The Swahili Coast

Another weekend and another roadtrip. We’ve been travelling a lot lately, seeing the country and drinking in the culture. We headed out on a Friday afternoon down the Mombasa highway, a six to nine hour affair, depending on potholes, the number of samosa pit-stops, and who’s driving. Thanks to EU road construction funds, most of the road is in surprisingly solid shape; it’s only the last 45 km that really hurts. Of course, we did that part in the dark, which only heightens the experience. The potholes are deep and plentiful or the road is an unpaved, undulating sea of dust and rock, but the really dangerous part is the 1-3 foot drop-off on the side of what remains of the pavement. If the road were wide enough to handle two-way traffic, it wouldn’t be much of a problem (other than the bouncing). But that makes too much sense in a place where they’re repaving the roads that are in perfectly good condition back in downtown Nairobi. So, for the time being, Kenya is stuck with one of the worst roads imaginable serving the nation’s largest port of entry.

After dodging lorries for a couple of hours, we finally pulled into Mombasa. Unfortunately, we had no time to stop in town as we were trying to make a late dinner at Ali Barbour’s Cave on Diani Beach, a ferry ride and 40 minute drive south of there. Somehow we made it and enjoyed a terrific meal of fresh seafood and plenty of Down to Earth wine (no malbecs, pinotages, or merlots here). Full and content, we packed back into the car for the last 45 minutes south to the little sea-side village of Msambweni, where we had rented a house with two other couples. And what a house it was! Open-air dining and living rooms with a generous covered patio to boot, all overlooking a four mile strip of pristine beach.

What made this spot so spectacular was the combination of natural beauty, a vibrant subsistence fishing industry, and a lack of any other mzungus (white folks) in the area. The fishing is still done using handmade technology like canoes carved from the trunk of a single mango tree, spear guns made of branches and twine, and the ubiquitous sailing dhows. Aside from the occasional snorkel and mask, much of the fishing is done as it has been for centuries. And the catch seems incredibly plentiful. Unfamiliar with the details of the health of the fishery (if such science even exists in this region) and judging by the size and number of large snapper, octopus, and sail fish being caught within a kilometer or two of shore, it appears as if the ecosystem is in relatively good shape. Not only did this reassure our sense of the sustainability of the coastal way of life, but it also assuaged our guilt about eating seafood. So, we had a feast of large prawns and a 20-pound snapper (the biggest I’ve seen outside of the Monterey Bay Aquarium) on our first night.

After a day on the beach and a night on the lanai, we decided to travel south to the small port town of Shimoni and hire a dhow to sail us across to Wasini Island for lunch and a snorkel. The negotiation took nearly an hour, but once satisfied with the price, we were off. The sail turned into a motorized cruise across the channel, which was a disappointment, but we finally got the captain to hoist the sail for the return trip. The meal was tasty and fresh and the snorkel pretty but uneventful. The best part was just being out on the water in a dhow. That, of course, got us talking about another trip to Zanzibar via Pemba Island (which is in the works). We took the back-roads part of the way home via Shimba National Park, where we were fortunate enough to see a female forest elephant and calf crossing the road. A few hours later we got our first look at majestic Kilimanjaro as the sun set. Check out the photos here.