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Published: June 26th 2006
Kenya's coastline stretches from no-go Somalia in the north, past luxury beach resorts, to Tanzania's Zanzibar archipelago in the south. It is a relatively short coast at only 500km, but nearly every traveller to Kenya makes it here at some point, and who am I to break from the norm? Well, I usually am the first to do just that actually, but for once, I'll have a traditional 'normal' week. There's still lots to experience and one can find rich Swahili culture, scary young prostitutes, and, of course, beautiful equatorial beaches. This past week, I stumbled upon all three, or rather, at least one of them stumbled upon me. It's not that riveting a story, but it allows me the opportunity to use the word 'sex' in the title, something I ashamedly have wanted to do for a while, just to simply see what it does to my readership level. An experiment, if you will.
It all started innocently enough, with oneself sitting on a beach near a place called Malindi, doing my usual activities of reading, writing and burning, when a girl by the name of Suzie approached me, leant over suggestively from above, before sitting down to start
a ritual conversation. It was pretty obvious what was going on here - clues such as said leaning, an alcoholic tinge in the air, and the failure to provide a decent answer to my question "so, what do you do?" The final test came when I started praising my girlfriend and showing her lots of photos. She grew dis-interested very quickly, and I returned to my reading, writing and burning.
A day goes by and I'm sitting in an open-air bar having a late dinner watching the footy, when annoyingly, my peace is disturbed by one Suzie the Prozzie, who, as glorious luck would have it, was in the same bar. I would liked to have left, but Brazil were playing a promisingly (for the other teams), bad match and I wanted to watch to the end; besides, I had honed into her by this point that there was only one girl on my mind, and as such, I wasn't interested. So she sat, had a flat conversation while I stared at the TV, then left.
*Knock knock knock*. It's 7am the following morning, and someone's knocking at my door and impatiently and futily trying to open it.
Thinking it's an early-rising cleaner, I ignore it and try and go back to sleep, but it persists for 10minutes, and so I sleepily rise to the door to tell whoever it is to shut up...please. You can imagine that I was shocked into waking mode quite quickly when I saw Suzie the Prozzie staring back at me from the other side of the door to my hotel room! How the f*** she found me I'll never know, but nevertheless, there she was and I had bigger problems to think about, namely the issue of her right food wedged in the doorway. She started trying to push her way in, saying disgusting things like "I don't want a f***, just something", while I kept my cool with pleasantries of "Please just go. Goodbye." It was clear however, my 'being Mr-Nice' tactic wasn't working, so I schizophrenically resorted to suggestions of police (which strangely didn't seem to scare her, probably as they're on her side), some swearing and eventually kicking away her foot and slamming the door shut in her face.
However, the taunting continued from the other side of the door for another 20 minutes, with a friend who's
been invisible up til now. Cackling witch laughter, jokes about the police and sentences with the word 'baby' I hear with shaking hands before they eventually depart, and I take a deep breath. The only worry on my mind now was leaving the hotel. I already had a bus ticket purchased to leave this otherwise cool little beach town that morning, but I was wary of going outside - not because of her (if she had a weapon she would've shown it at the door), but any 'friends' she might have, waiting for me. Fortunately, I needn't have worried as although I scouted around and packed my bag as securely as possible, I made it to the bus stop without incident and got on the bus to Lamu, still half expecting her to sit in front of me and scare me.
Besides that, my 2 days in Malindi were trouble-free; oh, besides when I accidentally stumbled onto Government property (am I really the only one that always seems to get into these situations?!). I was trying to get a photo of a small 15th century pillar on a nearby headland, only to attract the attention of an angry guard
with a stick - apparantly my new name is 'Stupid'. Turns out, it's a government museum relic and are charging a whopping $10 for non-residents to see it. I'm beginning to realise this is standard in Kenya - even the basic 1-room museums charge $7-$10, water is 3-4 times more expensive than in Asia (unless you buy the 5litre bottles - always practical for the average backpacker), and don't get me started on the room rates. Urgh...
Malindi is basically a rundown resort town catering to expats, with a bustling old town attached to one end. Pleasant for a couple of days, but a couple was enough, with one spent in Malindi by the sea, watching footy both on TV and the beach, and walking through the back streets, and another on a day trip to Watamu and the Gede Ruins, the latter being the principal historical monument on the Kenyan coast. A collection of ruins of palaces, houses and mosques, and worth a couple of hours of sightseeing, Gede is mystically hidden in a forest, yet there are no records of its existance. In contrast, Watamu is a long, colourful, sandy, lagoonal beach where I could pass another
afternoon reading, writing and burning.
A little shaken from that incident, I then made my way further north via a Chelsea FC bus (every bus company seems to support a UK Premiership football team) and dhow boat - one has a choice of an overcrowded, slow dhow boat with no safety equipment, or a speedboat run by a teenage speedfreak, so I chose the former, trusting the local's decision - to Lamu Island, arguably the highligh of any coastal trip to Kenya (a World Heritage Site), and certainly was for me.
Lamu is an ancient Swahili island town with a muslim majority and has the impression that life has stayed pretty much the same for the past 100 years, besides the guesthouses and TVs showing the World Cup. Just one vehicle lives here, and runs along the coast for the police, as the streets are only as wide as my outstretched arms. Donkeys prevail and can be heard clobbing down the lanes or insanely braying at the top of their lungs. Children play marbles or are seen reading the Qu'ran, others go fishing on walls with bits of string, woodcarving echoes through the streets, dozens of men sit
idly doing nothing all day, women covered in full purdah wander the lanes chatting with only their eyes on show, while the men wear white khanzu robes and kofia caps. Palms move to the wind in the distance near a primary school and beach, and the football chants on TV seep out of mud houses.
It's no surprise that I therefore decided to stay here a few days, mostly just walking and taking in the above ancient Swahili atmosphere, stopping occassionally to eat a banana, and sitting on the odd beach. I did try and organise a day fishing and BBQ trip on a dhow boat by contacting a tout, but he must be the first tout in history of backpacker travel that was unable to help.
Instead, I therefore went exploring to the north for a day, over to a quaint quiet village called Shela, like my Aunty, only without the 'i'. Nearby is also a long, beautifully sandy, deserted beach, backed my large dunes, with only an ugly 'castle' breaking up the view, built as a holiday home by a rich, obnoxoius Italien (so I'm told). Coming back proved slightly trickier as the cheeky tide had
since blocked my path, causing me to get lost finding an alternate route...while time ticked away to the beginning of England's match. Hmm... Fortunately I made it and ended up wedged on a sofa between two young, dreadlocked Kenyans, cheering England on to their obvious (in my opinion) conclusion.
I wish I could of stayed for longer, as this was truly a wondrous place, even if you forget the beaches, but there's lots more yet to explore in these last few weeks, that I had to say goodbye and head back to Mombasa, where, frankly 2 days was more than enough to see everything worth seeing. I would have liked to have visited Fort Jesus, but the entry price has quadrupled in 3 years, so that it's now more than my daily budget was for India! Instead, I bought a guide book and strolled through the Old Town for a couple of hours, dodging some 'interesting' characters, and learning some interesting history. And that's about it - there really is nothing else to do in Mombasa when travelling alone; my boredom saviour has been the football, and a 5-vehicle crash I watched this morning from my window (see photo).
The Mombasa Tusks!
erected for some British royalty visit..or something..?No insurance details swapped, everyone just drove off with new dents added to the other dents, and the policemen didn't even give any of them a warning. No wonder everyone drives crazy over here.
Now I head back to Nairobi to see Afsan, of Mt Kinabalu fame, before slowly travelling cross-country to Lake Victoria. It may be a couple of weeks til my next blog, but I promise you there'll be a few more stories to tell! Enjoy the photos, there's plenty of 'em.
Byebye... :D
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Julia
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Don't worry - you're not the only one. I managed to wander onto what I think was an army base when I was in Austria. Some rather upset guards managed to explain to me (in the days when I spoke no German and these guys spoke next to no English) that there had been a sign about a mile further back. On the way back I checked. Yep, sign there. On a gate. Which was wide open so the sign was actually in the hedge. Love your blog - so interesting!