Fatuma's Tower, Lamu, Kenya

While visiting the island of Lamu off the coast of Kenya, we stayed at a restored 14 century tower known now as Fatuma's Tower. It's tucked away on the back side of Shela Village, and offered rooms of different sizes, yoga twice a day, and really great meals. Despite it being the rainy season, the weather was surprisingly sunny and hot.








This little pool was tucked against the hill of the sand dunes that bordered the garden. It was great for a quick dip when just coming back from being out. The garden was the social center of the place. Meals would be served here, and people would gather before or after going out into Shela Village or Lamu Town. The trees provided a really pleasant break from the sun.



Here are a few interior shots including a balcony off the library, the library itself, the yoga room, a hallway, and my own room.

Sand Dunes behind Shela Village on Lamu, Kenya

When I first arrived on Lamu and was just getting settled, our host took us on a little tour through the sand dunes to the other side of the island. We headed through some small alleys at the end of the village to a climb through some shrubs and first caught a glimpse of the end of the village where we were staying.


The path continued on, over the crest which must have been the highest elevation of the dunes.


A bit further up off to our left, you could see the inlet to the Indian Ocean and the neighboring island that's mainly tidal mangrove swamps. The clouds were really striking. It's hard to capture their exact quality with a camera (or at least with my camera!)

Heading down on the other side, the Indian Ocean side of the island, the following picture was our view:


It was explained that the castle structure was the home of a rich person and it was only built in the last few years. Although it's hard to assess from the the picture, it was still actually relatively removed from the waterline. But our guide (and host) also pointed out the sandbar to us and said it was possible to swim out to it. Thus began the little adventure of the day, or possibly weekend (that is if the whole trip wasn't an adventure!).

We (five of us) swam out in the direction of the sandbar which didn't seem that far... As we reached it, there was no gradual slope of sand edging up to it, just all of a sudden we came up against it and almost had to climb onto it like climbing out of a pool. We took in the scenery for a while out there, and then decided to head back. After a bit of swimming we realized why there was no gradual slope approaching the sandbar: the flow of water exiting out to the sea washes most of it away. It was this stream of water we had to swim against to get back! Luckily we were all O.K. enough with our swimming skills to get the job done. I later heard this was also shark territory. Yikes! That's enough adventure for me in one day.

We headed back to the tower where we were staying and they had a really wonderful dinner prepared in the garden. There was fish, also calamari, rice cooked with coconut, salad, and no shortage of limes to squeeze juice onto everything, which I found great! I ended my evening in an old wooden bed curtained in by mosquito netting with a smoking ember-type coil underneath to assist in keeping the little blood-suckers away!

Journey To Lamu, Kenya

In April of 2008, my friend Susan who works for the United Nations invited me to come and visit her in Tanzania and play some piano concerts in the area as well. Not going to Africa so frequently, I took the opportunity to travel around a bit as well. For one long weekend of my two week trip we went to the island of Lamu off the coast of Kenya. It was in many ways the highlight of the entire trip and overall just really fascinating and enjoyable. I will write a few entries about Lamu and this one is just about the journey getting there.

We began in Arusha, Tanzania, and had a four hour bus ride north to Nairobi, Kenya for our flight from Nairobi Wilson Airport. Nairobi Wilson is perhaps the only airport I've ever been to where you can arrive 15 minutes before the scheduled departure of your flight and have both you AND your luggage make it onto the plane. Exciting as this may sound, I don't recommend it, we were all pretty stressed! The main reason this is possible is that departures is basically one room.
Here's the airplane we were rushing to catch:



We arrived about an hour later at the Lamu Airport, or landing strip, which I have two pictures of. The first is arrivals. The second is baggage claim. Yes... the one with the people sitting on it!



From there you walk to a pier where you catch a boat that brings you to the island Lamu itself (the airport/landingstrip is actually on a smaller island opposite Lamu). Lamu has two settlements on it, the larger Lamu Town, and the smaller Shela, also known as Shela Village where we stayed. The following pictures are sequential, from the boat ride, the view of Lamu Town from the water, other houses along the way, the arrival at Shela, and our destination, a building called Fatuma's Tower where we stayed and partook in the offered Yoga twice daily during our visit.




The beach along this white wall is the road between Shela and Lamu. It disappears and reappears with the tide.


This picture is Fatuma's Tower, a restored 14th century tower at the very back of the village Shela just where the sand dunes really start. More to follow in coming entries!