Lamu, Kenya – Swimming with dolphins, staying in a tree house on the coast, spectacular snorkeling and diving sites filled with colorful tropical fish – the East African islands of Lamu and Mafia offer visitors all this and more.
The islands have an interesting history, including raids in Mafia by cannibals from Madagascar, and tales of rich Arabs setting up opulent homes in Lamu. Both places are at the heart of the Swahili culture that spawned Africa’s single most widely spoken local language, Kiswahili.
A trip to Lamu involves flying to a dusty airstrip in neighboring Manda Island and taking a boat ride to Shella, a village on the eastern tip of Lamu.
Residents have preserved much of the traditional way of life, with donkeys still providing the main means of land transport on streets too narrow for vehicles.
Lucky visitors will see and swim with dolphins that often race up near the shore to feed on schools of fish close to mangroves and coral reefs.
Swimming with dolphins
We saw dozens on the second day of my stay, during a boat ride from snorkeling.
Dolphins ignored our dhow, a traditional triangular-sailed boat, allowing us to get so close that we could hear them expel air through their blowholes.
I put on snorkeling goggles and eased into the ocean, where some inquisitive dolphins soon came up close – with adults swimming on my side and the young keeping a safe distance ahead or underneath.
As they swam away, those ahead looked back with curiosity at the sight of this alien creature that was obviously out of its element in the sea. The encounter was the highlight of my visit to Lamu.
I stayed in Lamu in a renovated stone house that an Arab merchant built after marrying a local woman in the 19th century.
The couple had no children, and after they died, the woman’s relatives could not afford to maintain the building. It gradually crumbled into a pile of limestone and mud until a local resident repaired it and opened it to tourists. Now, every night here, guests are treated to a candlelit, rooftop dinner – usually a spicy dish featuring the catch of the day.
Omani Arab sultans who ruled the eastern coast of Africa first settled in Lamu before moving to Zanzibar. They left behind narrow, winding alleyways and an 8-mile long, unspoiled sandy beach in Lamu that now attracts tourists.
Both Lamu and Mafia were once part of Zanzibar, then a prosperous sultanate that thrived on the slave and spice trades.
Zanzibar lost Lamu after a sultan struck a deal with British colonial rulers to let the island become part of Kenya. Mafia was sold to Germans who ruled Tanganyika – now Tanzania – in 1890.
My trip on the East African coast also took me to Mafia Island and one of Africa’s largest marine parks, the Mafia Marine National Park in Chole Bay. We got a preview of the rich marine life with the sighting of two whale sharks, the largest of all fish, swimming near the Indian Ocean’s surface as our plane approached the island.
Marine wildlife on view
Most of the marine park is less than 66 feet below the average tide levels, offering dramatic underwater viewing of marine wildlife to the expert and novice diver or snorkeler, said scuba diving instructor Marco Stiantoni. Chole Bay has colorful algae, sponge and soft coral beds fringing coral reefs, mangroves and seagrass beds.
The sanctuary is part of efforts to preserve an impressive array of marine and terrestrial wildlife in southern Tanzania. The region is also home to the Selous Game Reserve, the largest wildlife reserve in Africa, and the vast mangrove swamps of the Rufiji River Delta – one of the key fish-spawning locations on the East coast of Africa.
We took a car ride across Mafia Island and then a boat trip to Chole Island, which is part of Mafia’s archipelago. There, at the Chole
Mjini lodge, visitors can stay in one of seven large tree-houses by the sea, surrounded by mangroves and other tropical vegetation.
I chose tree-house No. 2, built around a huge baobab tree and supported by stilts, with a four-poster bed inside. It had an upstairs room that is also a viewing platform, reached by a stepladder from the bedroom. From here I could watch the rare Comoros bats fly out at sunset, heading to neighboring islands to feast on tropical fruits.
A trip to the village was like stepping back in time to how life used to be in parts of the East African coast in the 1970s.
Bicycles are the most sophisticated form of transportation. Natives comb the beach when the tide rolls out to catch squid, while others use a line and a hook to catch dinner for the family.
Tourism has spawned alternative sources of income for residents who now sell their produce to the hotel and work there.
INSIDER’S GUIDE
Lamu, Kenya
THE BASICS
There are modern hotels, beautifully decorated old Swahili guesthouses, basic inns, isolated resorts and private homes to rent. A comprehensive list of accommodations is found at lamuhomes.com/hotels.htm.
GET THERE
Kenya Airways flies to Lamu daily from the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi, Kenya’s capital. Roundtrip tickets cost $225-$290. The airline also flies daily to Lamu from Malindi, Kenya. Roundtrip tickets cost $97-$132. Air Kenya flies daily to Lamu from Nairobi’s Wilson Airport. A round-trip ticket costs $286.
Mafia, Tanzania
THE BASICS
Find out all you need to know at tanzaniatourist board.com/places-to-go/islands/mafia.
GET THERE
Flights are available from Dar es Salaam and Zanzibar. Coastal Aviation flies there every day. Ticket costs: Dar es Salaam-Mafia $90 one-way, or $180 roundtrip; Arusha-Mafia $270 one-way, or $540 roundtrip; Zanzibar-Mafia $100 one-way, or $200 roundtrip.
STAY
Chole Mjini Lodge: Contact owner Jean de Villiers, (011) (255) 748-520-799 or intotanzania.com/safari/tanzania/south/islands/mafia/TCHOd.htm. Nightly rate: $192-$480 per person, including all meals and some safari and park fees.
WHEN TO GO
July to October is high season, with little rain and low humidity. From November it is very hot with cool sea breezes. Short rains come in November-December. Late March and April, and May bring heavy rains, and some places are closed.
MORE TIPS
Mafia and Lamu are in a malaria area, and guests should take prophylactic treatments prescribed by a doctor knowledgeable in tropical medicine. English is spoken by many people in Lamu, and fewer in Mafia. The islands have a reputation of being safe for the throngs of Western tourists who visit.
