’s chagrin we aren’t letting her pet them all.

After our stroll, we came back to the house to enjoy some reading, napping and general relaxation. After lunch we decided to explore more of the beach as we had explored one way, on our walk to Lamu Town, but not the other direction. On our first day here, we met a henna artist, Zena, and the kids have been asking to use their “Santa money” to get a henna tattoo since the interaction. When we went looking for her the other day, we didn’t have any luck so we were excited to see her soon after we hit the beach. The girls now have ½ sleeves of henna and I have a bracelet of flowers and vines.

Compared to our first day at the beach, there was nobody at the beach today! I guess due to it not being a holiday and a little cooler, everyone packed it in. This beach goes on forever; we walked for a couple of hours but still couldn’t see the end. Also, when you head towards Lamu Town there is consistent evidence of inhabitation; however, in this direction once you leave Shela there is no real development. There are large sand dunes and two houses, one that looks like a big sandcastle due to its colour and a huge, lengthy sandy beach. It sounds like at one point a lot of celebrities would come to the area and you can imagine the appeal of these beautiful beaches and no one around. I thought it would be a great walk for beachcombing; however, the shells are very small clam shells so not as remarkable as I thought we might find. We did see a dead red snapper and a dead parrot fish which were both interesting to see up close.

I think today is going to be one of the more memorable days of the trip, which is saying a lot! A perfect day of sailing, snorkeling and good, fresh food! We have been admiring the wooden boats which are called Dhows. Of course with his boat builder roots, Mark has been looking at them and talking to people about the design, how they are built (there are three different types of wood used) and how they sail with their unusual mast-boom alignment. For our trip, our three person crew had a Mozambique style Dhow which is beamier/wider than the more sleek, racing Lamu style. As we made our way up the mangrove lined channel, our captain Mohab told us about the history of this family. His people originally came from Oman and were on a smaller island before the Portuguese killed their king and they fled to Lamu Island (hundreds of years ago). His family is one of the eight original families in Shela.  

About an hour in, his fishing rod got a hit and he was able to reel in a nice sized Grouper, nothing like fresh fish for lunch!

The channel, which lays along side the mainland, we sailed up was dredged to allow for bigger boats to come in and also to ensure that it was always passable. Previously, there were elephants and other animals that would come seasonally and would walk across to the islands at high tide.

With the warm breeze powering us, we had a lovely sail resting on the day bed and cushions laid out on the boat. When we got to the reef, we were the first boat to arrive so when we jumped we had everything to ourselves. Tamsyn is new to snorkeling, when we were in the British Virgin Islands a few years ago she wasn’t comfortable wearing her mask and snorkel so just floated around on the surface, but she sure has the hang of it now! Many times, I had to grab her by the flipper and motion for her to slow down. She was the first to spot a giant clam! We ended up seeing a few others, a new sight for me! Similar to our experience elsewhere in the world, the coral is having a tough time. There were a few spots where the brilliant yellow or florescent purple coral seemed to be growing but mostly it was white and looked quite dead. They had a tsunami come through in 2004 and this did a lot of damage to the coral but it sounds like it wasn’t doing that great even before that. That said, we saw a number of fish- loads of blue parrot fish, sergeant fish, angel fish, what I think may be damselfish, robust ghost pipefish (that I thought was some kind of floating seaweed), a blue fish with a black dot near the tail that I must have discovered as no one else knows that I am describing and schools of tiny fish which I can’t name and a bunch of others that I can’t even remember how to describe. We had Oriana’s underwater camera, however; the clarity wasn’t great so not sure I will be able to identify more. Additionally, we saw sea urchins, and various coral such as: stag horn coral, wavy branched pavona, brain and of course others, those are the only ones I recognize.

After our snorkel, (by the time we got out of the water most of the boats that had arrived were now leaving), we had a beautiful lunch. Grilled grouper and squid, mango salad and my new favourite chipatis! We washed it all down homemade Tamarind juice which I quite like! It almost has an iced tea flavour.

It was a great sail back to Shela. Both girls took the helm and learned how hard it is to keep a course when all you can see is mangroves and more mangroves. Mark also took a turn asking all about how to tack or jib the boat with this style of rig, how to trim the cotton sails where there no winches and more. Both the captain and Mark think any other boats in the near vicinity means a race, so the race was on (we did overtake both of them eventually).

That night we had arranged for Nyama to cook dinner at the house and he grilled a red snapper and served it with coconut rice. The sauce he made to accompany it was amazing! I have to say, Swahili cooking has way more flavour that the traditional Kenyan foods we have experienced to date!

Our destination today was Lamu town, the other town on Lamu island, which is a 35-40 minute walk down the beach at low tide. Lamu is a UNESCO cultural site and was founded in 1370! Although it doesn’t feel like a very big town, compared to Shela it is bustling! Apparently, it is the oldest continuously inhabited town in Kenya and the best preserved Swahili settlement in East Africa. The majority of the inhabitants are Muslim and the area is known as an important religious centre which explains the 20+ mosques in various states of repair. The town was a major trading centre in the day which is hard to believe now as it seems so remote!

Like newer Shela, Lamu Town is characterized by its narrow streets (maybe paved paths is a better description), magnificent buildings and elaboratively carved wooden doors which are well known throughout the world. After the beach walk, which was an experience on its own with motorcycle taxis whizzing by, donkeys carrying huge bags of concrete and rebar, the fiddler crabs with their one big claw diving for their holes as we approached, seeing the oyster encrusted rocks, the veiled women and a variety of other things as people went about their business. By the time we arrived in Lamu, we decided we needed a cool drink and a snack, so we stopped in choose one of the many waterfront restaurants. We were the only customers and after we ordered we watched them leave the restaurant in search of the needed ingredients to make our order. My mango juice was good but Oriana’s lime juice was the best!

We decided to wander the labyrinth of streets by ourselves mostly out of spite about being continually asked if we wanted a guide for a “very good price.” We walked the main waterfront street enjoying the sites and checked out the carving shop- their art is beautiful and to watch the hand carving you can see why they are expensive. We stuck our head in one of the “new” mosques as the girls had never seen a mosque and had a lovely chat with the local resident sitting outside. Its funny, people think we are either French or Spanish, our English must not be that good 😊.

We also took in some of the artisan shops. My favourite was one that makes things out of wood and plastics found at the beach. He also employees a female carver which is an anomaly here due to that being a male dominated trade (actually everything seems to be pretty male dominated as Oriana pointed out). We also stuck our head into one of the hardware stores which seemed to have one of everything you could ever think you needed. A lot of the town is in disrepair which is apparently due to the high cost of repairs as required for maintaining the UNESCO designation. They also appear to have open sewers which makes sense based on the age of the building. They must have some underground but…

We had a look at the Fort but didn’t take the time to go to the museum as we wanted to get back to see the Dhow races. Unfortunately, we missed them in an effort to find a boat to bring us back to Shela. The boat that was coming to get us apparently broke down and then we thought we had arranged another boat with a guy that offered to help but that one never seemed to arrive. Finally, someone flagged down another boat for us and a number of Muslim women and we got in the boat. Go figure, at that exact time, the guy arrived with a boat and the yelling started. We didn’t know what was happening but we were told that we had to get in the newly arrived boat and go figure, the price was double! What a mess!! The Muslim grandmother helped us negotiate a price; she was vested as I think that we were paying their way. Any ways we made it back to Shela so all is well although we missed the whole race.

We had some relaxing time on our roof top which has a constant cooling breeze before heading out to the beach. Being New Years Day, the beach was packed with groups of people. I was most interested in the veiled women and if they would go in the water. They didn’t, that I saw. I was also interested that most people went in the water wearing the clothes they wore to the beach- jeans, dresses etc. Nobody seemed fused about it and everyone was having a great time. Many people stopped by to say hi and welcome, to ask the kids if they could borrow their diving masks, or just to see what we were doing (when I buried Tamsyn in the sand that proved to be very interesting to many people walking by). The lovely thing- everyone was friendly without wanting anything from us. One group was trying to take a selfie and I offered to take their picture of them, they thought that was hilarious and then asked me to be part of the picture. The modesty at the beach was also note worthy. The expats were the only ones in bathing suits and when they were moving about on the beach, everyone covered up. I had brought a bathing skirt thinking that would be modest enough, but I wrapped my kanga around me as we headed back home.

We were up early for our final morning in Nairobi. We sadly said good bye to all of the dogs which we will all really miss! Listened to the monkeys on the roof and then looked for the warthogs in the garden but they weren’t there this morning.

Wilfred picked us up first thing to head for the airport. Although it was a Saturday, I was concerned about the amount of traffic and the process for being able to get through security. Minding the queue doesn’t seem to be strictly adhered to here and the lack of signage has been an issue on a number of cases. We arrived early however, by the time we made it through the various security checks and check in, we didn’t have long to wait. Mark could tell you exactly what type of plane it was but I can just tell you that it was fairly small and packed! Relative to what we normally experience, the airplane food was a good deal and so we had a great lunch for $12 for all of us.

The plane stopped in Mombasa and then carried on to Manda Island across from Lamu Island which is where we were headed. We got in a wooden boat to come to Shela Beach one of the two towns on the island. First impression- blue, blue water, white sandy beaches, the rustle of palm trees, numerous beach front restaurants, mosques and a festive albeit relaxed atmosphere- it is New Year’s Eve! Oh and the heat! Also, it doesn’t feel a thing like what we have experienced so far in Kenya, it feels like we are in an eastern country.

Nyama was at the beach to show us to our accommodation as were four others that quickly picked up our bags and headed to the house. Just a couple of buildings off the beach, we have a great homebase for the next few days. We were instantly excited about this chapter of the trip. (check out the petals on our beds!)

We arranged for Nyama to show us around the town which included a trip to the liquor store as Mark wanted to buy some wine in this mostly Muslim community. Shela is very Islamic which is of course reflected in the white buildings. It was built with narrow street ways so you walk everywhere so instead of vehicle noise you hear people chatting as they go about their business and the boys playing soccer on the beach.

As we wandered through the warren of streets, we saw a ton of little shops from quaint boutiques to those selling the necessities, buildings in various states of construction or lack of, huge bougainvillea bushes and donkeys and cats everywhere. As we were walking through the streets we met many veiled Muslim women, a few Maasai in traditional dress and kids around every corner everyone smiling with a friendly “jambo” greeting and welcome.

The further we got from the beach, the fewer roads were paved and by the time we got to “the village” building were now mostly mud huts with thatched roofs and a few small “dukas” (shops) that might have plaster or tin walls. Here, Nyama introduced us to a local favourite, coconut wine. I am not sure that I would recommend this locally made wine but it was an interesting experience. Many of the locals wandered by and I think by their expressions they were surprised to see us there. I don’t think the typical tourist makes it here. We eventually made it to the liquor store where the employee seemed a bit overwhelmed by our arrival and so called the owner who quickly came to help us.  

A couple of particularly interesting things- the majority of buildings are made with coral blocks. The coral is harvested, cut into the size of a cinder block and then using concrete mud, put into place before the final plaster layer is applied. Also, they post their voters lists on the walls for all to see! The election is happening soon and there are campaign posters all over the place. Working in local government, I had to ask what the issues were- affordable housing, jobs, environmental issues and corruption.

Heading back, I challenged myself to find our way, knowing Nyama was there to bail us out, and almost made it- turn when you see the green store, turn left where we saw the baby donkey, don’t go as far as the 3rd mosque etc. – there are no street signs! Prior to arriving and in celebration of new years, we had arranged for Nyama to buy the ingredients and cook dinner.