CAIO! Haben Sie ein Zimmer Frei Bitte?

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After Lamu we decided to see a bit more of the coast - this time mainland Kenya. We headed for Watamu which is a village / resort just South of Malindi. Supposedly not as developed as the coast near Mombasa - but it was plenty developed enough for us. The area has nice beaches and the ancient Swahili ruins of Gede nearby - but it also has some big Italian and Swiss owned resorts.

First thing that hit us as we walked from the bus to our chosen hotel in the village (apart from the touts) was that the kids all say "Ciao!" instead of "Jambo!". They're not daft these kids, they can ask for sweets and pens in flawless Italian. Next up was the "Zimmer Frei" sign outside our hotel. Yep, we had definitely arrived in a more mainstream destination.

The village was quite different to Lamu - more typical East African than the distinctive Swahili architecture in Lamu. Wide, dusty streets with single story buildings, huts and stalls. Sadly the village is quite quiet, especially in the evenings, with only a few restaurants and one bar because most of the tourists are in the big hotels and don't venture out of them in the evenings. The restaurants specialise in spaghetti and we had a really good pizza one evening - I think it was real mozarella!

The main thoroughfare through the village to the beach was lined with stalls selling the usual tourist tat, but unfortunately here the touts were really persistant and the hassle got annoying after a while. We try to be polite and say hello and smile and say No Thanks but it really gets a bit much after a while. Apparently saying "Not now, I'm going for some food I'll have a look later" would be taken to mean "I will absolutely positively 100% on my mothers life be back later on, I will look in your stall and I will without fail buy some over priced crap from you". Needless to say we annoyed a few people.

The coast is beautiful with a series of small coves, some cliffs (almost like Pembroke), white sand and palm trees (not like Pembroke). At this time of year the water's quite choppy and there's seaweed on the beach, but very pretty to walk along the beach anyway.

We avoided the overpriced trips (EUR45 for a day trip snorkelling with lobster picnic lunch and white wine out of a carton - definitely package tourist territory!) and amused ourselves for a few days. One day we got a matatu (minibus taxi thing) to the ruins at Gede. The ruins are quite atmospheric, scattered through the forest. A lot of quite decorative doors and tombs. Forest is full of birds, monkeys and butterflies (and the most evil spider ever which Adam got way to close to in an attempt to photograph it). There was also a butterfly farm where they collect the pupae and then hatch the butterlies - a conservation effort and an economic initiative because some none-endangered pupae are sold to collectors abroad. Sadly there was one less of the "very rare blue one" after our visit - it had just hatched and was relaxing on the floor, drying it's wings in the sun oblivious to the sudden death from above in the form of Marianne's sandal that ended its rather short life. We were also mugged for the first time of the trip - by a monkey. We sat down for our picnic lunch and it stole half our mango! In the confusion Adam dropped the other half, but Marianne managed to make good use of the wasted bit and threw it at the monkey and in an uncharacteristically non-girly throw slapped it in the face. Shot! Some comfort as we watched part of our lunch disappear up a tree.

Back in Watamu we were befriended by a lady from Somalia who volunteered at the local primary school and orphanage. We went with her one day to visit them both. The school was an entirely voluntary effort, because Watamu and Timboni (the adjoining village inland) don't have a free school, only fee paying ones. So some local volunteers have set one up so that children from poor families can also have an education. The one classroom was crowded with boys on one side, girls on the other. They had a blackboard and some wall charts with times tables, alphabet etc. When we arrived they were about to start a maths lesson. Our visit distracted them and they sang some songs and nursery rhymes. We were impressed by one little boy in the front, who despite being completey surrounded by his excited, singing classmates, opened his exercise book and studiously wrote down the sums. I think he just wanted to go so that he could get on with the serious matter of subtraction. Good for him. Our ad-hoc guide had explained that the school was actually a lot less well funded than the orphanage (which gets a lot of tourist visits from the big resorts and has overseas sponsors) so we made a donation to the school and just took some biscuits to the orphanage.

From the school we walked the back way through to the orphanage in Timboni which was interesting - we would never have explored the back streets on our own, mainly because to be honest we didn't even know that they were there - hadn't realised the village was that big - and it felt like walking through people's back yards. It wasn't really streets as such, just finding your way between huts and palm trees and fields of maize. Lots of kids came out to see us ("Jambo Mzungu!") and our guide handed out some of the biscuits to them. We weren't sure about that - they were certainly happy with the biscuits but they obviously expected it - it must have been quite a standard tourist thing to do - and there are clearly better things we could do / buy for them than biscuits. It was a bit like the pied Piper of Hamlyn with a little queue of kids following us. Not the way we'd have chosen to do it but it was done for us as part of our day's trip around the village.

The orphanange was indeed quite well funded. They're building a new site, but for now the dormitories were bright with mozzy nets, lots of toys and (most amazing) neat lines of little bikes and trikes between the beds. Some of the kids were at school, others were out the front drawing pictures. We got the usual sing song and drew some pictures. While we were there the next mini bus load of tourists arrived from one of the hotels. We felt slightly superior cos we had made our own way there walked through the village with the locals, but the orphanage visit was clearly quite a popular and commercialised one. It's not that we're trying to make out that the kids in the orphanage are lucky in any way - far from it - but we were more impressed by the little school and glad that our donation went there, where it was more needed.

On the way back through the village we stopped off outside someone's hut - a local "Mama" called Amena who was clearly quite a character in the community - and tried some of the palm wine. It was... interesting. They told us it ferments very quickly after it's "harvested" (they cut a shoot at the top of the palm and then hang a half plastic drinks bottle underneath to catch the juice). So on the same day as it's harvested it's "light" and on the second day it's "strong" and on the third day it's undrinkable and they use it for vinegar. As a girl I got the light version (4%) and Adam got the strong Manly one day old version (?%). Personally I think they just add varying amounts of paint stripper cos it was quite disgusting whichever version you tried... but we politely finished our glasses. Of course that was a really bad idea because they were then refilled, ad infinitum until we were REALLY firm about not wanting any more (we only attained the correct level of firmness after two bottles of light and one bottle of Manly). And the glasses, incidentally, were quite grubby and Adam had to drink the Manly palm wine through some kind of communal straw made out of a hollow stick with a fuzzy filter bit on the end to filter out the gunk at the bottom. Mmm. It was one of those situations where you have conflicting thoughts: A: isn't this nice I am hanging out with the locals, having a drink and getting to know them and their traditions. And B: I am going to regret this tomorrow when I have a stinking hangover, I'm blind, and various bits are starting to shrivel and die from the lurgy caught from the communal straw. Adam can report nothing has fallen off yet and sight is still post-puberty quality.

We finally wandered back to our hotel after lunch. Not before also drinking coconut milk from coconuts brought fresh form the tree for us, and buying some local chilli sauce from a passing vendor. Of course we then had to pay our guides for the whole experience - including all the palm wine that we and our guides had drunk - but we thought it was worth a lot more that the extortionate snorkelling trips that were on offer so we didn't mind.

Apart from walking along the beaches a bit, and our tour of Gede, the local orphanage and school we just chilled out. After a few days we got bored of the constant hassle from touts and street vendors and the fact that the town died in the evening, and headed back out to Mombasa.

PS have since googled palm wine and it really does ferment that quick - so maybe there wasn't any paint stripper involved.

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Comments

[Maria Angeles Capellades]

Great Pics guys!
Your pictures are terrific. I loved the flamingos. Even some of the photos made with the little Powershot SD800 camera are looking really good. Hope you guys are not getting too troubled with the 'tourist thing'. You are bound to be in touristy situations no matter what. And if that is what it takes to see these fantastic landscapes and wildlife, so be it!!! Great job on the website. (Hinweis: Backup if you can). Hugs, Maria