Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
Continuation of our visit to Takwa Beach on Manda Island to observe a sea turtle hatch. I still don’t know how the farmers/ex-poachers knew exactly which day these guys would bust out…
The little guys spread out, seemingly oblivious to their nest mates…
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The day before, Carol stopped by our breakfast table to say a turtle hatch was expected on Manda Island the next day. Did we want to see it? She explained that her original approach to saving the sea turtles was to dig up the eggs buried on Shella Beach and bury them on the resort property. Her daughter mentioned that it was essential to stack them exactly how they’d been layered in the nest. Carol subsequently established a conservation trust and implemented a more direct way to protect the turtles. Carol set up the Lamu Marine Conservation Trust < www.lamcot.org > in 1992 to protect endangered sea turtles. Since then the project has grown to also educate local children and the community on the importance of protecting the environment, to clean the beaches, and work to set aside locally managed marine areas.
A group of turtle watchers hopped into power boats and headed to the large mangrove channel on Manda Island. We hopped off the boats, walked through a bit of muck to dry land, then headed toward that white smudge of dunes in the distance.
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Exploring Lamu Town, continues. Second set of photos from our day wandering through the narrow lanes of Lamu Town with a guide.
I’m guessing these guys are building a dhow, but you could easily convince they are building anything. Note the motorcycle (piki piki).
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Exploring Lamu Town. Lamu Town is a Unesco World Heritage Site as the oldest, best preserved Swahili settlement in East Africa. Lamu Town has flourished as trading port since the 12th century. The islanders predominantly follow the Islamic faith and Carol asked those staying at Peponi to respect their culture by dressing modestly while exploring the villages.
The village is built with coral blocks and homes have beautiful carved doors of mangrove wood. Homes are built around an internal courtyard surrounded by tall walls. We only saw one with its gate open as it was being renovated.
View along the town’s quay.
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While in Lamu, we of course booked a sunset sail on a dhow and sailed within a cluster of similar dhows from Lamu toward Manda Island, heading up a large channel lined with mangrove toward the sunset. Folks in neighboring dhow were partying, jumping into the water, and singing. We were the mellow dhow…
Mangroves lining a large tidal channel on Manda Island. (I read on the Lamu Marine Conservation Trust website that there’s an active program to replant mangrove where they’ve been over-harvested.)
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Exploring Shella Beach. We’d done so much walking the previous 10 days that we needed to move… so headed southwest on the 14-km-long Shella Beach.
Looking north along Shella Beach back toward the village.
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Exploring Shella village. Lamu Archipelago is situated along historical Arabic, Portuguese, Indian and African trading routes, thus has flourished as a trading port for centuries. Our first day we explored Shella village where our hotel is situated.
Shella is a small village with a maze of narrow streets (my favorite) and a fair number of upscale shops selling local goods. No cars, just small donkeys which wander the streets, but also carry burdens and people.
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