Lamu Island

LAMU ISLAND

The Island of Lamu is off the central coast of Kenya. They say it is 'more Zanzibar than Zanzibar. I think a better description is more DONKEY than Zanzibar.

The Island has no roads, and all land transport is by donkey. There really are donkeys everywhere, used for everything from construction work to garbage disposal. They are very nice, except every hour or so one just goes bizzurk, running through the narrow streets, making a noise you could not imagine. Once the 'episode' is finished, they just go back to what they were doing. It's kind of funny...until it happens all through the night!

Whilst some readers would applaud this move to green, donkey power...it does have one critical drawback....they crap everywhere, and eat everything. As the great sage J. CLARKSON would say, as a form of transport.... they are rubbish....but cute.

This little fellow took quite a shine to Tanya. It was all going well until he started to eat her beach sandals. Even a donkey should have know better than to get between a woman and her shoes. The love was quickly lost.

We spent a day sailing out to a Swahili ruins at Tilwa. The fort was from the 16C, and quite interesting, but learning to sail the dhow was way more interesting. The boats are made of very thick mahogany nailed to mangrove wood frames. I would guess ours must have been over 3000kg. They sail very well, and for a wide heavy boat, they are surprisingly quick and responsive. The foolish captain gave me the till and main sheet for a few hours... and it was awesome. Whist I didn't get asked to join his racing crew, he did invite me to go 'out on the open sea' to see how she really handled..... unfortunately, we had to fly back to Nairobi the next morning.



Swahili Ruins- 16AD

Main drag - Lamu Island