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Off the coast of Kenya is Lamu Archipelago teeming with a vibrant Swahili ("People of the Coast" or "coastal dwellers") community--an example of what happens when two distinct cultures infuse together over centuries time without warring, land stealing, and having power struggles. The Swahili people are descendents of the Arabs and Bantu (Africans), which occurred when the Arabs started trading with Africa, and the resulting intermarriages slowly brought about a new language, society and culture of...ta-da ...Swahili!
I was a little confused about Swahili being just a language or an ethnic group, as the language widely spoken all over Eastern Africa is Swahili, though not so much in Rwanda (French colonizers...self explanatory). Well, my understanding of it is that though Swahili is spoken widely here by Kenyans, Tanzanians, and Ugandans, the Swahili people are sort of its own ethnic group inhabiting the coastal regions (Mombassa, Lamu, Dar es Salaam, Zanzibar, etc). Somewhere along the line, the European colonizers made Swahili the official local language for whatever reason-- maybe it was easiest to distinct from all the other tribal languages spoken in the region. Anyhow, so even though the official language of Kenya and Tanzania is Swahili, meaning that most
East Africans speak it, they are not considered to be Swahili people. Hope this wasn't too confusing...but don't quote me on all this as I'm been culturally lazy to do official homework on this subject.
As Tanzania has Zanzibar, Kenya has Lamu, complete with the old towns, narrow winding alleys, sandy beaches and a dominating Muslim population. I have a theory that if there are palm trees and pineapples in a place, the people tend to be more laid back. This applies to Lamu as well, where the Muslims here seem to be more liberal and tolerant than their counterparts in the Middle East. You do see the traditional full-cover burkas, but it's not the dominating dress code with the women. And the women and men here are not noticeably segregated and you see a lot of interaction between the two. Also, with its proximity to Ethiopia, the Rasta culture has made its way over here, evident through the hash smoking, thick dreads and the bright Rasta colors, red, yellow & green. I wonder, how can one be Rasta and Muslim? Well, there are an abundant supply of palm trees and pineapples here...
I came to Lamu in
a very ambitious way... common for budget travelers, but nonetheless ambitious! First it was the bumpy 8-hour bus ride to Mombassa, where I spent the night in New People's Hotel (don't be fooled by the name...the share bathrooms are disgusting and cockroaches are a common companion...*shudder*). I ended up walking from the bus drop-off area all the way to the guesthouse because I couldn't trust the taxi drivers, nor wanted to haggle. I was definitely scared walking through the roads so late at night, but I trusted that I would get to my guesthouse in one piece. I asked several people for directions and they were friendly, with one offering a ride.. yea right. At 6:30 a.m. the following morning, I caught the 6-hour bus to Mokowe and we had two armed guards in the bus with us for 2/3 of the way. From Mokowe, I took a little boat over to Lamu... and arrived completely exhausted at my final destination. The thought of doing that for the return ride was depressing to swallow. I wished I could just splurge and take a flight back... but that sudden bling in my life could possibly open Pandora's Box!
Considering that
Message to DAD!!
I LOVE YOU!!! :)it's low season in Lamu, there were a small handful of travelers, from NGOers to gap-year students to professionals taking a short holiday. There weren't so many backpackers, but I managed to fish out two great guys, Chi from Germany and Massimo from Spain via Italy. I met them while on a dhow (local boat) trip. More on that later.
My first day, I was going to check into Casuarina Rest House, but along the way, a tout managed to lure me to the back alleys to another secluded guesthouse. Because I was able to negotiate such a good rate for a self-contained room (KSh300/$4) with a bed so big you can roll around in it (no lie), I took the bait and prepaid for 3 nights.
The following morning, I mingled with some people, walked around the narrow alleys, pigged out on seafood, walked around some more, and before I knew it, it was dinner time already! Yay!! I've been so frugal in Nairobi, eating only local food (i.e. chewy chicken, potatoes, ugali, greens, and other cheapies), so the time had come to splurge! Yay! So I wandered into Bush Gardens and met a German law student
Captain Grace
photo credit: Chi named Chi, who would be on the same dhow trip the following morning. So we chitter chattered and had some drinks over at Petley's Inn before calling it a night.
The following morning, I got up early for the dhow trip and as I went to the bathroom to brush my teeth, something terrible happened.... 😞
The room I'm staying in is fairly nice and there are awesome views from the rooftop, but there was one major problem that I had not known about when I hastily booked the room... SPIDERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AUGHHHHHH!!!!!!! Ok, so the little ones I saw were kind of okay because I trusted that they would take care of some of the mosquitoes. But that morning, i saw the BIGGEST, freakiest spider I have ever seen in MY LIFE! Holy cow, it was FRIGHT~ening!!! Including the body and legs, it was the size of my FIST! I, the biggest arachnophobic woosey, ran out the room yelling for help. I didn't even think about the fact that I was in my tank top and pink short-shorts or that all the workers were Muslim guys, because fear outweighed cultural sensitivity and respect in this moment of panic
and shock. A guy came in and tried to find the spider but failed. To make myself feel better, I naively assumed that it was a jumping spider, and it had somehow managed to jump out the window in the short time span of me spotting it, and me yelling for help. Wishful thinking...
After my traumatic spider incident, I met with Chi and went to the dhow, where we met the rest of the gang: Captain Ali-Vasco de Gama, Skipper Ali; Massimo, the Italian entrepreneur living in Spain, and economists Ethan and Harsha. Captain Ali was a hilarious character, and he would tell us fun stories all day, as Skipper Ali would just smile and say, "True, true..." And when Captain Ali started to smoke pot, his energy level chilled out a bit, but he still remained very entertaining. I was given the big job of steering the rutter... which was all gravy until I got the boat stuck in the mud, after which I was demoted and relieved of my captain duties.
We anchored our boat in the ocean and fished for lunch. We were using a very basic method with a string and nail, so
it was hard for us to catch a fish, whereas the two Ali's caught four or so. After the brief fishing expedition, we sailed to a neighboring island covered with mangroves. The captains set up a basic kitchen (dug a hole in the sand and pitched a fire) to cook us lunch, while the rest of use filtered through the mangroves into the pristine sanded Manda beach. I can't explain how cool this beach was... because the tide was coming in, the land was divided into two, so we had to swim from one shore to the other. Also, there were high sand bars out in the ocean so in some parts, it looked like you're standing on the ocean water! However, the waves were strong and the surf was weak so there wasn't much to do except swim or waddle around.
We had a delicious meal of coconut rice, grilled fish with vegs for lunch, and went back to play some more at Manda Beach until the tide came in and consumed the beach. We sailed back to the main island, and after docking into Lamu, we bought fresh live crab from a local and took it to
Bush Gardens to have them prepare it for our dinner. It was perfect-o!
The next morning, I walked into the bathroom and ... OMG!!... saw the spider again! I screamed, ran and yelled for help as I had done the previous night. The guy came in looking for the spider and couldn't find it. My sixth sense started to kick in and I told him to look under the toilet seat. He raised the seat and there it was... the humongous spider!!! From that point on, I'm not sure what happened. My brain has blocked it out... I swear! I remember flashes of screaming, seeing the spider on the wall, and finally, the guy leaving my room with the dead spider somewhere in the crumpled tissue. Well, thank goodness this story had a happy ending.. but to think that the spider was underneath the toilet seat when I was peeing... gosh that is super creepy, and gross. I was so sad that I had to sleep there one more night as I had pre-paid, but after my third night was over, I quickly gathered my stuff and moved to Casuarina, the place I had planned on staying originally, for
the next two nights.
The rest of the days on Lamu were spent with Chi and Massimo, wandering around the island and the narrow alleys, playing with the local kids, talking with the local touts, eating seafood at Bush Garden or Hapa Hapa, and drinking beer at the breezy rooftop of Petley's Inn.
There is a guy named Ali Hippie, who invites tourists to his house for a home cooked meal so delicious that people call him "Ali Yummy" and a music performance "with the family." He has this whole sales talk well-rehearsed and memorized... I heard him say the exact same speech twice. I was thisclose into accepting, but changed my mind last minute when Ethan and Harsha warned me against it. Well, Massimo ended up going and Chi and I waited anxiously for the verdict. This other guy who had gone, Miguel, told us that the meal was mediocre and that the musical performance had an albino tabla player and two children with down syndrome. Ok, so it doesn't sound like the everyday family gathering, but when Massimo came back from it, he was inspired to get a local group together to play for us. The
breakfast
mombassa to nairobi tabla player apparently is in his own local band, so he arranged for a private performance at the rooftop patio at Massimo's guesthouse. Others joined us and we were treated to a nice rendition of Swahili music. It was the perfect ending to my Lamu experience.
::Mombassa to Nairobi Train:: Chi and I traveled together from Lamu to Mombassa, and it was the same ol' ambitious method I used to get from Mombassa to Lamu. From there, we decided to splurge and book an overnight train from Mombassa to Nairobi. People raved about it, and said that it was a total colonial experience with meals served with proper silverware, furnished cabins, made-up attendants to cater to your needs, etc. Also, we get to drive through Tsavo Nat'l Park, so we would spot wildlife along the ride. The train ride takes longer than a bus and is considerably more expensive (Ush 2,400 ish/$36), so it's purely for the experience.
I have mixed feelings about this whole "colonial experience." Well, this is just my opinion and maybe I'm just being too sensitive about it all, but it seemed a bit backwards to me... I mean, isn't colonization a sort of
they all come up to the bus at stops
21-hour bus ride from Nairobi to Kampala (Uganda) a repression towards the colonized? So for me, the idea of having foreigners served by dressed up Africans felt like some weird back-to-the-colonial-past time warp and it was uncomfortable for me to be a part of. But that's just me and I wouldn't do it again personally. Also, the Africans working on the train had grim, unhappy expressions and they obviously were not happy to be there and do that sort of work (not even pretending to enjoy it), which made me even more tense about the whole thing.
::Uganda:: From Nairobi, Chi and I had a mix up with our bus ride to Kampala, the capital of Uganda. We had purchased the tickets while in Mombassa, and I think that's why we ended up getting seats that were double booked with other passengers. So instead of taking off at 7:30 p.m., we waited until 10:30 p.m. for another bus. Ok, so this I can overlook. But while in transit, our bus broke down at 1 a.m.ish and stayed broken for FOUR hours. Then a smaller, crampier bus came to rescue us at 5 a.m.ish, and we had to move all our luggage to the other bus. From here
on, the new bus kept moving along until it broke down yet
again! So we had to move our bags over to the third rescue bus! How hilarious is this? Thankfully, third times the charm and we chugged our way and arrived into Kampala, 21 hours after we left Nairobi. I wonder how things would have turned out if we hadn't been double-booked, and we had gotten on the original bus.
Chi was leaving for Germany in a few days, so as soon as we checked into Backpackers Hostel, we booked a trip to Jinja where we would go river rafting at the source of the Nile River with a company called Adrift. It's one of the best rafting spots in the world so it's quite exciting stuff... even for a scardy cat like me.
A bus picked us up at 6:30 a.m. and we made our way around town picking up other rafters, and made the journey to Jinja. It was sprinkling that morning and by the time we got to the river, it was raining softly so it was pretty cold. We had two guides in training with us, so it was nice to have three
experienced rafters in our raft.
We started out with a warm-up by swimming around in the river and doing a practice flip. For the first real rapid we went through, I had myself so convinced that we would flip... that I was the
only one who actually fell into the water! Hahaha.... When I came up to the surface, everyone was looking at me like, "WTF you idiot." I had practically threw myself in the rapids b/c of my paranoia, despite the first rapid being a grade 3 (grade 5 is the highest we go through, though there are bigger rapids...but considered to dangerous to attempt).
The first two major flips we had were scary! Water shot up my nose like fire hoses and cleared all my sinuses. It's crazy because when you flip, you're supposed to hold on to your ore with one hand, then hold onto the rope of the raft with the other hand, all this while huge rapids are pounding you down. What goes on after the flip is so disorientating: you feel bodies under water bumping into you; you're trying to hold on to the ore or rope, until you let go of
one or both; you worry whether someone else's ore will knock you on the face and break your nose; you tell yourself to calm down, it'll only last 7 seconds max; you try to get your body flat, feet facing forward towards to current; and once you surface and think, "Thank God!"... another major rapid comes crashing down on you, thus the "sinus-clearing" effect. Wow, it was so exhilarating and frightening at the same time.
We stopped on Adrift's mini island for a quick lunch, and continued along for the rest of the rapids. One in particular that I really liked was where we go through a rapid and then we free-fall for three meters or so... GOSH it was AMAZING!!! The last rapid we went through was called "The Bad One" and you don't have to wonder why. This grade 5 rapid comes after a grade 6, which we can't go through... so we have to walk overland past the insanely turbulent grade 6, and back to the water for the final grade 5 rapid. Scary stuff. So our guide tells us that we have two choices: (1) if we paddle hard enough, we can make it farther
out past the initial rapid and into the crazier rapid, and then we'll have a crazy flip; or (2) we don't paddle hard enough and get sucked into the first rapid and then flip. So either way, we're going to flip...it's just a matter of how hard! Despite our determination to make it far, we ended up flipping as soon as we hit the first rapid, and in the video footage we saw afterwards, we were tossed out like little ants, our bodies flinging all over the place. It was absolutely insane and wonderful! I ended up surfacing like 100 meters from the rapids, and I couldn't understand how I got so far away...goes to show the power of "The Bad One." At the end of the whole rafting experience, I loved it so much that I'll be coming back in a few weeks to do it again... so excited!!! 😊
For the rest of the week, I just wandered around Kampala and on Monday, checked out an outdoor jam session at the Nat'l Theater with local bands. It was a blend of Ugandan music, reggae and pop. So far so good... I'm really liking Uganda. 😊
The bus ride to Lamu...
roads flodded over from rain :(
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JOANNE
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Those kids are ADORABLE! geez, i just wanna hug them and squuueeeze! anyhow, thats a cute msg for ur dad too, i bet he's super happy to read it. i love your updates, so keep it up! love you.