Turf and Surf


Advertisement
Kenya's flag
Africa » Kenya » Coast Province » Mombasa
June 6th 2011
Published: June 6th 2011
Edit Blog Post

I. Jumba la Mtwana

North of Mombasa, over the bridge to Mtwapa, and then right down a deeply rutted dirt road towards the sea, you stumble on to the evocative ruins of a pre-British, pre-Omani, pre-Portuguese Swahili town. Known now as Jumba la Mtwana, or the “Big House of Slaves”, there’s apparently little information on just who lived here and what they did (it’s only conjecture that it might have been a slave-trading port – there’s no physical evidence that it was). All that remains are the stone walls of several large homes, each with its own internal well and an early version of indoor plumbing, along with several mosques, including a large one built right on the shore of the Indian Ocean.

The ruins are entangled in lush greenery and shaded by barrel-trunked baobab trees. Enormous snails slither on the stone walls and across the muddy floors; a colony of termites seeth next to one of the mosques; hornbills fly among the branches above.

And I had it all to myself. Few tourists seem to make it out to this idyllic spot.

I sat in the shade of the Mosque by the Sea, and breathed in the Indian Ocean air. I could have stayed in that spot for days.

II. Out to Sea

I couldn’t not go out to sea while in Mombasa, even if I will have the opportunity to do so in Zanzibar as well. So I decided to join my hotel’s tour of Mombasa’s Marine Park.

I, and a rather motley crew of others, headed out on a glass bottom boat, across the shallows of the shore, out to the reef that forms a natural barrier between the open ocean and the coast. We got to swim and snorkel among a bright zoo of fish, weaving in and out of the corals. We also got to walk across an “island” of ostensibly dead coral – but its surface was hardly dead. Its tidal pools were fully of crazy marine life, including several species of sea spiders or brittle stars.

Whenever I do such activities, I remember how much I wanted to be a marine biologist as a kid. Look how different my life turned out!



Additional photos below
Photos: 28, Displayed: 23


Advertisement



Tot: 0.392s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 15; qc: 72; dbt: 0.1283s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1; ; mem: 1.2mb