July 18th - Lamu

Up at dawn in time for breakfast in Nairobi. This consisted of a piece of wheetabix with half a banana and a fried egg and sausage' not quite what I expected in Kenya. The wait for Rona to arise was specked with moments of uncertainty as to whether she slept OK because of noisy neighbours the night before. Further setbacks occur ed on attempting to contact accommodation in Lamu, on the coast of Kenya, as the numbers for a few hotels didn't work, as well as the tourist information in Lamu. My attempts to contact the town via the Nairobi operator ended in vain when she constantly thought I was seeking a restaurant in London. At this point we gave up!


Upon Rona's awake we shortly got a taxi (same driver as yesterday, John) to Wilson airport to get our flight.


I was mislead by the term low-level flight, which turned out to be just above cloud level, but there were many breaks in the cloud to keep me entertained for the 1:15 flight.


Upon arrival we were greeted by ground staff & inevitable touts selling their boat services (the only way to get to Lamu from the airport) 100ksh saw us safely to the mainland where we immediately landed on our feet with a good 900ksh (£3) a night with breakfast included, whatever breakfast may be!


We proceeded to look up valuables in the safe and go for a tour of Lamu. Apparently there is only 1 motorised vehicle here and it's easy to see why. With streets between 1 and 5 meters wide, lined with stalls & congested with human traffic, it would be impossible to drive. Hungry from the flight we stopped at a stall where a man was making beef kebabs over a barbecue and selling them for 10 shillings each. We continued our tour saying 'Jambo' to locals and observing the large quantity of cats in various stages of health & age till we decided to go to the beach. Getting a barbecued corn-on-the-cob on the way (being ripped off at 15p) we stopped short of the beach and had a swim in tepid waters to stretch limbs.


Back to the hotel we observed the 15 minute period between it being daylight & dark, we went next door to Hapa-Hapa (Here Here) to eat. Two and a half hours later we eventually emerged well fed but tyred from waiting, now it's off to bed after a decent shower...